Covid19-Sources

Background Vaccination has proven effective against infection with SARS-CoV-2, as well as death and hospitalisation following COVID-19 illness. However, little is known about the effect of vaccination on other acute and post-acute outcomes of COVID-19. Methods Data were obtained from the TriNetX electronic health records network (over 81 million patients mostly in the USA). Using a retrospective cohort study and time-to-event analysis, we compared the incidences of COVID-19 outcomes between individuals who received a COVID-19 vaccine (approved for use in the USA) at least 2 weeks before SARS-CoV-2 infection and propensity score-matched individuals unvaccinated for COVID-19 but who had received an influenza vaccine. Outcomes were ICD-10 codes representing documented COVID-19 sequelae in the 6 months after a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection (recorded between January 1 and August 31, 2021). Associations with the number of vaccine doses (1 vs. 2) and age ( 60 vs. ≥ 60 years-old) were assessed. Results Among 10,024 vaccinated individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection, 9479 were matched to unvaccinated controls. Receiving at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose was associated with a significantly lower risk of respiratory failure, ICU admission, intubation/ventilation, hypoxaemia, oxygen requirement, hypercoagulopathy/venous thromboembolism, seizures, psychotic disorder, and hair loss (each as composite endpoints with death to account for competing risks; HR 0.70-0.83, Bonferroni-corrected p.05), but not other outcomes, including long-COVID features, renal disease, mood, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Receiving 2 vaccine doses was associated with lower risks for most outcomes. Associations between prior vaccination and outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection were marked in those 60 years-old, whereas no robust associations were observed in those ≥ 60 years-old. Conclusions COVID-19 vaccination is associated with lower risk of several, but not all, COVID-19 sequelae in those with breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection. These benefits of vaccination were clear in younger people but not in the over-60s. The findings may inform service planning, contribute to forecasting public health impacts of vaccination programmes, and highlight the need to identify additional interventions for COVID-19 sequelae. Funding National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement Work supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (grant BRC-1215-20005). MT is an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow and NIHR Oxford Health BRC Senior Research Fellow. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the UK National Health Service, NIHR, or the UK Department of Health. The funding source had no role in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: Data de-identification is attested to through a formal determination by a qualified expert as defined in Section 164.514(b)(1) of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. This formal determination supersedes TriNetX's waiver from the Western Institutional Review Board (IRB). I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes The TriNetX system returned the results of these analyses as csv files which were downloaded and archived. Data presented in this paper and the Appendix can be freely accessed at [URL to be added on publication]. Additionally, TriNetX will grant access to researchers if they have a specific concern (via the third-party agreement option).

Covid-19 Impfdurchbruch Kennzahlen basierend auf Wochenberichten des RKI.

Am Sonntag, 31. Oktober 2021, gab es in Baden-Württemberg weitere 1.612 bestätigte Infektionen mit dem Coronavirus und 5 weitere COVID-19-Todesfälle. Die landesweite 7-Tage-Inzidenz liegt bei 195,7. Es gilt die Basisstufe.

Woher stammt das Coronavirus? Aus der Natur oder aus einem Forschungslabor? Auf Einladung des Wissenschaftsmagazin "Science" diskutierten nun vier Experten mit unterschiedlichen Ansichten die Ursprungstheorien. Thematisiert wurden dabei auch neue Studien und neu aufgetauchte Dokumente.

