Hantavirus status report: This virus will continue to mutate and the incubation period is too long to provide rapid response

Report published in the New York Magazine Intelligencer by Nia Prater and Chas Danner.

Julie note- Although I am not a virology expert, my experience preparing for viral epidemics in hospital planning sessions is that viruses mutate.  So, I am not convinced about some of what is reported about what is happening with the Hantavirus today, because, by tomorrow the virus could replicate. That is what viruses do. Nevertheless, the article is a good status report.

An outbreak of the rare and dangerous hantavirus aboard the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius has left three passengers dead, forced the medical evacuation of several others, and triggered an international health scare. While the unsettling news has prompted concerns of another widespread virus outbreak akin to COVID-19 or avian flu, the World Health Organization has stressed that the overall public-health risk from the Hondius outbreak is low. Here’s what we know so far.

How did the outbreak start? In a bulletin on Monday, the WHO said that it was first contacted about a “cluster of severe acute respiratory illness” aboard the Hondius on May 2, including two deaths and one passenger who was critically ill. Per the organization, the ship left Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and made numerous stops including mainland Antarctica, Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, as well as Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean.

In the days since, the number of deaths has risen to three. According to the WHO, the first case was a man presenting with a fever, mild diarrhea, and a headache on April 6; he died on April 11 after developing respiratory distress. The second was a woman who left the ship from Saint Helena on April 24 while reportedly experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms. Her condition worsened while traveling on an April 25 flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, and she passed away after arriving at a hospital on April 26. 

In the third case, a woman died on May 2 after presenting with symptoms on April 28.
The New York Times reports that the first two deaths from the outbreak were a couple, a 70-year-old man from the Netherlands and his 69-year old wife, and the pair had reportedly traveled in South America, specifically Argentina, prior to boarding the ship. PCR testing later confirmed hantavirus infection in the wife’s case. The third fatal case is reported to be a German woman.

According to the Associated Press, Argentina’s Ministry of Health has been tracing the travel of the Dutch couple, who had been on a South American road trip, and the authorities are investigating the possibility that the couple was exposed to hantavirus during a bird-watching trip to a landfill in the southern town of Ushuaia, which is also where they boarded the Hondius.

What is hantavirus? According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, hantaviruses are a family of viruses that humans can contract following contact with rodents, which frequently carry the virus, typically by breathing in particles from their dried saliva, urine, and droppings, like when sweeping a shed where rodents have been living.

Hantavirus infections are typically rare, with an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 cases per year globally, but they can result in severe illness and death. Hantaviruses found in the Americas, also known as New World hantaviruses, can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which presents with common symptoms like fever, fatigue, and muscle aches before progressing to more severe effects such as shortness of breath and fluid in the lungs. HPS has a fatality rate of 12 to 45 percent depending on the strain.

For variants more common in Europe and Asia, also known as Old World hantaviruses, patients can develop hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which can cause kidney failure and has a fatality rate of one to 15 percent.

The strain of hantavirus linked to the cruise ship appears to be what’s known as the Andes strain, which, per the CDC, is common in South America and has been linked to human-to-human transmission. However, transmitting the hantavirus person-to-person is rare and typically requires close contact in an enclosed space. The Washington Post reports that Argentina, which appears to have a connection to this recent outbreak, has seen an increase of hantavirus cases in recent years and is frequently ranked by the WHO as the nation with the highest rate of the virus in Latin America.

Hantavirus also has a long incubation period with symptoms typically appearing a few weeks after infection but sometimes as many as eight weeks after. On Thursday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said during a briefing that it is “possible” more cases could be reported down the line.
There is currently no cure nor widely available vaccine for hantavirus — surviving severe illness caused by the infection requires prompt medical intervention and ICU treatment.
One of the most prominent cases of hantavirus emerged last year after Betsy Arakawa, the wife of renowned actor Gene Hackman, was found to have contracted hantavirus pulmonary syndrome after the pair were found dead in their New Mexico home. Per the New York Times, it’s believed that Arakawa was likely infected from exposure to deer mice, which typically carry the virus in the state. In 2025, three people in Mammoth Lakes, California, died after contracting hantavirus.

For even more information about hantavirus, infectious-disease expert and doctor Céline Gounder has written an excellent explainer here.

