COVID-19 News Updates

According to data published by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) from the last week of September, the number of people testing positive for the virus increased by over 29.4 per cent on the week before, despite a reduced testing infrastructure, reports The Independent. 

With 2,257 cases being recorded daily, the UK is currently seeing a fresh rise in Covid-19 infections.

The fresh cases are reportedly due to the new variant nicknamed BA.2.86, dubbed as Pirola. 

Long Covid is an often debilitating illness that reportedly occurs in at least 10 per cent of patients after a Covid-19 infection and includes fatigue, brain fog, headaches, chest pain, and heart palpitations.

Researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology identified two adjacent, co-occurring amino acid mutations in the nucleocapsid protein (N-protein) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is directly involved in viral replication within the host, meaning that it also interacts with the immune system.

In the paper published in the journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, the team said that this is further compounded by inclusion of poorly conducted studies into systematic reviews and pooled data analyses that end up overstating the risk yet again.

In the study, Shi and colleagues from the Wuhan Institute of Virology evaluated the human spillover risk of 40 coronavirus species. 

In the study, published in the journal Cureus, the team included 40 patients, with 26 (65 per cent) classified as having moderate Covid, six (15 per cent) classified as having severe Covid, and the remaining having mild Covid.

The total caseload rose to 4,49,97,642 with addition of the fresh cases, as per the latest update by the Ministry.

Virus levels in the US have been on the rise for weeks and federal data suggests that the current increases have stayed far below earlier peaks and notable surges.

After just three cases the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared it a variant under monitoring (VUM), and also called for closer monitoring of the variant to understand its spread and severity. 

The symptoms of long Covid or post Covid condition (PCC) include fatigue, breathlessness or neurocognitive abnormalities. PCC was also linked with 2.7 times higher odds of post-discharge mortality. 

The study, published in the Nature Communications, showed that white-tailed deer across Ohio, US, have increasingly been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

BA.2.86, known to be highly mutated, has been linked to 6 cases in 4 countries: Israel, Denmark, the UK and the US. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has designated BA.2.86 as a variant under monitoring (VUM).

The new variant has been linked to six cases in four countries -- Israel, Denmark, the UK and the US, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has designated BA.2.86 as a variant under monitoring.