The first line of defense against SARS-CoV-2 is the upper respiratory tract, yet we know little about the amount, type, and kinetics of mucosal anti-Spike antibodies (Ab) in response to intramuscular (i.m.) COVID-19 vaccination. We analyzed salivary Ab against SARS-CoV-2 Spike following mRNA/mRNA and adenovirus (Ad)/mRNA regimes. While anti-Spike/RBD IgG was detected in the saliva and correlated with the systemic response, anti-Spike/RBD IgA associated with the secretory component (sIgA) was also detected, and did not necessarily correlate with serum Ab. Only modest levels of neutralizing capacity were observed in saliva at 2 weeks post-dose 2, and by 6 months, anti-Spike/RBD IgG were greatly diminished. In contrast, low levels of anti-Spike sIgA persisted up to 6 months after dose 2. Our results show that SARS-CoV-2 vaccination induces an IgG response in the saliva that decays over time and an sIgA response that does not necessarily correlate with systemic immunity. One-Sentence Summary Our study delves into how intra-muscular mRNA/mRNA or mRNA/Ad COVID-19 vaccination regimes confer immunity in the oral cavity with important implications for understanding protection against breakthrough infections in healthy vaccinated people. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This work was supported by an Ontario Together province of Ontario grant to JG and ACG and a Foundation grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to JG (Fund #15992). Funding for the LTCH cohort was provided through a Canada COVID-19 Immunity Task force grant (to SS, AM, MO, ACG and JG). Funding for initial development of the assays in the Gingras lab was provided through generous donations from the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and the Krembil Foundation to the Sinai Health System Foundation. The robotics equipment used is housed in the Network Biology Collaborative Centre at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, a facility supported by Canada Foundation for Innovation funding, by the Ontarian Government and by Genome Canada and Ontario Genomics (OGI-139). ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: The Mount Sinai Hospital Research Ethics Board (REB) granted approval for recruiting staff in long-term care facilities located in the Greater Toronto Area for blood and saliva collection and for conducting serum ELISAs at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (study number: 20-0339-E). The University of Toronto REB granted approval for subject recruitment to collect blood and saliva samples and for conducting saliva ELISAs (study number: 23901). The University of Saskatchewan REB granted approval for saliva sample collection during the pre-COVID era (study number: BIO-USask-1579). All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes The data will be available upon reasonable request.

#CoronaInfo – Eine wichtige Frage bei der Corona-Impfung ist: macht sie genügend Immunität in Nase/Hals, um das Virus dort gleich nach der Ansteckung zu stoppen? Zwei Studien, hier zusammengefasst, haben dafür Corona-Antikörper im Speichel gemessen. … (1/7)

Cell Discovery - <ArticleTitle Language="En" xml:lang="en">Comprehensive investigations revealed consistent pathophysiological alterations after...

Nisreen A Alwan questions whether the current rates of covid infection in UK school children are acceptable when we have emerging evidence of the virus's lingering health effects I recently wrote on Twitter1 in reference to the current SARS-CoV-2 child infection rates in England: “It really isn’t fair how covid is allowed to spread so uncontrollably in school-aged kids. I feel like a broken record, but I can’t stop saying this. Kids paid such a high price to protect the adults in the first year of the pandemic and now the adults don’t seem to care. Not fair.” Childism is a term that has been used to describe institutional prejudice and systemic injustice against children,2 as observed during the pandemic in policy decisions. Adami and Dineen critique the language that describes children as “vectors of transmission,” as well as the effect of school closures, and policies that exacerbate child hunger and compromise their safety. I’d argue that allowing mass SARS-CoV-2 infections among children is also a form of childism. The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on infection prevalence in England3 show that 7.8% of secondary school aged children (school year 7 to 11) and 3.8% of those aged 2 to school year 6 …

Fast Deterministic Selection Andrei Alexandrescu The D Language Foundation Abstract The selection problem, in forms such as finding the median or choosing the k top ranked items in a dataset, is a core task in computing with numerous applications in fields as diverse as statistics, databases, Machine Learning, finance, biology, and graphics. The selection algorithm Median of Medians, although a landmark theoretical achievement, is seldom used in practice be- cause it is slower than simple approaches based on sampling. The main contribution of this paper is a fast linear-time deterministic selection algorithm MedianOfNinthers based on a refined definition of MedianOfMedians. A complementary algorithm MedianOfExtrema is also pro- posed. These algorithms work together to solve the selection problem in guaranteed linear time, faster than state-of-the-art baselines, and without resorting to randomization, heuristics, or fall- back approaches for pathological cases. We demonstrate results on uniformly distributed random numbers, typical low-entropy artificial datasets, and real-world data.

Background: Whether vaccine effectiveness against Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) lasts longer than 6 months is unclear.brbrMethods: A retrospective coh

⚠️BREAKING—REINFECTION & NATURAL IMMUNITY—new CDC study in hospitalized adults finds: unvaccinated people with prior #COVID19 infection recently were **5 times more likely** to be reinfected / get breakthrough versus people recently fully vaccinated! 🧵 https://t.co/VGmWPmm5lE https://t.co/mlt5fJ3643

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) today announced topline results from a Phase 3 randomized, controlled trial evaluating the effi

Comirnaty and Spikevax: EMA recommendations on extra doses boosters

This report describes mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients as having greater immunity from COVID-19 infection than previously infected, unvaccinated persons.