On Thursday, Dutch officials confirmed that approximately 40 people from at least 12 different countries departed the ship at St. Helena to return home on April 24 without contract tracing, per the AP. Oceanwide Expeditions has put the figure at around 30 passengers, six of whom are Americans. Ghebreyesus said the organization has notified the 12 different nations, which, in addition to the U.S., are Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Turky, and the United Kingdom.

Public-health authorities have been working to track the passengers down and perform contact tracing. Two British citizens who left the ship beforehand and returned to the U.K. are self-isolating, as are a small number of their close contacts. Citing Dutch officials, the Dutch news outlet RTL reported that a flight attendant who was aboard the same Johannesburg flight as the cruise passenger who later died from hantavirus is currently experiencing mild symptoms and is being tested at a hospital. France24 reports that a French national is being monitored after traveling on the same flight.
U.S. health officials in Georgia, California, and Arizona confirmed that American passengers from the Hondius are being monitored in their states for infection since returning to the United States, per the New York Times. The Washington Post reports that passengers in Texas and Virginia are also being observed. So far, none of the passengers have shown any symptoms. In a statement, the CDC said it’s “closely monitoring the situation” and that the State Department is “leading a coordinated, whole-of-government response including direct contact with passengers, diplomatic coordination, and engagement with domestic and international health authorities.”
“At this time, the risk to the American public is extremely low,” the statement said.
What is the current status of the ship?
On Monday, Oceanwide Expeditions said there were 149 people onboard the Hondius representing 23 different nationalities. Of the three people who were medically evacuated Wednesday, two were crewmembers who presented with “acute respiratory symptoms” while the third is an asymptomatic individual with a connection to the passenger who passed away on May 2.
On Thursday, the operator shared updated figures regarding the number of passengers at the start of the voyage, saying 114 guests were on board on April 1 when the Hondius left Ushuaia, Argentina.

On April 15, six more guests boarded at Tristan da Cunha, bringing the total to 120 including the one deceased passenger.

As of Wednesday, the Hondius has departed Cape Verde, where it was moored off the coast following the detection of the outbreak, en route to Spain’s Canary Islands, which Oceanwide Expeditions estimates it will reach following three to four days of travel. On Thursday, the operator estimated that the Hondius would reach the port of Granadilla, Tenerife, early Sunday.
The remaining people aboard the ship are currently asymptomatic and are reportedly taking precautions like wearing masks and practicing social distancing.
The WHO confirmed Thursday that one of its experts boarded the ship in Cabo Verde and was later joined by two doctors from the Netherlands and an expert from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The four will assess all the remaining people on board and will stay on board the vessel until it reaches the Canary Islands.
What are experts saying? On Wednesday, Ghebreyesus signaled that the outbreak doesn’t pose any wider risk so far. “At this stage, the overall public-health risk remains low,” he said.
Maria Van Kerkhove, a top infectious-disease epidemiologist at the WHO, echoed that sentiment on Tuesday. “This is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease,” she said, per the Associated Press. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”In an interview with STAT News, Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy, put it simply. “It’s not the next pandemic,” he said.
Osterholm continued, “This is one where everyone should just take a breath and know that we are going to bring this to resolution. With adequate respiratory protection, [they could] very well stop all transmission from this point forward.”
Stanford infectious-disease doctor and epidemiologist Abraar Karan also emphasized in an X thread that this poses nothing close to a COVID-like threat, though this particular hantavirus outbreak may be worse than others:
The hantavirus outbreak won’t be anything like COVID — I think that is the wrong comparison. But it can be worse (or at least more complicated) than the usual local outbreaks that occur in Argentina.
First, I suspect there could be a few more generations of infection. Those who left the ship before the outbreak was detected pose the key risk because they may have exposed others unknowingly via close contact. Case 2 who flew on the plane to Johannesburg and the Switzerland case seem to be the only reported ones thus far. Close contact is the key point here.
So it’s likely that more cases will be detected, but there is no reason for any kind of widespread panic. 

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must not put innocent immigrants in warehouses like Nazi concentration camps

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Paul R. Reyes, attorney.

Across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka "evil ICE") is acquiring industrial warehouses to be converted into detention facilities for people swept up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. 

ICE has bought at least seven facilities so far, some of which are projected to hold thousands of people. One warehouse in an Arizona town is the size of seven football fields. The new facilities are slated to be up and running by November.

