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Taking a few minutes to focus your mind each day can reduce stress, pain, depression, and more.
You can't see or touch stress, but you can feel its effects on your mind and body. In the short term, stress quickens your heart rate and breathing and increases your blood pressure. When you're constantly under stress, your adrenal glands overproduce the hormone cortisol. Overexposure to this hormone can affect the function of your brain, immune system, and other organs. Chronic stress can contribute to headaches, anxiety, depression, heart disease, and even premature death.

The Chinese mainland on Sunday reported 479 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases, the National Health Commission said Monday.

Altogether 2,220 local asymptomatic carriers were newly identified.

A total of 230 COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery on the Chinese mainland on Sunday, said the commission in its daily report.

The total number of COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals after recovery reached 250,455 on the Chinese mainland as of Sunday.

Sunday saw no new deaths from COVID-19, with the total death toll at 5,226.

It seems not a day goes by without learning someone in our inner circle of family, friends and colleagues has COVID-19. When we ask how unwell our acquaintance is, the responses vary from "they're really crook" to "you wouldn't even know they had it".

This is in line with studies that report moderate to severe illness in a minority of people (usually older with other risk factors) and that up to one in three positive people exhibit no symptoms.

Given the ubiquitous presence of this highly infectious coronavirus in our community and the high rate of asymptomatic illness, those who have not been diagnosed with COVID might wonder, "how would I know if I had been infected?" And, "does it matter if I have?".

How COVID-19 is diagnosed
Most people know they've had COVID because they had a fever or upper respiratory tract symptoms and/or were exposed to an infected person AND had a swab test (PCR or rapid antigen) that detected the COVID virus (SARS-CoV-2) in the upper airway.

At the beginning of 2022, many people with consistent symptoms or high-risk exposures were not able to access PCRs or RATs to confirm their diagnosis, but instead presumed themselves positive and quarantined.

It is possible to diagnose past infection in those who never tested positive. A blood test can look for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (also known as immunoglobulins). When we are infected with SARS-CoV-2, our immune system launches a precision counter strike by producing antibodies against viral targets, specifically the Spike (S) and Nucleocapsid (N) proteins. COVID vaccination induces a similar immune response against the S protein only. The S antibody "neutralises" the invader by preventing the virus from attaching to human cells.

These antibodies can be detected within one to three weeks after infection and persist for at least six months – potentially much longer. A blood test that shows antibodies to S and N proteins indicates someone has been previously infected. Detection of antibodies to the S protein only indicates vaccination (but not infection).

The problem with antibody tests
Before you rush off to get a COVID antibody test, there are a few notes of caution. There is still much to learn about the characteristics of the immune response to COVID infection. Not everyone mounts a detectable antibody response following infection and levels can decline to undetectable levels after several months in some people.

Because there are other circulating seasonal coronaviruses (such as those that cause the common cold), tests may also pick up antibodies to non-SARS-CoV-2 strains, leading to "false positive" results.

Commercial and public hospital pathology labs can perform SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing, but the interpretation of results should be undertaken carefully.

So, antibody testing should really only be done when there's a good reason to: say, when confirming past infection or effectiveness of vaccination is important for the current care of an individual. Diagnosing a post-infectious complication or eligibility for a specific treatment, for example. It could also be useful for contact tracing or for assessing the background population rate of infection.

More than half the world now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but challenges remain: WHO

More than half of the global population is now fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

But the threat of more variants means it is too early to assume victory over the virus — even amid declining cases, says the World Health Organization.

“It’s encouraging to see that deaths from COVID-19 are now declining globally and in most regions. And it’s pleasing to see some countries being able to relax restrictions without their health systems being overwhelmed,” said WHO Secretary-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday.

“But it’s far too early to declare victory over COVID-19. There are still many countries with high rates of hospitalization and death, and low rates of vaccine coverage and with high transmission. The threat of a new and more dangerous variant remains very real.”

Tedros said 56 per cent of people around the world are now fully vaccinated, though only nine per cent of people in low-income countries are among that number.

Many of the constraints in getting broader access to vaccines last year are easing, with 1.3 billion doses delivered so far through the COVAX vaccine-sharing partnership, he added.

COVID-19 is changing our brains and making some of us rethink our lives, experts say

There's a collective comedown we experience at this time of year, when the festivities and holidays of Christmas, the new year and Australia Day are over.

But it's not just the post-holiday blues we're contending with, amid COVID-19. We're also trying to resume normal routines in a world that hasn't been normal for some time.

That feeling of malaise you might be noticing is a sign of something very particular happening in your brain.

"Essentially our brains have lived through two years of extreme threat and anxiety", says Susan Rossell, a professor of cognitive neuropsychology at Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology.

"When we experience a threat, stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol are increased substantially to enable us to be vigilant. Those stress hormones have stayed high for two years, causing anxiety."

