Having a cold might protect sufferers from a severe case of COVID-19, new research shows.COVID-19 patients who had recently been infected with a common cold virus were less likely to die or require intensive care compared with those who did not have a recent cold, according to the study published recently in the Medical staff of the intensive care unit of the Casalpalocco COVID-19 Clinic in the outskirts of Rome tend to patients, Oct. 21, 2020. (Associated Press)Sagar and his colleagues compared people who’d had a recent common cold infection with those who had not. They found that both groups contracted COVID-19 at the same rate, but people who had recently beaten a common cold experienced less severe COVID-19 symptoms.“They were much less likely to require admission to the intensive care unit. And they were much less likely to die from the infection,” said Sagar.For many adults and most children, COVID-19 causes only minor coldlike symptoms or no symptoms at all. In these people, the immune system effectively clears away virus particles and destroys infected cells, preventing serious disease.But the “immune system is a double-edged sword,” said Andrea Cox, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Exaggerated or poorly regulated immune responses can cause inflammation that leads to breathing troubles, organ failure and death. These severe outcomes usually occur in the elderly or people with other conditions, such as obesity and diabetes.Such vastly different responses to the COVID-19 virus could be explained, in part, by the immune system’s past experiences, experts say. Recognition of SARS-CoV-2 by preexisting T cells could enable a faster and stronger immune response and milder COVID-19 symptoms.Common colds could worsen COVID-19It is also possible that T cells produced from past common colds could impair the immune system’s response to COVID-19.“We have this preexisting standing force of fighters against [disease-causing viruses], and when we encounter those [viruses], there’s expansion of that force that preexists,” said Cox. “The concern is that you might expand [a force] designed to fight something else, not designed perfectly to fight SARS-CoV-2, and that could sort of skew you down this pathway that isn’t the right path to go down.”Prior immune experiences can be harmful in some diseases such as dengue fever. Antibodies and T cells produced in response to one version of the dengue virus can worsen the disease if they encounter a different version of the virus.Currently, there is little evidence that T cells produced in response to common cold coronaviruses worsen COVID-19 disease, but researchers say it is too early to say that they provide protection either.Immunity may also depend on the individual.“Not everyone who gets infected with the virus makes exactly the same immune response. In fact, even identical twins do not make the same exact immune responses to a virus when they get exposed,” said Cox. “So, it may depend on who is being infected. And it may depend on where you are in the world, where different seasonal cold coronaviruses come in different times, and also where you have different genetic backgrounds of people being exposed.”
…
Day: October 21, 2020
The U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday that Purdue Pharma, maker of the powerful opioid painkiller OxyContin, pleaded guilty to three federal criminal charges and agreed to pay more than $8 billion in fines.
OxyContin is a prescription drug that many experts said helped spark a nationwide opioid epidemic in the U.S. that is responsible for more than 470,000 overdose deaths since 2000.
As part of the settlement, Purdue Pharma admitted that it misled the federal government by falsely stating it maintained a program to avoid the transfer of controlled substances from individuals for whom they were prescribed to other people for illicit use.
Purdue Pharma also admitted it violated federal laws by paying physicians to write more prescriptions for its opioids and to use electronic health records software to influence the prescription of pain medication.
The company also admitted to violating federal law by “knowingly and intentionally” conspiring to “aid and abet” the dispensing of medication from doctors “without a legitimate medical purpose.”
The plea agreement does not protect the company’s executives or members of the Sackler family, which owns the company, from criminal liability.
When announcing the settlement in Washington, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said, “Just as the department prosecutes illicit drug traffickers, the department is committed to doing the same with respect to abuse and diversion of prescription opioids.”
Rosen added, “Today’s announcement focuses on the problems from wrongful activities in the prescription opioids realm, so let me note that our efforts there appear to be making a difference.”
Before the agreement was reached, there was opposition from state attorneys general, Democratic lawmakers and advocates who asked Attorney General William Barr in a letter not to negotiate with the company and the Sackler family because the proposed deal did not hold them fully accountable.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement that the Justice Department “failed” by not “exposing the truth and holding perpetrators accountable, not rushing a settlement to beat an election.” The announcement comes less than two weeks before President Donald Trump stands for re-election on Nov. 3.
In their letter to Barr, 38 Democratic legislators said, “If the only practical consequence of your Department’s investigation is that a handful of billionaires are made slightly less rich, we fear that the American people will lose faith in the ability of the Department to provide accountability and equal justice under the law.”