These plans amount to a lose-lose proposition. Warehouses crammed full of people will not be good for local communities, nor for the detainees housed inside the facilities. Literally warehousing people is a terrible idea❗ (They are modeled after Nazi concentration camps.)

According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, in February there were about 68,000 people in immigration detention. Three-quarters of these folks have no criminal convictions. Now the administration plans to spend $38 billion to boost detention capacity to 92,000 beds.

ICE will be opening its new detention centers in Socorro, Texas, and Social Circle, Georgia., among other sites. These facilities will likely generate more problems than benefits. 

When the federal government takes over a property, it is removed from the tax rolls, so communities will lose potential tax revenue. Large detention facilities will strain local infrastructure, including water supply, sewage and emergency services. The sites may attract protests, diverting law enforcement resources away from protecting area residents.

It’s no wonder that there has been bipartisan pushback against ICE warehouses, with some sellers backing out of deals in response to public opposition.

ICE’s website states that “detention is non-punitive,” and that it is for holding people while they await court dates or deportation. 

Yet, placing people in vast buildings designed for packages will put men, women and children in danger of disease and abuse. 

Warehouses are often drafty, poorly ventilated structures with hard floors. It’s difficult to see how they can be rapidly retrofitted into safe living spaces for detainees who, the government estimates, could be held for an average of 60 days there.

The scope of ICE’s planned detention network is staggering. The agency has already bought two warehouses with capacity for 8,500 people each; by comparison, the country’s largest federal prison holds roughly 4,000 inmates.

The U.S. has not imprisoned people on such a large scale since World War II, when camps were set up to detain Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans.

Buying so many warehouses poses the risk that such facilities could be kept filled to meet quotas in an attempt to justify the huge waste of taxpayer money — a maneuver that would waste even more money. And the multimillion-dollar prices that the government is paying for these spaces don’t include the costs of equipping the buildings with restrooms, showers, kitchens, medical facilities and recreation areas. Our government is pursuing these expensive plans while many Americans struggle to pay for groceries and healthcare.

ICE is defending its decision to ramp up detention capacity. “These will not be warehouses,” an ICE spokesperson told USA Today. “They will be very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”

However, ICE has shown that it already struggles to meet its own “regular detention standards.” 

Detention centers are known for overcrowding, physical and sexual abuse, unsanitary conditions, and inadequate medical care. ICE is not taking proper care of the people it currently has in custody, and scaling up detention will only scale up its human costs.

Both of the country’s largest detention facilities, Alligator Alcatraz in Florida and Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, are plagued with health and safety issues. In February, there were reports of cases of COVID-19, measles and TB (tuberculosis) in immigration detention. Last year 32 people died in ICE custody, making it the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades.

If the administration’s goal is to remove as many undocumented people from the country as possible, why is it investing in a national gulag of warehouses to house them? The gulag strategy underscores that expanding ICE detention is not about public safety or going after “the worst of the worst.” This is an overreaching government forcing its unpopular agenda on the public and wasting taxpayer money simply because it was allotted a ridiculous $75 billion in last summer’s reckless spending bill. A January Reuters poll found that 58% of Americans say ICE crackdowns have gone too far. Only 39% approve of Trump’s immigration policies.

Concerned citizens must continue to fight the placement of ICE detention warehouses in their backyards. As a political standoff drags on a shutdown of some Homeland Security functions, lawmakers should exert pressure on ICE to redirect taxpayer money away from warehouse projects — and toward more productive efforts, such as improving existing detention conditions or financing immigration courts adequately so that individuals can get their day in court rather than languishing in a warehouse.

ICE’s planned detention expansion will be cruel, costly and harmful. Human beings do not belong in warehouses.

Raul A. Reyes is an immigration attorney and television commentator in New York City. X: @RaulAReyes; Instagram: @raulareyes1

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must fire Robert F. Kennedy Jr because he is dangerous and destroying Ameica's health

"The growing disgrace and danger of Robert F. Kennedy Junior," Robert Reich.

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, is endangering the health of the American people now and into the future. He must resign." Senator Bernie Sanders.

An echo opinion published in The New York Times: 

We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health By William Foege,William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle P. Walensky and Mandy K. Cohen. The authors previously led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as directors or acting directors under Republican and Democratic administrations.

