Canada is seeing a “steady decline” in new coronavirus cases despite recent outbreaks in hot spots across the country, according to new modelling from the federal government.

Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam offered an updated picture of the current COVID-19 pandemic facing Canada, which included new modelling and estimates on the number of cases and deaths.

“The epidemiology indicates that transmission is largely under control, while also showing us that cases can re-emerge any time or place,” Tam told reporters Monday.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7120573/coronavirus-steady-decline-canada-data-modelling/

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New research from Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital shows that many people with mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 demonstrate so-called T-cell-mediated immunity to the new coronavirus, even if they have not tested positively for antibodies. According to the researchers, this means that public immunity is probably higher than antibody tests suggest. The article will soon be freely available on the bioRxiv server and has been submitted for publication in a scientific journal.

“T cells are a type of white blood cells that are specialised in recognising virus-infected cells, and are an essential part of the immune system,” says Marcus Buggert, assistant professor at the Center for Infectious Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, and one of the paper’s main authors. “Advanced analyses have now enabled us to map in detail the T-cell response during and after a COVID-19 infection. Our results indicate that roughly twice as many people have developed T-cell immunity compared with those who we can detect antibodies in.”

In the present study, the researchers performed immunological analyses of samples from over 200 people, many of whom had mild or no symptoms of COVID-19. The study included inpatients at Karolinska University Hospital and other patients and their exposed asymptomatic family members who returned to Stockholm after holidaying in the Alps in March. Healthy blood donors who gave blood during 2020 and 2019 (control group) were also included.

https://news.ki.se/immunity-to-covid-19-is-probably-higher-than-tests-have-shown

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China’s military has received the greenlight to use a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by its research unit and CanSino Biologics (6185.HK) after clinical trials proved it was safe and showed some efficacy, the company said on Monday.

The Ad5-nCoV is one of China’s eight vaccine candidates approved for human trials at home and abroad for the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. The shot also won approval for human testing in Canada.

China’s Central Military Commission approved the use of the vaccine by the military on June 25 for a period of one year, CanSino said in a filing. The vaccine candidate was developed jointly by CanSino and a research institute at the Academy of Military Science (AMS).

“The Ad5-nCoV is currently limited to military use only and its use cannot be expanded to a broader vaccination range without the approval of the Logistics Support Department,” CanSino said, referring to the Central Military Commission department which approved the military use of the vaccine.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-vaccine/cansinos-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-approved-for-military-use-in-china-idUSKBN2400DZ

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To date, few data on paediatric COVID-19 have been published, and most reports originate from China. This study aimed to capture key data on children and adolescents with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection across Europe to inform physicians and health-care service planning during the ongoing pandemic.

This multicentre cohort study involved 82 participating health-care institutions across 25 European countries, using a well established research network—the Paediatric Tuberculosis Network European Trials Group (ptbnet)—that mainly comprises paediatric infectious diseases specialists and paediatric pulmonologists. We included all individuals aged 18 years or younger with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, detected at any anatomical site by RT-PCR, between April 1 and April 24, 2020, during the initial peak of the European COVID-19 pandemic. We explored factors associated with need for intensive care unit (ICU) admission and initiation of drug treatment for COVID-19 using univariable analysis, and applied multivariable logistic regression with backwards stepwise analysis to further explore those factors significantly associated with ICU admission.

582 individuals with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection were included, with a median age of 5·0 years (IQR 0·5–12·0) and a sex ratio of 1·15 males per female. 145 (25%) had pre-existing medical conditions. 363 (62%) individuals were admitted to hospital. 48 (8%) individuals required ICU admission, 25 (4%) mechanical ventilation (median duration 7 days, IQR 2–11, range 1–34), 19 (3%) inotropic support, and one (<1%) extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Significant risk factors for requiring ICU admission in multivariable analyses were being younger than 1 month (odds ratio 5·06, 95% CI 1·72–14·87; p=0·0035), male sex (2·12, 1·06–4·21; p=0·033), pre-existing medical conditions (3·27, 1·67–6·42; p=0·0015), and presence of lower respiratory tract infection signs or symptoms at presentation (10·46, 5·16–21·23; p<0·0001). The most frequently used drug with antiviral activity was hydroxychloroquine (40 [7%] patients), followed by remdesivir (17 [3%] patients), lopinavir–ritonavir (six [1%] patients), and oseltamivir (three [1%] patients). Immunomodulatory medication used included corticosteroids (22 [4%] patients), intravenous immunoglobulin (seven [1%] patients), tocilizumab (four [1%] patients), anakinra (three [1%] patients), and siltuximab (one [<1%] patient). Four children died (case-fatality rate 0·69%, 95% CI 0·20–1·82); at study end, the remaining 578 were alive and only 25 (4%) were still symptomatic or requiring respiratory support.