Background. Vaccination has proven effective against infection with SARS-CoV-2, as well as death and hospitalisation following COVID-19 illness. However, little is known about the effect of vaccination on other acute and post-acute outcomes of COVID-19. Methods. Data were obtained from the TriNetX electronic health records network (over 81 million patients mostly in the USA). Using a retrospective cohort study and time-to-event analysis, we compared the incidences of COVID-19 outcomes between individuals who received a COVID-19 vaccine (approved for use in the USA) at least 2 weeks before SARS-CoV-2 infection and propensity score-matched individuals unvaccinated for COVID-19 but who had received an influenza vaccine. Outcomes were ICD-10 codes representing documented COVID-19 sequelae in the 6 months after a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection (recorded between January 1 and August 31, 2021). Associations with the number of vaccine doses (1 vs. 2) and age ( 60 vs. ≥ 60 years-old) were assessed. Findings. Among 10,024 vaccinated individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection, 9479 were matched to unvaccinated controls. Receiving at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose was associated with a significantly lower risk of respiratory failure, ICU admission, intubation/ventilation, hypoxaemia, oxygen requirement, hypercoagulopathy/venous thromboembolism, seizures, psychotic disorder, and hair loss (each as composite endpoints with death to account for competing risks; HR 0.70-0.83, Bonferroni-corrected p.05), but not other outcomes, including long-COVID features, renal disease, mood, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Receiving 2 vaccine doses was associated with lower risks for most outcomes. Associations between prior vaccination and outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection were marked in those 60 years-old, whereas no robust associations were observed in those ≥ 60 years-old. Interpretation. COVID-19 vaccination is associated with lower risk of several, but not all, COVID-19 sequelae in those with breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection. These benefits of vaccination were clear in younger people but not in the over-60s. The findings may inform service planning, contribute to forecasting public health impacts of vaccination programmes, and highlight the need to identify additional interventions for COVID-19 sequelae. Funding. National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement Work supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (grant BRC-1215-20005). MT is an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow and NIHR Oxford Health BRC Senior Research Fellow. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the UK National Health Service, NIHR, or the UK Department of Health. The funding source had no role in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: Data de-identification is attested to through a formal determination by a qualified expert as defined in Section 164.514(b)(1) of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. This formal determination supersedes TriNetX's waiver from the Western Institutional Review Board (IRB). I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes The TriNetX system returned the results of these analyses as csv files which were downloaded and archived. Data presented in this paper and the Appendix can be freely accessed at [URL to be added on publication]. Additionally, TriNetX will grant access to researchers if they have a specific concern (via the third-party agreement option).

BACKGROUND Following administration to persons 60+ years of age, the booster vaccination campaign in Israel was gradually expanded to younger age groups who received a second dose 5 months earlier. We study the booster effect on COVID-19 outcomes. METHODS We extracted data for the period July 30, 2021 to October 6, 2021 from the Israeli Ministry of Health database regarding 4,621,836 persons. We compared confirmed Covid-19 infections, severe illness, and death of those who received a booster ≥12 days earlier (booster group) with a nonbooster group. In a secondary analysis, we compared the rates 3-7 days with ≥12 days after receiving the booster dose. We used Poisson regressions to estimate rate ratios after adjusting for possible confounding factors. RESULTS Confirmed infection rates were ≈10-fold lower in the booster versus nonbooster group (ranging 8.8-17.6 across five age groups) and 4.8-11.2 fold lower in the secondary analysis. Severe illness rates in the primary and secondary analysis were 18.7-fold (95% CI, 15.7-22.4) and 6.5-fold (95% CI, 5.1-8.3) lower for ages 60+, and 22.0-fold (95% CI, 10.3-47.0) and 3.2-fold (95% CI, 1.1-9.6) lower for ages 40-60. For ages 60+, COVID-19 associated death rates were 14.7-fold (95% CI, 9.4-23.1) lower in the primary analysis and 4.8-fold (95% CI, 2.8-8.2) lower in the secondary analysis. CONCLUSIONS Across all age groups, rates of confirmed infection and severe illness were substantially lower among those who received a booster dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement None ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: The study was approved by the institutional review board of the Sheba Medical Center (Helsinki approval number: SMC-8228-21). I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes Aggregated data are given in the supplementary information. Personal data cannot be shared due to privacy.

