COVID SCIENCE-New York virus variant harbors another worrisome mutation; vaccinating elderly adds most years of life

By Nancy Lapid
March 1 (Reuters) - The following is a roundup of some of
the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and
efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the
illness caused by the virus.

New York variant harbors a third worrisome mutation
The coronavirus variant on the rise in New York City
contains the same E484K mutation seen in variants in Brazil and
South Africa believed to make COVID-19 vaccines and antibody
therapies less effective, as well as a mutation called S477N
that helps it bind more tightly to cells when it breaks into
them. A report by New York State Department of Health
researchers posted on Monday on medRxiv ahead of peer review
adds new information. All versions of the variant circulating in
New York harbor a mutation called D235G that might reduce the
efficacy of neutralizing antibodies. The variant "has increased
in the circulating virus population in New York state by almost
26-fold in a little over a month," the researchers said. "The
combination of E484K or S477N with a D253G mutation that might
confer immune escape, and the increased number of COVID-19 cases
associated with these variants, warrants further monitoring,"
they said. (https:// Vaccinating the elderly preserves the most years of life
Prioritizing elderly people for COVID-19 vaccinations saves
not only the most lives but also the most years of life, a new
study suggests. Taking age and health risks into account, the
authors calculated the number of lives potentially saved by
COVID-19 vaccines in the United States, Germany and South Korea
and multiplied that number by the life expectancy of those
vaccinated. Patients' risk of death from COVID-19 rises faster
with age - at a rate of about 11% per year - than their
remaining life expectancy falls, said study leader Joshua
Goldstein of the University of California, Berkeley. Without
vaccinations, the numbers of people who would die of COVID-19 is
so much higher in the oldest age groups than in younger groups
that protecting the older groups actually saves more years of
life, in total. "Before this study, it was suspected that there
would be some intermediate age - not too old and not too young -
which would maximize the benefit of a vaccine, in terms of
person years of life saved," Goldstein said in a statement.
Instead, vaccinating a 90-year-old in the United States would
save twice as many years as vaccinating a 75-year-old, and six
times as many as vaccinating a 50-year-old, his team reported on
Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
of the USA. (https:// Full personal protective equipment can make wearers sick
Personal protective equipment (PPE) required in operating
rooms and intensive care units can make wearers sick, a small
study confirms. The findings help explain reports by clinicians
of difficulty breathing, headache, and mental impairment while
wearing the full protective suit that includes high quality
mask, face shield and gloves, researchers said. Among the eight
surgeons who volunteered for the study, PPE impaired breathing,
resulting in high blood levels of carbon dioxide and low levels
of oxygen. "Air re-breathed within the PPE mask after two hours
was found to contain almost 8% carbon dioxide - 260-fold more
than atmospheric levels (0.03%)," said Dr. Wyn Lewis of
University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. The changes were
significantly greater than those seen with standard operating
room garments, his team reported on Saturday in the British
Journal of Surgery, and can cause fluctuations in brain blood
flow, shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness, nausea, mental
impairment, fatigue, and headache. Three of the surgeons
experienced headaches related to altered blood flow in a major
brain artery. "These findings were observed in young, fit,
doctors, posing the question of what might emerge in mature
professionals with co-existing medical issues, or anyone working
beyond this study's two-hour limit," Lewis said. (https:// Pandemic-waste plastics are threatening the planet
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unmanageable levels of
biomedical plastic wastes, researchers warn. Worldwide,
approximately 3.4 billion single-use facemasks are generated and
discarded daily. From those alone, the amount of
pandemic-related plastic waste generated during the past year is
equivalent to about 1.6 million tons per day, according to a
report in the journal Heliyon. Plastic in masks, gloves, aprons,
and bottles of sanitizers are overwhelming the capacity of waste
management facilities worldwide, especially in developing
nations, said study coauthor Nsikak Benson of Covenant
University in Nigeria. Studies have shown that the new
coronavirus can survive on plastic surfaces for days, but "the
overwhelming nonexistence of effective waste management
facilities in developing countries implies that a large
percentage of single-use plastic waste generated might end up in
open dump sites," Benson said. The report calls on governments
and policy-makers to prioritize effective waste management of
these contaminated plastics and to develop "robust" conservation
strategies for sterilization and disinfection of surgical gowns
and masks. (https:// https://tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl in an external browser for a
Reuters graphic on vaccines in development.

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