Coronavirus news & views

COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Safe For Pregnant Women

I have received a few questions about the safety of the coronavirus vaccines for pregnant and lactating women. I discussed toward the end of one blog post about how maternal immunity can benefit the baby by passing the mother’s antibodies across the placenta and given in mother’s milk, thereby protecting neonates whose immune systems are still developing.

Now, an analysis of the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, and the “v-safe after vaccination health checker," and its associated v-safe pregnancy registry, shows that the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines appear to be safe for mothers and babies. The analysis examined almost 36,000 pregnant women who received one of the mRNA vaccines, and was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Compared to non-pregnant women, pregnant women who were vaccinated reported more injection-site pain, but fewer incidents of headaches, myalgia (muscle pain), chills, and fever. About 14% of vaccinated pregnant women suffered pregnancy loss while about 9% of neonates born to vaccinated women suffered adverse events, and 3% of them were undersized. No neonatal deaths were reported. The important thing is that the incidence of these outcomes was similar to the incidence observed in pregnant women before the pandemic arose. Most of the pregnant women who were evaluated were vaccinated in the third trimester.

The study concluded that the data revealed no obvious warning signals for pregnant women who receive the mRNA vaccines. But, it also advised that followup with women vaccinated earlier in pregnancy is warranted.

Stay tuned.

The Coronavirus Condiment Conundrum

The vexing thing about a novel pathogen and its attendant disease is that we expect it to behave like earlier pathogens and maladies we have experienced. But, sometimes historic diseases poorly predict the new problems that novel pathogens can raise. One such unexpected fallout from the current coronavirus pandemic was that farmed fish were getting too big for restaurant plates as discussed earlier in these pages. Now, the current pandemic has us facing another unpredicted conundrum, a critical shortage of ketchup packets!

CNN recently reported that restaurants have descended into a mad search for ketchup packets. One Denver tavern owner admitted to purloining ketchup packets from nearby McDonald’s and Wendy’s fast food franchises in order to meet his customers’ needs. Adding to his emergency, the tavern is across from Coors Field, to which the baseball All Star Game has been moved, thanks to Georgia’s new voter reform laws. As a 30+ year Wisconsinite (or “Sconnie” for short) and, thereby somewhat expert in brats, and hot dogs, I offer a suggestion to reduce this ketchup shortage--never, ever put ketchup on brats or hot dogs. Mustard is the proper condiment for these tubes of tasty processed meat. Admittedly, if everyone took this advice it could cause a deficit of that tangy yellow or brown topping and add to our COVID misery. There is nothing sadder than a bare brat, unless it is one slathered with ketchup. Folks in Chicago likely agree. Have you ever seen a Chicago dog with ketchup? It will have a luminescent green relish, but never ketchup.

This shortage of ketchup packets began last summer when the CDC began discouraging dine-in service at sit-down restaurants and encouraging delivery and takeout instead. Sit-down restaurants coast-to-coast began packing food for people who expected condiment packages with their meals. Suddenly, this packet packing by formerly traditional restaurants competed with fast food places for ketchup packets. As a result, demand went up, prices increased, and supply went down for those little 1/3 ounce packets. That is called economics.

In response, Heinz, the biggest ketchup producer in the country, just days ago announced it was increasing production of ketchup packets to 12 billion a year. A condiment Warp Speed?

This ketchup shortage also has fueled an underground market for the old packets you might have hoarded in a kitchen or desk drawer, or baked in your car’s glove box or under the seats. Entrepreneurial diners with a cache of ketchup packets are selling their treasures on eBay and Facebook Marketplace. One Indianapolis entrepreneur sold 20 Heinz ketchup packets for $8 shortly after the Wall Street Journal reported on the ketchup shortage. This too is called economics.

While all this reflects entrepreneurial principles, it is not exactly an efficient market. The prices in dozens of ketchup-packet listings posted online ranged from a quarter to $5 per packet. The latter was offered in a lot of 20 packets for $100. On eBay a week ago, an acupuncturist from NY posted “Assorted Ketchup packets for Apocalypse Survival,” with a starting bid of 99 cents for three packets. They soon were up to $11.50. Who knew ketchup was essential during an apocalypse?

What is next--a shortage of relish, mayo, and mustard packets? Maybe sugar and fake-sugar packages? It might not be too late to begin stocking up on condiments in case of an apocalypse. Make sure to store your bounty in a secure place, maybe along with your toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

Amazingly, people fret about vaccine safety during this ketchup shortage. Who ever heard of a vaccine protecting anyone from an apocalypse?

Is it time for lunch?

Vying With Viral Variants

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The back story: There are four known CoV-2 variants in the US that are more transmissible than the parent strain. They are the UK variant, which is 70% more infectious and 60% more deadly than the original strain. There also are Californian and Brazilian variants that are more transmissible, but it is not yet known if they are more deadly. However, in Brazil, their variant is associated with a significant increase in infections and ICU stays for young, healthy, unvaccinated people. Fortunately, the current vaccines seem to be effective at preventing infection with these strains.

