Study indicates immunity wanes quickly for mild infections

There’s more evidence that people start to lose any immunity to the novel coronavirus within a few weeks after they have been infected — especially if they have mild symptoms or no symptoms.

A team at the University of California Los Angeles did an in-depth study of 34 people who had recovered from mild coronavirus infections. They tested their blood two or three times over three months.

They found a rapid drop in antibodies – the immune system proteins that help stop viruses from infecting cells in the body. On average, the antibody levels fell by half every 73 days, Dr. Otto Yang of UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine and colleagues reported in The New England Journal of Medicine.

A survey of people in Spain released earlier this month found similar results.

“Our findings raise concern that humoral immunity against SARS-CoV-2 may not be long lasting in persons with mild illness, who compose the majority of persons with Covid-19,” Yang and colleagues wrote.

It’s still not known if people can be infected more than once with the novel coronavirus. But there are other, related coronaviruses that cause common colds, and people can and do catch those repeatedly.

“A crucial question is the extent to which these mildly infected individuals contribute to onward transmission. Another one, is whether or not a mildly infected individual, if infected again, is any more or less likely than average to develop a severe infection the second time around,” said Rowland Kao, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK who was not involved in the study.

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North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper today called on Congress to extend the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program, which gives an additional $600 a week to workers receiving unemployment benefits due to Covid-19.  

Currently the federal funding is due to expire at the end of this month, with members of Congress weighing a path forward on another economic stimulus package.

The governor also announced North Carolina is delivering “over 900,000 masks and other supplies to farm workers” across the state. “We must keep food in our grocery stores and on our tables. To do that, we must help protect the farmers and their families from this virus," Cooper said.

What the numbers look like: North Carolina's secretary of health and human services, Dr. Mandy Cohen, said the state now has 102,861 confirmed cases of coronavirus. The state, Cohen said, set a record over the weekend for highest number of new cases reported in a single day.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker today extended the state’s pause on evictions and foreclosures through October 17.

The moratorium was set to expire on August 18, according to a statement from the governor’s office. 

The extension provides Massachusetts residents with “continued housing security as businesses cautiously re-open, more people return to work, and the state collectively moves toward a ‘new normal,’” the statement said.

According to the statement, tenants are strongly encouraged to continue paying rent, and homeowners to make their mortgage payments, as much as they are able.

Baker said his administration will consult with court administrators and other stakeholders during the new 60 day extension about programs and policies to help tenants avoid eviction when proceedings resume. 

High levels of transmission of coronavirus have made traditional tracing “impractical and difficult to do,” California Health Secretary Mark Ghaly said in streamed update on the virus.

The state is working to refine strategies and continue to work with counties to build up the so-called "tracing army," but Ghaly warns that “even a very robust contact tracing program will have a hard time reaching out to every single case.”

Ghaly said the data is continuing to stabilize and as that happens, he expects to see transmission rates to come down and contact tracing to go up.

Addressing the rise in cases, which have passed 400,000 confirmed to date, Ghaly said that California has been able to avoid a large spike that other states and nations saw early.

“As a result, we’ve been able to limit not just the number of those with the worst outcomes, but even improve the clinical outcomes of those who’ve been hospitalized altogether,” Ghaly said, adding that the state has used the time to build up an inventory of supplies and hospital capacity.

All public schools in New Orleans will begin the 2020-21 school year with virtual learning, with the earliest possible in-person start date after Labor Day, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Henderson Lewis announced at a news conference Tuesday.

"Based on our monitoring of the current public health data, such as the increase of cases per day and other important factors, we have made the difficult decision to begin school under a distance learning model in August," Lewis said.

Lewis said the shift in decision was made after listening to the advice of medical experts, and to help keep students and teachers healthy given the current rate of community spread.

Lewis said the decision for students to return for in-person learning after Labor Day will only move forward after another review at the end of August.

A 62-year-old Houston Fire Department captain died Monday after battling Covid-19, the department announced today.

Capt. Leroy Lucio was hospitalized in San Antonio, his city of residence, according to a statement from the department. 

"He entered the department in December of 1990 and was promoted to Captain in 2006. Lucio currently served out of Station 103, in the Kingwood Area," the statement said. 

Lucio was hospitalized in San Antonio, his city of residence, according to the release. 

The health of children and teachers should guide school reopening policies, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview on Tuesday.

Fauci said there are different kinds of approaches under discussion to get schools reopened.

“But in order to safeguard their health and their welfare, as well as teachers, to do some sort of modeling, different versions and I've heard different versions from different multiple different superintendents, about the school scheduling, about morning, afternoons, about alternate days, about more outdoor than indoor if you possibly can, protecting the vulnerable.” 

Fauci discussed Covid-19 testing in schools and how it might be implemented.

“A more universal testing before you get in, and intermittent at different intervals, surveillance testing that clearly is being discussed at the level of universities and colleges.” Fauci said. "Whether or not that is even going to be discussed with regard to elementary and middle and other schools, I'm not sure.”

Fauci said it’s not true that the idea children don’t get as sick as adults or transmit the coronavirus like adults means there’s no danger in reopening school.

"In general, children who get infected — as we know from the statistics — clearly, for the most part, do very well and don't get seriously ill ... but there are exceptions to that. And I think we have to be realistic to realize that children who get infected, for the most part, don't get serious illness — but some children do get seriously ill and some pass it on to the adults,” Fauci said.

More than one in five homes in the US, housing about a quarter of all Americans, do not have sufficient space and plumbing to meet quarantine and isolation recommendations set by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, according to new research published Tuesday. 

Both the CDC and WHO recommend that anyone who has been exposed to or infected with Covid-19 should isolate in a separate bedroom, with a separate bathroom where possible. 

But Dr. Ashwini Sehgal of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities at Case Western Reserve University and two experts from City University of New York found more than 20% of American homes did not have this kind of space.

They also found that Native American and Hispanic people were two to three more times likely than Whites and Black and Asian people were 1.7 times more likely than Whites to live in homes were isolation was not possible. 

This is “a pattern that mirrors both the high incidence of Covid-19 in those groups and racial discrimination in access to housing that was federal policy until the 1960s and, unfortunately, persists today,” the authors wrote. 

They make the suggestion that policymakers should consider offering space in underutilized hotels for isolation or quarantine, at no cost. Several Asian countries have done so, and this could decrease transmission of Covid-19, particularly in minority communities. 

The researchers looked at data for 57,984 occupied houses from the American Housing Survey, which were representative of 121.57 million houses or apartments nationwide, home to around 303 million people. 

There were some limitations to the research, the authors noted, such as the fact that people may have over or underreported occupants in the initial survey. 

Canadian public health officials say they are concerned about a small but significant increase in cases of Covid-19 throughout the country, especially among younger people. 

The Public Health Agency of Canada now says more than 55% of new infections over the past week have been in younger adults under the age of 39. Earlier in the pandemic that group represented about a third of all infections.  

“There are lots of factors at play and we are certainly keeping an eye on it and I think across the country we need to redouble our efforts in terms of reaching all Canadians, including young folks. I think all Canadians have made tremendous sacrifices and we’ve succeeded overall in flattening the curve but that success if fragile,” said Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, during a news conference Tuesday. 

Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford was more blunt, telling young adults they are "hurting people."

The latest numbers: Canada’s case count remains modest, with the country now averaging about 450 cases per day compared to about 350 per day in June. Many provinces have started reopening bars and restaurants and while that has contributed to the spike in cases, public health officials say private parties among young people are of particular concern.  

“Many of the clusters of cases that are among the young adults are also associated with indoor parties,” said Njoo.