The settlement requires Purdue to make a direct payment of $225 million to the federal government, which is part of a $2 billion forfeiture. The company also faces a more than $3.5 billion criminal fine, which it may not have to fully pay because it will likely be taken through a bankruptcy.
In addition to paying $2.8 billion in damages to resolve its civil liability, the U.S. company will be required to transform into a public benefit company that would be managed by a trust without the involvement of the Sackler family.
The settlement, which mirrors a part of the company’s proposal to settle about 3,000 lawsuits filed by state, local and Native American governments, also requires some of the settlement money to be spent on medically assisted treatments and other programs to combat the opioid epidemic.
…
German police and museum officials reported Wednesday that vandals have damaged more than 70 artworks and artifacts at some of Berlin’s most renowned museums. The targeted attacks were kept quiet by authorities for more than two weeks.Christina Haak, deputy director of Berlin’s state museums, told reporters that at least 63 works at the Pergamon Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie, and the Neues Museum were all sprayed with what she described as an oily liquid that left stains. She said there was no thematic link between the targeted works and “no pattern is discernible” to the perpetrator’s approach.The museums are all part of the Museum Island complex, a UNESCO world heritage site in the heart of Germany’s capital that is one of the city’s main tourist attractions.Police said they initially decided not to go public about the incident out of “tactical considerations related to the investigation.” Local media in Berlin broke the story late Tuesday. On Wednesday, police asked witnesses to come forward with any accounts of suspicious people or events they noticed October 3.German media have noted that the Pergamon Museum has in recent months been targeted by conspiracy theorists. Attila Hildmann, an activist who has railed against government measures to contain the coronavirus, has spread conspiracy theories about Museum Island.Through the internet, he claimed the Pergamon Museum held the “throne of Satan” and was the center of a “global satanist and corona criminal scene” where “they sacrifice humans at night and abuse children.”Haak told reporters that some of the museums had been vandalized over the summer with graffiti and torn banners on the outside of the buildings.
…
A Senegalese anti-cancer group is encouraging women to get mammograms after a drop in the number of women getting screened because of coronavirus concerns, as Estelle Ndjandjo reports from Dakar.Camera: Estelle NdjandjoProduced by: Barry Unger
…
A spacecraft from the U.S. space agency NASA briefly touched an asteroid Tuesday on a mission to collect dust and pebbles to bring back to Earth.The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft — an acronym for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer — carried out the operation on the asteroid Bennu located about 321 million kilometers from Earth.NASA said telemetry data from the spacecraft indicated the mission went as expected, but that scientists will need a week to confirm how much material the spacecraft was able to collect.NASA Plans to Land First Woman on the Moon in 2024Lunar landing will be America’s first since 1972If the amount is not enough, the spacecraft will carry out a second attempt at another location on Bennu in January.Scientists are interested in Bennu because they believe it contains material from the early solar system and may contain the molecular precursors to life and Earth’s oceans. “A piece of primordial rock that has witnessed our solar system’s entire history may now be ready to come home for generations of scientific discovery, and we can’t wait to see what comes next,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.The asteroid is about as tall as the Empire State Building and could potentially threaten Earth late in the next century, with a 1‐in‐2,700 chance of affecting our planet during one of its close approaches. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will orbit the asteroid until next year, when it will begin its journey home to Earth. It is expected to land with the sample in 2023.
…
Hispanics, Blacks and Asian Americans in the U.S. have been dying at disproportionately higher rates from the coronavirus compared to white Americans, government health experts reported Tuesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report that from late January — when the pandemic first hit U.S. shores from China and Europe — through early October, deaths of white people were about 12% higher than in the same months of the four previous years. But the CDC said deaths of Hispanics in that 2020 timeframe were 53.6% higher than in recent years, with deaths of Blacks up 32.9% and Asian Americans by 36.6%. “These disproportionate increases among certain racial and ethnic groups are consistent with noted disparities in COVID-19 mortality,” the CDC said. The federal health agency said the largest percentage increase in deaths was seen among individuals ages 25 to 44. In absolute numbers, people under age 25 fared best with 841 excess deaths. The total number of excess deaths compared to recent years ranged from 841 fatalities in people younger than 25 to 94,646 among those ages 75 to 84. The U.S. has now recorded more than 220,000 coronavirus deaths and 8.2 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University. Both figures are the highest of any country across the globe.
…