The microscopic characteristics of the virus that causes Covid disease will determine the macroscopic state in which our world is governed…

Rund 80% der deutschen Bevölkerung leidet heutzutage unter einem Vitamin D Mangel. Gerade wegen solchen Aussagen entscheiden sich immer mehr Menschen dazu, selbständig Vitamin D Präparate zu sich zu nehmen, um einen Mangel auszugleichen oder vorzubeugen. Eine unbedachte Einnahme ohne […]

Zu viel Vitamin D aufzunehmen ist gar nicht so einfach. Erfahren Sie hier, wann es zu einer Vitamin D-Überdosierung kommen kann.

Vitamin D Überdosierung tritt erst bei sehr großen Mengen auf. Allerdings kann hochdosiertes Vitamin D zu Mineralstoffmängeln und Verkalkung führen.

Studies investigating the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and cognition in the very old (85+) are lacking.Cross-sectional (baseline) and prospective data (up to 3 years follow-up) from 775 participants in the Newcastle 85+ Study ...

Providing a direct line of science to you

Today VRBPAC (an external scientific advisory committee to the FDA) voted in favor of the Pfizer COVID19 vaccine for 5-11 year olds. VRBPAC was the second stop in a long process to get the vaccine authorized for emergency use. This was a much anticipated meeting for two reasons:

Background While Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccines are highly effective, breakthrough infections are occurring. Booster vaccinations have recently received emergency use authorization (EUA) for certain populations but are restricted to homologous mRNA vaccines. We evaluated homologous and heterologous booster vaccination in persons who had received an EUA Covid-19 vaccine regimen. Methods In this phase 1/2 open-label clinical trial conducted at ten U.S. sites, adults who received one of three EUA Covid-19 vaccines at least 12 weeks prior to enrollment and had no reported history of SARS-CoV-2 infection received a booster injection with one of three vaccines (Moderna mRNA-1273 100-μg, Janssen Ad26.COV2.S 5×1010 virus particles, or Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 30-μg; nine combinations). The primary outcomes were safety, reactogenicity, and humoral immunogenicity on study days 15 and 29. Results 458 individuals were enrolled: 154 received mRNA-1273, 150 received Ad26.CoV2.S, and 153 received BNT162b2 booster vaccines. Reactogenicity was similar to that reported for the primary series. Injection site pain, malaise, headache, and myalgia occurred in more than half the participants. Booster vaccines increased the neutralizing activity against a D614G pseudovirus (4.2-76-fold) and binding antibody titers (4.6-56-fold) for all combinations; homologous boost increased neutralizing antibody titers 4.2-20-fold whereas heterologous boost increased titers 6.2-76-fold. Day 15 neutralizing and binding antibody titers varied by 28.7-fold and 20.9-fold, respectively, across the nine prime-boost combinations. Conclusion Homologous and heterologous booster vaccinations were well-tolerated and immunogenic in adults who completed a primary Covid-19 vaccine regimen at least 12 weeks earlier. (Funded by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; [Clinical Trials.gov][1] number, [NCT04889209][2]) ### Competing Interest Statement RLA, HME, RER, MB, TMB, ACK, DD, CMP, JLA, ABD, SEO, SC, SUN, DS, JZ, CPDI, ERB, MJM, and AE report no competing interests. KEL receives grant awards from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), and funding from Pfizer Inc COVID-19 vaccine research. LAJ's institution receives grant funding from NIH and CDC for vaccine-related assessments, including those of COVID-19 vaccines. ARB has grant funding from Pfizer, Janssen, Merck and Cyanvac for non-Covid-related work and servesa as a consultant for GSK and Janssen. CAR's institution has received funds to conduct clinical research from the National Institutes of Health, CDC, BioFire Inc, Genentech, GSK, Janssen, MedImmune, Merck, Micron, Moderna, Novavax, PaxVax, Pfizer, Regeneron, Sanofi-Pasteur. She is co-inventor of patented RSV vaccine technology, which has been licensed to Meissa Vaccines, Inc. JMM has served as a consultant for Merck, Sharp and Dohme for non-Covid-related work. CJ receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH and CDC, consults for Gilead and Abbvie, serves on a DSMB for MedPace, and receives royalties from UpToDate. MJM has laboratory research and clinical trials contracts for vaccines or MAB vs SARS-CoV-2 with Lilly, Pfizer (exclusive of the current work), and Sanofi; personal fees for Scientific Advisory Board service from Merck, Meissa Vaccines, Inc. and Pfizer RCB receives funding for vaccine trials from Path Nipah and Pfizer. RWF receives funding to perform clinical trials from Pfizer, Moderna, Astra Zeneca and Emergent Health, and he serves on advisory boards for Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Sanofi Pasteur and Seqirus. SE receives funding to her institution from Sanofi Pasteur for a non-Dovid vaccine study. MSS is on the Advisory Board of Moderna DCM receives funding from NIH and Moderna for laboratory studies of COVID-19 vaccine antibody responses. KMN holds a grant from Pfizer, without salary support, for a COVID-19 vaccine study, and salary support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for work on multiple COVID-19 vaccine trials DSS is supported by grant awards from NIH/NIAID. PCR and JHB report a pending U.S. Patent Application No. 63/025,918 entitled Coronavirus RNA vaccines and methods of use ### Clinical Trial NCT04889209 ### Funding Statement The trial was sponsored and primarily funded by the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium through the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under award numbers UM1AI48372, UM1AI148373, UM1AI148450, UM1AI148452, UM1AI148573, UM1AI148574, UM1AI148575, UM1AI148576, UM1AI148684, UM1 AI148689 and with support from the NIAID Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs) contract 75N93019C00050 and NIH Vaccine Research Center. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: Advarra Center for IRB Intelligence I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes All available data produced in the present work are contained in the manuscript [1]: http://ClinicalTrials.gov [2]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=CLINTRIALGOV&access_num=NCT04889209&atom=%2Fmedrxiv%2Fearly%2F2021%2F10%2F15%2F2021.10.10.21264827.atom

