Some Optimism Seen, but Expect to Retain Controls into 2022

• In today’s Recommendations for Industry, we discuss businesses continuing to follow COVID protocols into 2022 and look at TAG’s weekly Risk Matrix. Read more below.
• Johnson & Johnson has released that a COVID-19 booster of its vaccine could lead to a ninefold increase in antibodies [Helio].
• The CDC, in a recent MMWR, has announced that unvaccinated individuals are five times more likely to get COVID-19 and 29 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19.
• A recent study from the University of North Carolina’s Health Care further accentuates the ease by which COVID-19 spread amongst households (especially as close contacts). The majority of COVID-19 secondary infections (close contacts) occurred within the first week of the primary contact’s positive test!
• While hospitalizations have increased among those that are younger, much of U.S. COVID-19 deaths are driven by unvaccinated seniors having acquired the Delta variant.

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Some Optimism Seen, but Expect to Retain Controls into 2022

TAG’s Weekly Risk Matrix is showing some cause for optimism that the U.S. COVID cases may be peaking, particularly if we are following the U.K. trajectory – as TAG has seen thus far and has predicted will continue.

If we are correct in this analysis, it means that it will still take six to eight weeks for cases to taper off … at which time the flu season will be beginning and cause infectious disease to kick up again. For that reason, we are recommending that businesses continue to maintain protections and controls into 2022. It also is important to remember that even where cases seem to be leveling off, hospitalization and death rates decline at a slower pace, so we can expect to see these rates continue for a while.

With all this, TAG sees it as highly unlikely that businesses should be reducing COVID protocols anytime this year.

Risk Matrix

Table 1.

Figure 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

• In Tuesday’s Recommendations for Industry, we discussed the newly surging COVID questions and stressors of employees and the impact on your business. Read more here.
• We’ve received many questions about the different Variants of Concern that are being discussed in the news; last Thursday, we discussed this and you can read more here.
• The FDA has granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to all those 16 years and older. Read the official FDA release here.
• A study from University of Georgia/Athens researchers found that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 spread among COVID-19 patients to their close contacts was strongest in the 2 days before and 3 days after symptom onset and when index patients were mildly or moderately ill rather than asymptomatic, according to a US studyof Chinese patients today in JAMA Internal Medicine. The researchers wrote, “Infected contacts of asymptomatic index patients were less likely to present with COVID-19 symptoms, suggesting that quantity of exposure may be associated with clinical presentation in close contacts.”
• The Atlantic brings a perspective of what the next steps are for the pandemic to end. Similar to what we at TAG have discussed before, it is unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 will ever be stamped out of existence; instead, the virus that causes COVID-19 will likely become endemic in our society in which outbreaks will become “rarer and smaller.” It’ll be in our population, similar to how the common cold is in our population. Additionally, the main way for the pandemic to end, especially now, is a mix of preventive measures (including mask wearing) and vaccinations.
• Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH at Brown University’s School of Public Health provides Twitter break down on the importance of keeping an eye on South Dakota’s current cases and potential rise of cases when much of the population achieved immunity through natural means (infection) as opposed to vaccination.
• As the world is in the throes of another COVID-19 wave, new information released found that Abbott destroyed much of their COVID-19 rapid test (15-minute antigen test, BinaxNOW) The destruction of these tests has led to a current shortage of available tests.
• In some good news, a Super-Taster in Italy who had lost his sense of smell (and thereby taste) to COVID-19 (as a symptom) is slowly retraining himself and others on how to become more resilient and deal with the lingering effects of COVID-19.
• In recent times, 70% of calls to Mississippi State Department of Health’s poison control center has been related to people ingesting ivermectin (a livestock parasitic drug for cows and horses). Mississippi is pleading with people to stop using ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Ingestion of the drug can lead to symptoms including nausea to neurological disorders and even severe hepatitis!