COVID-19 in the News

About 13.5 million children in the U.S. have had COVID-19, about 19% of all U.S. COVID-19 cases, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. How many will have symptoms for weeks or months afterward isn't yet clear, but researchers estimate that it could be 20 to 30%. Dr. Sairam Parthasarathy, who is co-leading two studies of long COVID at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson, said better research is needed to accurately project how many children will battle COVID symptoms once the acute stage of illness has passed. But he believes the field is "hugely underestimating" its prevalence, because many doctors don't connect children's symptoms to COVID.

Most people in the U.S. now carry some COVID immunity, whether from vaccines, infection or both. "Our level of community immunity heading into this wave was much higher than it's ever been due to the combination of infection and vaccination," said Dr. Joe Gerald, an associate professor of public health at the University of Arizona. "A lot of people who weren't vaccinated, and were infection-naive – most of them were infected with Omicron over the period from January to early March."

The COVID situation, in terms of hospitalizations and deaths, is in a much better place now, but it is not the best science can do, and we must continue to advance against it, writes Deepta Bhattacharya, a University of Arizona professor of immunology, in this guest column.

An international team of scientists said Thursday they need more more Chinese data to confirm the source of the worldwide pandemic. University of Arizona professor ecology and evolutionary biology Michael Worobey, who co-authored two papers earlier this year that argued the pandemic originated with a bat-infected wild animal, such as a raccoon or dog, sold at a public market in Wuhan, said it was unfortunate that the WHO team did not look closely at the unpublished research. "I think if you read our pre-prints and understand the evidence," he said, "actually there's very strong evidence that the pandemic emerged through wildlife at the Huanan market."

Moderna says a new version of its vaccine appears to provide strong protection against the omicron variant. They haven't released detailed data that other scientists have been able to verify. Some say the results appear to be very exciting, assuming the company's claims hold up under further scrutiny. "It sure sounds like the omicron-updated vaccine is working, which is very good news," said University of Arizona professor of immunobiology Deepta Bhattacharya.

Moderna says a new version of its vaccine appears to provide strong protection against the omicron variant. They haven't released detailed data that other scientists have been able to verify. Some say the results appear to be very exciting, assuming the company's claims hold up under further scrutiny. "It sure sounds like the omicron-updated vaccine is working, which is very good news," said University of Arizona professor of immunobiology Deepta Bhattacharya.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is analyzing more than 100 deaths that could be attributed to "long COVID" by looking at death certificates from across the country over the last two years, according to two people familiar with the matter. "There is a significant underdetection of long COVID," said Sairam Parthasarathy, chief of the pulmonary division at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson and one of the leads on its long COVID study. "It ties into health literacy ... of someone being aware that they have a medical problem. If someone feels that they don't have a medical problem, sometimes they may not seek care."

In the winter, COVID-19 cases shot up and plummeted with unprecedented speed. But experts say something else is going on with this surge. So far, the immunity many people acquired then has helped to dampen the spread of the two forms of Omicron powering the current, stretched-out wave of cases. "It's imperfect, but it's at least some protection," said Dr. Joe Gerald, an associate professor of public health policy at the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. "As we take people out of the susceptible pool, basically the math works against a large and fast outbreak, so it would tend to slow transmission and make the size of the wave smaller."

As waves of new coronavirus variants circulate the globe, one thing has become clear: human immunity against the virus fades over time. University of Arizona immunologist Deepta Bhattacharya studies the lifespan of plasma cells, a type of long-lasting cell that makes protective antibodies. He's also interested in how various vaccine technologies influence the persistence of these cells in our bodies. "There have been a few side-by-side studies that have compared the mRNA vaccines to infection-induced immunity, and it seems like it slips a little bit faster than that," he said.

In a pandemic marked by sharp divides between urban and rural vaccination rates nationwide, Arizona is the only state where rural vaccine rates outpaced more populated counties. University of Arizona Health Sciences-run mobile health units in border communities are a major reason for Santa Cruz County's extremely high 146% vaccination rate, a number boosted by large numbers of migrant workers and other seasonal arrivals.