More worrisome is the South African variant that is 50% more transmissible. It is worrisome because the AstraZeneca vaccine is not very effective against this variant, and a very recent, but a small study out of Israel suggests that the Pfizer vax might have reduced efficacy against the S. African variant. It is not yet known if this strain causes more serious disease. These findings provide evidence that mutation can produce new viral strains that can evade the immune response to the viral spike protein.

Two other variants, the so-called New York variant, and a second Brazilian variant have early signs of being more infectious or even being able to reinfect people who previously had COVID-19. Data are still being collected in order to better understand the risk that these variants pose. Stay tuned.

You can follow the variants in the US here.

The bottom line is that the world is in a race to roll out vaccines faster than troubling virus variants can arise. The UK is expected to reach herd immunity​ early next week. Infections there dropped by 60% during March, with deaths dropping more rapidly, indicating that the vaccines are helping prevent severe illness and viral spread. Meanwhile, the US leads the world in total vaccines administered (175 million), with 43% of the adult population having received at least one shot. More than 700 million doses have been administered world-wide.

The major concern is that a too-slow vaccine distribution, such as what has happened in Brazil, will encourage more virulent variants to arise. If we don’t quickly achieve herd immunity across the world, it probably will just be a matter of time before a variant arose that renders the current vaccines useless, and we would have to start over.

What is a world to do? Besides increasing surveillance of viral variants, a couple more prevention initiatives are in the works. One is economic and the other scientific.

Economics of viral mitigation: The economic approach is detailed in an article by the Associated Press Economics Writer, Martin Crutsinger. Basically, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposes giving $650 million to support vulnerable countries struggling to deal with a global pandemic. Along with that, the Group of 20 major industrial countries issued a joint statement that announced a six-month moratorium on debt payments by 73 of the world’s poorest countries.

The rationale behind these actions is to ensure that poor countries, where vaccinations are lagging due to lack of resources and infrastructure, can pick up the pace of vaccination. Their lag in rolling out shots is a threat to the whole world, even while wealthy countries are approaching herd immunity. In order to beat the variants, vaccines are needed to quickly create herd immunity and stop viral spread before a variant that can avoid vaccine immunity appears. When countries lag in vaccinations, the virus continues to spread increasing the chance for an immune-avoiding variant to pop up. Such a variant can then spread to countries that are highly vaccinated, starting the pandemic over again because the current vaccines would be ineffective. We would be back at square one.

Science to the rescue: So far, all the vaccines, except one from China, which uses the whole virus, direct the immune response to the viral spike protein that is used to attach to receptors on the surface of cells in your body. The viral variants we are concerned about show mutations in the spike protein that allow them to become more infectious, and in one case, to be less affected by some of the vaccines. In addition to trying to  nip the virus in the bud by quickly building world-wide herd immunity, new vaccine strategies are being developed to quickly respond to newly arising CoV-2 variants, and even to respond to entirely new strains of viruses that will arise in the future.

• One way to do this is to begin developing booster shots as soon as a coronavirus variant becomes a significant concern. With the new mRNA, and adenovirus vaccine delivery technology, this is eminently possible. It just requires scientists around the world being vigilant for new variants. Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson have all said they’re starting work on developing booster shots to the known variants.

• Last week, the US government announced a pact with CureVac to tackle variants, pairing artificial intelligence to predict future mutations that can be quickly addressed with modern vaccine technology. London-based GlaxoSmithKline is also working with CureVac on mutant-quelling vaccines.

• Another strategy is to identify viral molecules other than the spike protein that the immune system can recognize. Efforts are underway to test the immunogenicity of what is called the CoV-2 nucleocapsid, or N protein, which wraps itself around the viral RNA. If successful, future vaccines could incorporate both the N and S (or spike) proteins, which would require the virus to mutate both of those genes in order to avoid vaccine-induced immunity, a greatly tougher task for the virus.

• Researchers at Moderna, Novavax, and the University of Oxford are designing multivalent vaccine strategies to protect against multiple CoV-2 variants with a single shot, and even against new viruses that might emerge in the future. A similar strategy is used with the annual flu vaccine, which usually incorporates four different influenza strains in one shot. It is also used with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines. Some vaccines against pneumonia target as many as 23 variants of that pathogen.

• Finally, a wholly new vaccine technology has shown recent success in animal studies. It works by chemically attaching many short viral protein sequences from different CoV-2 variants, and even from completely different coronaviruses, to engineered nanoparticles that are then injected. In mice, this single vaccine induced an antibody response capable of neutralizing many different coronavirus strains. If successful, this could represent a universal vaccine capable of neutralizing CoV-2 and its variants, as well as other coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS with a single vaccine. And it can be easily modified to quickly respond to future viral epidemics caused by novel coronaviruses or other viruses that will certainly arise. The technology is being developed at Cal Tech using technology developed by collaborators at Oxford University. The nanoparticle platform is a “cage” made from 60 identical proteins. Each of those proteins has a small protein tag that functions like a piece of Velcro to which the viral protein sequences stick resulting in a vaccine nanoparticle with short protein sequences from four to eight distinct coronavirus strains on its surface. If successful, this could prevent infection and disease for several different viruses with a single shot.
  