We have each had the honor and privilege of serving as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, either in a permanent or an acting capacity, dating back to 1977. Collectively, we spent more than 100 years working at the C.D.C., the world’s pre-eminent public health agency. We served under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations — every president from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump — alongside thousands of dedicated staff members who shared our commitment to saving lives and improving health.

What the health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation’s public health system over the past several months — culminating in his decision to fire Susan Monarez as C.D.C. director days ago — is unlike anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country had ever experienced.

Kennedy fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez — which led to the resignations of top C.D.C. officials — adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.

We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America’s health security. Residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited access to health care. Families with low incomes who rely most heavily on community health clinics and support from state and local health departments will have fewer resources available to them. Children risk losing access to life saving vaccines because of the cost.

This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings.

The C.D.C. is an agency under the Department of Health and Human Services. During our C.D.C. tenures, we did not always agree with our leaders, but they never gave us reason to doubt that they would rely on data-driven insights for our protection or that they would support public health workers. 

We need only look to Operation Warp Speed during the first Trump administration — which produced highly effective and safe vaccines that saved millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic — as a shining example of what Health and Human Services can accomplish when health and science are at the forefront of its mission.

The current department leadership, however, operates under a very different set of rules. When RFKjr (Kennedy) administered the oath of office to Dr. Monarez on July 31, he called her “a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials.” 

But when she refused weeks later to rubber-stamp his dangerous and unfounded vaccine recommendations or heed his demand to fire senior C.D.C. staff members, he decided she was expendable.

These are not typical requests from a health secretary to a C.D.C. director. Not even close. None of us would have agreed to the secretary’s demands, and we applaud Dr. Monarez for standing up for the agency and the health of our communities.

When the C.D.C. was created in 1946, the average life expectancy in the United States was around 66 years. Today it is more than 78 years. While medical advances have helped, it is public health that has played the biggest role in improving both the length and the quality of life in our nation. The C.D.C. has led efforts to eradicate smallpox, increase access to lifesaving vaccinations and significantly reduce smoking rates. 

Also, the agency is on the front lines in communities across the country, delivering crucial but often less visible wins — such as containing an outbreak of H.I.V. cases in Scott County, Ind., and protecting residents in East Palestine, Ohio, from toxic chemical exposure.

The C.D.C. is not perfect. What institution is? But over its history, regardless of which party has controlled the White House or Congress, the agency has not wavered from its mission. 

To those on the C.D.C. staff who continue to perform their jobs heroically in the face of the excruciating circumstances, we offer our sincere thanks and appreciation. Their ongoing dedication is a model for all of us. But it’s clear that the agency is hurting badly. The loss of Dr. Monarez and other top leaders will make it far more difficult for the C.D.C. to do what it has done for about 80 years: to work around the clock to protect Americans from threats to their lives and health.

We have a message for the rest of the nation as well. 

This is a crucial time to rally to protect the health of every American. Congress must exercise its oversight authority over Health and Human Services. State and local governments must fill funding gaps where they can. Philanthropy and the private sector must step up their community investments. Medical groups must continue to stand up for science and truth. Physicians must continue to support their patients with sound guidance and empathy.

And each of us must do what public health does best: look out for one another.

The professional men and women who joined the C.D.C. across generations have done so, not for prestige or power, but because they believe deeply in the call to service. They deserve a health and human services secretary who stands up for health, supports science and has their back. So, too, does our country.

Dr. William Foege served as director of the C.D.C. from 1977 to 1983. Dr. William Roper served as director of the C.D.C. from 1990 to 1993. Dr. David Satcher served as director of the C.D.C. from 1993 to 1998. Dr. Jeffrey Koplan served as director of the C.D.C. from 1998 to 2002. Dr. Richard Besser served as acting director of the C.D.C. in 2009. Dr. Tom Frieden served as director of the C.D.C. from 2009 to 2017. Dr. Anne Schuchat served as acting director of the C.D.C. in 2017 and 2018. Dr. Rochelle Walensky served as director of the C.D.C. from 2021 to 2023. Dr. Mandy Cohen served as director of the C.D.C. from 2023 to 2025.

