No local reports, but still bad news on the COVID front

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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts did not issue any new COVID-19 data today, what with it being Veterans Day and all that. However, no news isn't necessarily good news, and the Boston Globe has (finally) noticed that cases are on the rise again in Massachusetts:

Massachusetts coronavirus case numbers have lurched upward in recent days, in a worrisome development that experts say underlines the need for people to get vaccinated and to take precautions such as wearing masks in indoor public spaces.

Case numbers began rising from rock-bottom levels in early July, hit a peak in mid-September, and then declined until early this month. But in the past week or so, they began to rise again. The seven-day average of reported cases was 1,182 on Nov. 3. A week later, as of Nov. 10, it had jumped to 1,481.

With coronavirus cases nationally plateauing at a relatively high level, experts have warned of the possibility of a winter surge caused by multiple factors, including people gathering indoors because of colder weather, holdouts refusing to get vaccines, and the waning of immunity from the shots.

Coronavirus outbreaks in Massachusetts have recently made headlines, including one that forced the closure of Boston's Curley K-8 School and one that hit the Essex County jail in Middleton.

The latest numbers are a reminder that "it's not over till it's over," said Dr. Howard Koh, a former assistant US secretary of health and human services and Massachusetts public health commissioner.

"These state trends are disconcerting, but not surprising, as national declines in COVID cases have stalled in recent weeks. We need to be extra-vigilant and careful as the winter season approaches. We must push the state's vaccination rates even higher, resist suggestions to drop mask requirements too early, and eliminate disparities," said Koh, who is now a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in an e-mail.

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Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said, "We're watching case numbers closely, as most northern states [like ours] are showing an increase. Much of this is due to cases rising rapidly in children, teens, and young adults, who both have lower rates of vaccination and are more likely to engage in activities that facilitate spread of the virus. This is especially true with colder weather bringing people indoors."

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William Hanage, an epidemiology professor at Harvard's Chan School, said, "We are probably in one of the regions of the country which has the least cause for anxiety."

But he said people should be sure to get their vaccinations and booster shots. "The pandemic is not over. People should behave responsibly," he said.

He also warned, "It's really important to note that the Delta variant will find you. You're not going to be able to dodge Delta. What you want to do is make sure you have the best preparation."

Unfortunately, the Globe story doesn't include any hint that Governor Charlie Baker will ever be arsed enough to take any action.

Meanwhile, NPR is reporting that the SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is now widely spread in the white-tailed deer population, with potentially huge implications for the pandemic:

Scientists have evidence that SARS-CoV-2 spreads explosively in white-tailed deer and that the virus is widespread in this deer population across the United States.

Researchers say the findings are quite concerning and could have vast implications for the long-term course of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19, first emerged, there have been several signs that white-tailed deer would be highly susceptible to the virus — and that many of these animals were catching it across the country.

In September of last year, computer models suggested SARS-CoV-2 could easily bind to and enter the deer's cells. A recent survey of white-tailed deer in the Northeast and Midwest found that 40% of them had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Now veterinarians at Pennsylvania State University have found active SARS-CoV-2 infections in at least 30% of deer tested across Iowa during 2020. Their study, published online last week, suggests that white-tailed deer could become what's known as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. That is, the animals could carry the virus indefinitely and spread it back to humans periodically.

If that's the case, it would essentially dash any hopes of eliminating or eradicating the virus in the U.S. — and therefore from the world — says veterinary virologist Suresh Kuchipudi at Penn State, who co-led the study.

"If the virus has opportunities to find an alternate host besides humans, which we would call a reservoir, that will create a safe haven where the virus can continue to circulate even if the entire human population becomes immune," he says. "And so it becomes more and more complicated to manage or even eradicate the virus."

In the study, Kuchipudi and his colleagues looked for the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the lymph nodes of nearly 300 white-tailed deer, including more than 100 wild deer. "So these deer were either roadkill or free-living deer that hunters had killed [to eat]," says veterinary microbiologist Vivek Kapur at Penn State, who also co-led the study.

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From April to December of last year, about 30% of the deer that they tested were positive for SARS-CoV-2 by a PCR test. And then during the winter surge in Iowa, from Nov. 23, 2020, to Jan. 10 of this year, about 80% of the deer that they tested were infected. At the peak of the surge, Kapur says, the prevalence of the virus in deer was effectively about 50 to 100 times the prevalence in Iowa residents at the time.

During this time frame, the team also sequenced the genes of nearly 100 samples of the virus. They found the variants circulating in the deer matched the variants circulating in people.

Those genomic sequences suggest that during the pandemic, deer have caught the virus from people multiple times in Iowa alone, Kapur says. "The data are very consistent again with frequent spillover events from humans into deer and then transmission among the animals."

Virologist Linda Saif at Ohio State University's College of Veterinary Medicine says humans are likely infecting white-tailed deer across the country. The white-tailed deer is native to North America, Central America and the northern edge of South America. In the U.S. alone, there are an estimated 30 million animals.

"We also have detected the virus in deer in Ohio," she says. "And there are antibody studies that suggest the prevalence of COVID infections among deer are pretty high in the Midwest and East."

Joy.