 We are in a revolutionary era of vaccinology. BioX marches on.

Paying The Piper

In the face of a pandemic caused by a new and deadly virus, states and local governments enact social-distancing measures, bans on crowds, closure orders, and mask mandates in an effort to flatten the curve and prevent health care systems from being overwhelmed with critically infected people. Initially, people are fairly compliant with the order, but, as the days of restriction turn into weeks, then months, compliance wanes. Theater owners complain about financial losses. Clergy bemoan church closures. People argue whether children are safer in classrooms or at home, and many rebel at having to wear face masks in public, complaining that the government has no right to infringe on their civil liberties. Sound familiar?

But this is not about the 2020-21 coronavirus pandemic; these are descriptions of the US response to the deadly Spanish flu pandemic between 1918 and 1920. In many ways our current pandemic mirrors the one that occurred a century ago, and that is presciently described in the book, The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry. Like CoV-2, the H1N1 “Spanish” flu killed less than 1% of the people it infected, but during a third wave of infection with a more virulent strain, that flu killed more people around the world in just 24 weeks than were killed in the 10 years of WWI and WWII combined! In remote areas with little access to health care, the flu wiped out entire villages.

Like COVID-19, the Spanish flu pandemic hit hard and fast, going from a handful of reported cases in a few cities to a nationwide outbreak within a few weeks, then with increased mobility due to WWI, it quickly spread around the world, from America to Europe and back. Many communities, responding to the ebbs and flows of the epidemic waves, issued several rounds of closure in an attempt to keep the disease in check. These social-distancing orders worked to reduce cases and deaths. However, just as today, they often proved difficult to maintain. By the late autumn of 1918, just weeks after wide-spread social-distancing orders went into effect, the pandemic seemed to be coming to an end as the number of new infections declined. People clamored to return to their normal lives. Businesses pressed officials to be allowed to reopen. Believing the pandemic was waning, some state and local authorities began rescinding public health edicts. Sound familiar?

Americans hurried to return to their pre-pandemic routines. In some cities, they packed into movie theaters and dance halls, crowded into stores and shops, and gathered with friends and family for holidays and celebrations. Meanwhile, officials warned the nation that cases and deaths likely would continue for months to come, but the warnings fell on increasingly deaf ears, as people enjoyed a return to normalcy. The nation carried on, inured to the toll the pandemic was taking. But as health officials warned, the pandemic wore on, stretching into a third deadly wave that lasted through the spring of 1919, with a fourth wave hitting in the winter of 1920. Some blamed those world-wide resurgences on careless Americans.

The different responses and experiences of two large American cities are noteworthy here. In Denver, local business interests lobbied heavily to get rid of the quarantine measures that had shut down schools, churches, libraries, pool halls, businesses, and theaters. The city capitulated. The city opened up and was hammered by the deadly third wave of the flu. On Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, residents poured out of their homes to celebrate the end of World War I. A few days later, many were dead, victims of the pandemic flu. Two weeks later, a headline in the Denver Post captured the devastation: “All Flu Records Smashed in Denver in Last 24 Hours.”  An editorial in the Denver Monthly Magazine said, “For some reason, even the most enlightened citizens will not take the influenza epidemic seriously. They know that it is the most widespread epidemic that has ever visited America. They know the disease is a deadly menace and snuffs out life almost before the victim realizes he is ill. Yet when health officers try to impress upon people the necessity of following essential rules and regulations, the average citizen simply refuses to heed these admonitions.”

In contrast to Denver, St. Louis enacted and maintained strong social distancing measures, including in-home quarantines for infected people. They experienced a fraction of the deaths that Denver saw. The quarantine measures worked there.

The similarities in our responses to the 1919-20 flu and 2020-? coronavirus pandemics are noteworthy. But, there is one big, hopefully defining difference between the two pandemics that might make the outcomes quite different. Vaccines. There were no flu vaccines to rescue the world from the ravages of the Spanish flu. In fact, the influenza virus would not even be discovered for another 15 years, and a vaccine was not available until 1945. For the first 12 or so months of the current coronavirus pandemic, we were in the same boat—we faced a novel virus with no vaccine or effective medicine. When there is no available medical response to a pathogen, we must rely on protective public health measures to provide a buffer against the pathogen while we learn how to respond to it.

Today, we have significant advantages with a much better understanding of virology and epidemiology then we did in 1918. We know that both social distancing and masking work to help save lives. Most critically, we now have multiple safe and effective anti-CoV-2 vaccines that are being deployed, with the pace of vaccinations increasingly weekly.

Still, the deadly third wave of influenza shows what can happen when people prematurely relax their guard against viruses that can mutate and become more deadly. That is why we must remain vigilant while the coronavirus vaccines roll out. We are still learning about this virus and are only beginning to learn about the variants spawned by the virus. We still need a public health buffer from the virus to keep us safe until we better understand its full capabilities and can vaccinate more people.

Be smart. Stay safe. Get the vaccine.