RFKjr is the wrong person to lead Health and Human Services. His crazy vaccines theories will make America sick again

Echo opnion with appreciation published in the Houston Chronicle, by Joy Sewing:

When the world was running scared about the monkey-pox virus in 2022, I asked the University of Houston college students I was teaching if they had heard of chickenpox.

They stared at me blankly. None of them knew of the highly contagious disease that causes a rash of itchy blisters all over the body, and that was my point.

The chickenpox vaccine, which was introduced in 1995, has significantly dropped the number of cases in the U.S. 

And thanks to other vaccines, childhood diseases such as diphtheria, rubella, polio and measles, have been contained for years.

Now, as President-elect Donald Trump takes office with anti-vaccination advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Trump's nominee for the secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, we could see those childhood illnesses make an unfortunate comeback.

The anti-Covid-19 vaccination fervor has helped escalate the issue. Some claimed the Covid-19 vaccine was developed too quickly, questioed its side effects and decided to take their chances by not getting the vaccine.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of kindergartners with complete records for the measles vaccine declined from around 95 percent before the pandemic to under 93 percent in the 2023-2024, school year. The center also has reported a “staggering” 20-percent rise in measles cases globally in 2023, after a decline in vaccination rates. Immunization rates against polio, whooping cough and chickenpox also have fallen.

Measles resurgence shows the risk of RFK, Jr. as top health official (electron microscope image of a measles virus)

I won't debate anti-vaccine proponents on why I believe vaccines work. I know they do.

Contracting chickenpox was a rite of passage during my childhood. The virus would start with a rash of itchy, open sores that quickly spread to nearly every crevice of your body. I got sores inside my ears, mouth, and nose. My brother had sores between his toes and on his scalp, and a fever so intense he was hospitalized for days.

The sores would ooze with fluid and then scab over in about a week. In the meantime, our parents would drench us with the pink Calamine lotion to ease the itch. We were also quarantined in our bedrooms to prevent anyone else from catching it, but it didn't always work. 

A colleague told me that she contracted chickenpox twice.

The decline in vaccination rates means we could lose our herd immunity, which is the point at which a large portion of the community is immune. Herd immunity can stop an outbreak and keep children safe. According to a 2024, study led by the World Health Organization, global immunization efforts have saved an estimated 154 million lives — the equivalent of 6 lives every minute — over the past 50 years. The vast majority of lives saved were those of infants.

Curiously, some of the loudest voices advocating against vaccinations don't seem enraged by the chemicals and other toxins in our food supply. Forever chemicals are now in every part of our lives from nonstick cookware to our clothing, and in some cases, they are making us sick.

This week, the Food and Drug Administration announced it is banning the use of red dye No. 3 more than two years after advocates pushed for the FDA to do so. A 1980s study found that synthetic dye, which is in food, candy and some beverages and is made from petroleum, was possibly carcinogenic after tumors were found in male rats who were exposed to it in high doses. Studies also show the dye is associated with hyperactivity in children.

Before the chickenpox vaccine, three to four million people in the U.S. contracted the virus every year.

If Kennedy's post is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he would be in charge of key health agencies, including the CDC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Kennedy debunks claims that he's an anti-vaccination advocate, but has blamed the rise in autism cases on vaccinations and has suggested that HIV does not cause AIDS.

Vaccines are one of the most effective medical advancements in our history, but too many people are persuaded by the noise of misinformation.

They should do their homework, and then make educated decisions. The last thing we need is to make America sick again.

The vaccination debate has become political. In November 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning COVID-19 vaccine mandates by private employers.

While Texas school-age children must receive up to seven immunizations for various illnesses, including measles, polio and tetanus, the state is one of 16 states that allow parents to request an exemption for medical health reasons, being in the military or for personal beliefs, like religion.

Curiously, some of the loudest voices advocating against vaccinations don't seem enraged by the chemicals and other toxins in our food supply. Forever chemicals are now in every part of our lives from nonstick cookware to our clothing, and in some cases, they are making us sick.

This week, the Food and Drug Administration announced it is banning the use of red dye No. 3 more than two years after advocates pushed for the FDA to do so. A 1980s study found that synthetic dye, which is in food, candy and some beverages and is made from petroleum, was possibly carcinogenic after tumors were found in male rats who were exposed to it in high doses. Studies also show the dye is associated with hyperactivity in children.