Is it good to mix COVID vaccines? This is a really great clinical study by Lyke et al., reported at the recent FDA meeting. Mix-and-match COVID vaccines https://t.co/emvY6ikgos

272 soldiers out of the 301 soldiers (90.4%) were infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Delta variant of concern (VOC) on a single navy ship. This outbreak provides three lessons for the pandemic. This incident clearly demonstrates the transmission characteristic …

Opinion | A dubious system of herbal medicine became a blueprint for cranks peddling cures for everything from cancer to Covid-19.

Since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Qom, Iran, almost 19 months ago, the transmission dynamics across the country and the health burden of COVID-19 has remained largely unknown due to the scarcity of epidemiological analyses and lack of provincial data on the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. For the first time, we reconstruct the epidemic trajectory across the country and assess the level of under-reporting in infections and deaths using province-level age-stratified weekly all-cause mortality data. Our estimates suggest that as of 2021-09-17, only 48% (95% confidence interval 43-55%) of COVID-19 deaths in Iran have been reported. We find that in the most affected provinces such as Qazvin, Qom, and East Azerbaijan approximately 0.4% of the population have died of COVID-19 so far. We also find significant heterogeneity in the estimated attack rates across the country with 11 provinces reaching close to or higher than 100% attack rates. Despite a relatively young age structure in Iran, our analysis reveals that the infection fatality rate gradually increased over time in several provinces and reached levels that are comparable some of the high-income countries with a larger percentage of older adults, suggesting that limited access to medical services, coupled with undercounting of COVID-19-related deaths, can have a significant impact on COVID-19 fatalities. These results also show that despite several waves of infection and high attack rates in many provinces with largely unmitigated epidemics, herd immunity through natural infection has not been achieved. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement MG is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC), grant number BB/M011224/1. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: This work does not include any clinical trial or prospective interventional study data. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes All the data used for the analysis are available online on our GitHub repository (github.com/mg878/Iran\_WeeklyMortality). For regular updates on excess mortality in Iran, you can visit: https://github.com/akarlinsky/world\_mortality. https://github.com/mg878/Iran_WeeklyMortality

As the number of individuals vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 rises worldwide, population-level data regarding the vaccines' ability to reduce infection …

Real-world data show filters clean SARS-CoV-2 from air Research at a UK hospital suggests that portable filters effectively remove SARS-CoV-2 virus particles from the air — the first such evidence from a real-world setting (A. Conway-Morris et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/gm3hkf; 2021). Earlier experiments that tested air filters’ performance assessed their ability to remove inactive particles in carefully controlled environments. As a result, “what was not known was how effective they would be in a real-world ward setting for clearing SARS-CoV-2”, says study co-author Vilas Navapurkar, a physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, UK. To determine how high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters stand up to real-world conditions, Navapurkar and his co-authors installed them in two fully occupied COVID-19 wards. They collected air samples from the wards during a week when the filters were switched on and two weeks when they were off. In one ward, the team found SARS-CoV-2 particles in the air when the filter was off, but not when it was on. And on both wards, the filters removed other pathogens, such as Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The results, which have not been peer reviewed, indicate that HEPA filters might be an affordable way to reduce COVID-19 transmission in hospitals.