COVID-19 is generally a mild disease in children, including infants. However, a small proportion develop severe disease requiring ICU admission and prolonged ventilation, although fatal outcome is overall rare. The data also reflect the current uncertainties regarding specific treatment options, highlighting that additional data on antiviral and immunomodulatory drugs are urgently needed.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30177-2/fulltext

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Days after Argentina canceled all international passenger flights to shield the country from the new coronavirus, Juan Manuel Ballestero began his journey home the only way possible: He stepped aboard his small sailboat for what turned out to be an 85-day odyssey across the Atlantic.

The 47-year-old sailor could have stayed put on the tiny Portuguese island of Porto Santo, to ride out the era of lockdowns and social distancing in a scenic place largely spared by the virus. But the idea of spending what he thought could be “the end of the world” away from his family, especially his father who was soon to turn 90, was unbearable.

So he said he loaded his 29-foot sailboat with canned tuna, fruit and rice and set sail in mid-March.

“I didn’t want to stay like a coward on an island where there were no cases,” Mr. Ballestero said. “I wanted to do everything possible to return home. The most important thing for me was to be with my family.”

Friends tried to dissuade Mr. Ballestero from embarking on the perilous journey, and the authorities in Portugal warned him he might not be allowed to re-enter if he ran into trouble and had to turn back. But he was resolute.

“I bought myself a one-way ticket and there was no going back,” he said.

His relatives, used to Mr. Ballestero’s itinerant lifestyle, knew better than to try to talk him out of it.

“The uncertainty of not knowing where he was for 50-some days was very rough,” said his father, Carlos Alberto Ballestero. “But we had no doubt this was going to turn out well.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/world/americas/coronavirus-argentina-sailor.html

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The number of people in the Netherlands known to have died from respiratory illness Covid-19 herald at 6,105, public health agency RIVM said on Sunday. It was the second time in a week that the death toll did not rise as a result of the coronavirus disease.

Nobody in the country is known to have died from the disease since June 24, and there were also no deaths linked to Covid-19 on June 22. Prior to that, the last time there had been a date without a Covid-19 fatality was on March 9.

The agency constantly updates its statistics as new data becomes available, which could mean that a fatal case is linked to a date in which previously there had been none. The same holds true for new hospitalizations, with 11,871 people having been admitted to hospital for the disease since late February.

That reflects an increase of three, the RIVM said. At least two of those admissions took place in the past week, a figure which could rise when more data is processed by the agency.

https://nltimes.nl/2020/06/28/netherlands-new-covid-19-deaths-since-june-24

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Five people died Saturday from the coronavirus in New York state, the lowest daily death toll the state has reported since March 15.

Saturday’s total compared to 13 fatalities the day before as the number of fatalities caused by the virus continues to plummet in the state. During the peak of the pandemic in April, nearly 800 people were dying a day from coronavirus.

“We are on the exact opposite end,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

https://apnews.com/402794102d843f3e04b0128238993110

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Across New York state, 13 people died in the past day because of the coronavirus, the state said.

That’s the lowest daily death toll since late March.

Just over 900 people are hospitalized across the state because of the virus, according to governor’s office.

Compare that to 11 weeks ago, when 18,825 patients were hospitalized for symptoms caused by Covid-19.

https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2020/06/ny-coronavirus-deaths-drop-to-lowest-daily-level-in-months.html

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New York state has reported that less than 1% of the people tested for Covid-19 were positive, according to data released by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Of the roughly 73,000 tests conducted Friday, .96% were positive, the governor’s office said in a release.

New York City’s positivity rate is at 1% for Friday – down from 1.4% reported the day prior.

The state added 703 Covid-19 cases, bringing the statewide total to 391,923.

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-06-27-20-intl/h_0aaa9650c88b7043b05fe89c929ac12f

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