Before the chickenpox vaccine, three to four million people in the U.S. contracted the virus every year.

If Kennedy's post is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he would be in charge of key health agencies, including the CDC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Kennedy debunks claims that he's an anti-vaccination advocate, but has blamed the rise in autism cases on vaccinations and has suggested that HIV does not cause AIDS.

Vaccines are one of the most effective medical advancements in our history, but too many people are persuaded by the noise of misinformation.

They should do their homework, and then make educated decisions. The last thing we need is to make America sick again.

An award-winning news columnist for the Houston Chronicle, Joy Sewing is reporting and opining on issues, including social justice, politics, race, education, health care and inequity. She can be reached at joy.sewing@houstonchronicle.com. 

Republicans clearly showing symptoms of short term political memory loss

Echo essay published in Intelligencer by Ed Kilgor in New York Magazine:

So, what was the worst year of your life? The GOP’s claim that we were better off in 2020, is just plainly weird❗ 

The answer will obviously vary, but it’s a good bet the year 2020, will rank pretty high in any list of wretched years. 

After all, it’s when COVID-19 arrived❗The pandemic eventually took over a million lives just in America. Our economy collapsed. Schools and businesses closed, unemployment sky-rocketed, most people were isolated and terrified. As scientists struggled to figure out how the virus spread, how to keep from contracting it, and how to treat it, most Americans were hoarding hand sanitizer, paper towels, and toilet paper; avoiding door knobs, hand rails, and other shared surfaces; and obsessively cleaning their groceries and their mail.

It was indeed a time most of us would prefer to forget. And it seems the Republican Party is counting on that.

As Noah Berlatsky of Public Notice points out, Republicans are now regularly trotting out Ronald Reagan’s famous 1980, debate question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?,” as though it’s a slam-dunk winner for them:  “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Rep. Elise Stefanik asked during a news conference last week. She answered her own question by saying “the answer is a resounding no.” Lara Trump, the new co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said virtually the same thing to Sean Hannity on Tuesday. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott echoed that sentiment on Fox News as well, saying, “We have to go back to that future, 2017-2020. We want those four years one more time.”

Seriously? All of the Trump years❓😓

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Senator Katie Britt’s melodramatic State of the Union response was a scene stealer from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s SOTU stunts and fellow Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville’s usual numbskull act. But that would only allow Britt to steal a worst actor Oscar if there was won. Britt’s performance came off so much like a skit on Saturday Night Live, it was spoofed by the show in it’s opening with actress Scarlett Johansson playing Britt.

Despite the many problems with her weird, mendacious response to the State of the Union Address, Republican senator Katie Britt was smart enough not to claim 2020, as the joyous climax of four great years. Instead she asked viewers if they were “better off than they were three years ago,” dating back to Joe Biden’s first address to Congress in 2021. 

Ah, but that comparison, while it lends itself to the negative case against Biden, does not make the comparative case for Donald Trump’s alleged superiority. So throwing caution to the wind, Republicans will grit their teeth and ask persuadable voters to misremember 2020, as a monument to American greatness that we have sadly lost.

Now, it’s true that everything bad about 2020, was not attributable to Trump, and that voters may not necessarily put responsibility on him for the failure to manage a pandemic that baffled us all (though his tardiness in taking it seriously definitely cost lives and should never be forgotten). But nor is Biden responsible for all the ills of the world right now (including some maladies left to him by the Trump administration, like economic volatility and supply-chain problems). Rightly or wrongly, presidents are held responsible for nearly everything that happens on their watch; that’s the big downside to the job of being “leader of the free world,” with all its cool perks like Air Force One and Camp David. 

If Republicans are going to attack Biden over discontents ranging from gasoline prices to the horrors of war in Ukraine and Gaza, they’ll have to accept that the final year of that magical Trump presidency was quite the bummer. As a matter of fact, 2017, through 2019, weren’t exactly a golden era of good government, but for most Americans conditions of life were better than they became four years ago.

The GOP really needs to rethink its talking points. It takes a special kind of amnesia or insensitivity to look back at 2020 with great fondness. For most of us, the answer to the question “Are you better off than you were four years ago” is “Hell yes.”