COVID-19: U.S. CDC recommends isolation time for asymptomatic people cut to 5 days

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Monday that those who test positive for COVID-19 but are asymptomatic can end their isolation period at five days instead of 10. It said there is growing evidence people are most infectious in the two days before and three days after symptoms develop. The recommendation also applies for close contacts.

Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is announcing a new center designed to advance the use of forecasting and outbreak analytics in public health decision making. Once established, the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics will bring together next-generation public health data, expert disease modelers, public health emergency responders, and high-quality communications, to meet the needs of decision makers. The new center will accelerate access to and use of data for public health decision-makers who need information to mitigate the effects of disease threats, such as social and economic disruption. The center will prioritize equity and accessibility, while serving as a hub for innovation and research on disease modeling.

“This is an amazing opportunity for CDC and public health as we stand up the country’s first government-wide public health forecasting center,” said CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, M.D., M.P.H. “We are excited to have the expertise and ability to model and forecast public health concerns and share information in real-time to activate governmental, private sector, and public actions in anticipation of threats both domestically and abroad.”

The center, with initial funding from the American Rescue Planexternal icon, will focus on three key functions:

Predict: Undertake modeling and forecasting; enhance the ability to determine the foundational data sources needed; support research and innovation in outbreak analytics and science for real-time action; and establish appropriate forecasting horizons.
Connect: Expand broad capability for data sharing and integration; maximize interoperability with data standards and utilize open-source software and application programming interface capabilities, with existing and new data streams from the public health ecosystem and beyond.
Inform: Translate and communicate forecasts; connect with key decision-makers across sectors including government, businesses, and non-profits, along with individuals with strong intergovernmental affairs and communication capacity for action.
The new leadership team charged with the development and implementation of a plan to establish the center, includes:

Dr. Marc Lipsitch, who will serve as Director for Science
Dr. Dylan George, who will serve as Director for Operations
Dr. Caitlin Rivers, who will serve as Associate Director
Dr. Rebecca Kahn, who will serve as Senior Scientist
“I am thrilled to be joining an exceptional team at CDC to build new capabilities for the fight against pandemics,” said Dylan George, PhD. “Pandemics threaten our families and communities at speed and scale – our response needs to move at speed and scale, too. The Center will provide critical information to communities so we can respond efficiently and effectively. The U.S. desperately needs this capability, and I am grateful for the opportunity to help build it.”

“The new center will meet a longstanding need for a national focal point to analyze data and forecast the trajectory of pandemics with the express goal of informing and improving decisions with the best available evidence,” said Marc Lipsitch, DPhil. “I am thrilled to be working with a great team at CDC to set it up, and excited to integrate the best and most innovative ideas from academia, the private sector, and government to make this a reality that will truly improve our response to future pandemics, and indeed to other infectious diseases.”

In establishing the center, CDC is addressing a critical need to improve the U.S. government’s ability to forecast and model emerging health threats, while building on existing modeling activities, expanding collaboration through interoperability, accessibility and increased emphasis on policy-maker decision support and communication to the public.

Detailed report includes latest information on variants of concern and interest in New York City, including geographic distribution

April 12, 2021 — The Health Department released detailed results (PDF) of the sequencing and analysis being conducted in the City to identify emerging variants and and learn how these variants may be impacting public health.

The report includes details on the multiple variants of interest and variants of concern identified in NYC and contains an overview of key findings on B.1.526 (first identified in New York) and B.1.1.7 (first identified in the U.K.). The investigations combine laboratory and epidemiologic observations to characterize each variant.

Key findings include:

The proportion of variants of concern and variants of interest is increasing.
B.1.526 and B.1.1.7 variants are in all five boroughs.
B.1.526 cases are slightly more common in the Bronx and parts of Queens.
B.1.1.7 cases are slightly more common in southern Brooklyn, eastern Queens, and Staten Island.
The City continues to assess for differences in severity, risk for reinfection, or risk for impacting vaccine effectiveness that might be associated with variants. These ongoing efforts include:

Monitoring the number of hospitalizations and deaths that occur among patients with sequenced specimens that are caused by variants.
Identifying cases caused by variants where the case-patient had a previous positive diagnostic test for COVID-19 more than 90 days earlier. These cases are investigated to determine if they are likely to represent a reinfection, in order to determine if reinfection cases are more common in people that have been infected with one of the variants.
Matching data on cases caused by variants with Citywide Immunization Registry data to identify if the person was fully immunized prior to testing positive for COVID-19.
To date, reinfection cases and cases in people who were fully vaccinated are rare. It is too early to know if either of these variants are more likely to cause reinfection or vaccine breakthrough compared to other previously circulating variants. The increase in proportion of cases that are variants indicates that they may be more transmissible, so New Yorkers should continue to get vaccinated when eligible and adhere to the Core Four: wear a face covering, maintain distance from others, stay home if sick and practice good hand hygiene.

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Increasingly allied, the American far right and members of the Chinese diaspora tapped into social media to give a Hong Kong researcher a vast audience for peddling unsubstantiated pandemic claims.