Americans excess death data caused by lack of access to health care

Excess death gap widens between US and Europe
By Patrick Heuveline published in Plos One- Abstract follows article:

US has an increasingly high proportion of excess deaths compared to five European countries.

A new health status analysis shows that, compared to similarly high-income European countries, the US continues to have substantially higher death rates at all but the oldest ages, resulting in more “excess deaths,” and this gap widened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Patrick Heuveline, of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 29, 2023.

Calculating excess death rates can be useful for comparing mortality between different countries or sub-populations, as well as before and after the onset of a health crisis. 

Prior research has documented a substantial widening of the mortality gap between the US and five high-income European countries between 2000, and 2017. Mounting evidence suggests that, compared to those countries, the US has experienced even higher Covid-19 mortality during the pandemic.

Building on those earlier studies, Heuveline calculated excess death rates in the US relative to the same five countries—England & Wales, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain—for 2017 through 2021. The calculations account for different population sizes between the countries.

Heuveline found that the number of excess deaths between the US and the five European countries did indeed increase between 2017 and 2021, and that Covid-19 mortality contributed to this increase. Between 2019 and 2021, the annual number of excess deaths in the US nearly doubled, however, 45 percent of this rise was due to causes other than Covid-19. In 2021, 25 percent of all excess deaths in the US were attributed to Covid-19, representing 223,266 deaths out of 892,491 total excess deaths from any cause.

Further research will be needed to identify specific underlying reasons for how, exactly, the Covid-19 pandemic helped to drive the widening excess deaths gap between the US and Europe. For instance, Heuveline suggests, such research could explore differences in vaccination rates or social conditions that place a disproportionate impact on minority populations.

Heuveline adds: “The mortality gap widened during the pandemic, but not just due to the US handling of the crisis mortality from Covid-19. The chronic toll of excess deaths due to causes other than Covid-19 continued to increase as well, further demonstrating the US health policy failure to integrate the social, psychological and economic dimensions of health, from a weak social security net and lack of health care access for all to poor health behaviors.”

Abstract:  The mortality gap between the United States and other high-income nations substantially expanded during the first two decades of the 21st century. International comparisons of Covid-19 mortality suggest this gap might have grown during the Covid-19 pandemic. Applying population-weighted average mortality rates of the five largest West European countries to the US population reveals that this mortality gap increased the number of US deaths by 34.8% in 2021, causing 892,491 “excess deaths” that year. Controlling for population size, the annual number of excess deaths has nearly doubled between 2019 and 2021 (+84.9%). Diverging trends in Covid-19 mortality contributed to this increase in excess deaths, especially towards the end of 2021 as US vaccination rates plateaued at lower levels than in European countries. In 2021, the number of excess deaths involving Covid-19 in the United States reached 223,266 deaths, representing 25.0% of all excess deaths that year. However, 45.5% of the population-standardized increase in excess deaths between 2019 and 2021 is due to other causes of deaths. While the contribution of Covid-19 to excess mortality might be transient, divergent trends in mortality from other causes persistently separates the United States from West European countries. Excess mortality is particularly high between ages 15 and 64. In 2021, nearly half of all US deaths in this age range are excess deaths (48.0%).

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History of vaccines prepares to respond to the inevitable next pandemic

Cutting-Edge science makes live saving vaccines. 

But will everyone benefit?

An opinion echo published in The New York Times by Barney Graham. Dr. Graham helped develop the COVID-19 vaccines while at the National Institutes of Health.

As a physician-scientist who spent nearly 40 years studying viruses and immunity, I can speak to the scientific advances that made rapid COVID-19 vaccine development possible. 

Barney Graham MD

Senior Advisor for Global Health, Equity, Clinical Trials, Physician, Immunologist and Virologist. 

In fact, I oversaw the work at the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center that provided the basis for designing and evaluating the initial COVID-19 vaccines and antibodies.

If anything about the pandemic is remembered as positive, it will be how science ‌was applied to rapidly produce medical countermeasures‌. ‌

But despite the scientific successes, I have doubts about our ability to deal with the next pandemic threat as readily as we dealt with COVID-19 — even if it is a better-known virus like influenza. Case in point, we had a monkey pox vaccine and antiviral drug before that recent outbreak, but by the time they were deployed, thousands of people were infected.

We entered a new era of ‌‌vaccine science, but can we ‌apply our extraordinary technical capabilities toward the goal of improving public health?

As a researcher, my time encompassed both the long history of vaccine research and the race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. Some people expressed concern that the COVID-19 vaccine development process was too fast, but the story can be told as either a one-year sprint or a 40‌-year story of scientific advances.

The scientific process is, after all, incremental, and new advances build on many prior discoveries. Ultimately, the process is intended to achieve a better approximation of the truth. In biology, I think of it as looking through a dark glass and peeling back layer after layer, gradually revealing the underlying reality. In that sense, science is a faith exercise because it is searching for evidence of things unseen. Scientists imagine what could be true and then invent approaches to show whether what we envisioned is right.

Over the past 15 years, technologies have emerged that have taken us through several more of these layers of understanding in biology, vaccines and immunity. The precision with which we can see structures of proteins — the building blocks that allow cells and viruses to function — and measure immune responses is stunning.

The time from when the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences were available to when the first vaccines were authorized and injected into humans was about 11 months. Typically, vaccine development is measured in decades.

Forty years of research ‌‌into how to make an H.I.V. vaccine ‌‌helped make rapid COVID-19 vaccine development feasible. These tools and others led to breakthroughs ‌that directly informed COVID-19 vaccine development in 2020.

‌Still, I am concerned that our social order and national and global governance systems are not keeping pace. Having next-generation vaccine technology without adequate systems for implementation and distribution to all people is a waste.

We can be much more prepared to predict or potentially avoid future pandemics, but we must be more intentional. This includes building better systems for local and global pandemic response coordination and making long-term investment in basic research to generate the information ‌needed to develop ‌‌vaccines, antivirals and diagnostics. There should be a much more comprehensive global surveillance program in areas with high biodiversity to identify emerging threats earlier.

And ‌‌leaders of high-income countries ‌‌must understand that it’s in their best interest to facilitate and build the capacity for vaccine research and manufacturing in low- and middle-income countries. There is an opportunity, with the advent of mRNA, to establish the capability for local ‌‌scientists to find solutions for regional diseases before they become global threats‌‌. This would also provide much-needed surge capacity during public health emergencies of international concern. ‌

The capacity to immunize everyone around the world in six months during a pandemic is an extraordinary challenge. Failure to do so in the COVID pandemic is part of the reason we suffered through successive waves of new variants. This will require cooperative effort on the part of governments, philanthropists, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations and privately held companies.

After more than two decades of service, I retired from the federal government in 2021. While my career was focused on the biology of viruses and immunity, the pandemic revealed disabling problems related to vaccine access and trust.

Therefore, I decided to join the faculty at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta to be a senior adviser for global health equity.

Morehouse School of Medicine is one of the United States’ historically Black medical colleges, because health equity is an integral part of its mission. It’s well positioned to influence vaccine access through advocacy, policy reform and the creation of a new generation of global health experts. It’s also an ideal place to work on building trust in science by involving more diverse investigators in discovery and achieving a deeper public understanding of biology.

We just lived through the deadliest pandemic in a century. It’s prudent to consider what has happened, learn from it and ‌‌decide how the world — and our part in it — should operate.

Millions of lives and trillions of dollars were lost. Health and wealth disparities widened. Biology became politicized. We are left with ‌the burdens of long COVID and a mental health crisis. I was inspired by the effort and sacrifices made by health care providers and essential workers 

to keep us going, and I am hopeful because amid the despair and uncertainty I saw many acts of caring and generosity.

In 1896, William Osler, a founder of Johns Hopkins Hospital, wrote: “Humanity has but three great enemies: Fever, famine and war; of these by far the greatest, by far the most terrible, is fever.” We now have technologies that give us a chance to better prepare, manage‌ and possibly avoid future pandemic threats. ‌

In today’s world, infectious diseases can spread around the globe in a matter of hours. A problem anywhere is a potential problem everywhere, and it is in everyone’s best interest ‌to recognize and solve regional problems ‌‌before they become global ones. It will take all of us, using all the talent and resources we have, working together to avert the tragedy of future pandemics.

Barney Graham helped develop the COVID-19 vaccines while at the National Institutes of Health. He’s now a professor of medicine and microbiology, biochemistry and immunology and a senior adviser for global health equity at Morehouse School of Medicine.