日本研究：聚餐不戴口罩 染疫风险增近4倍
中央社
10/09/2021
根据日本国立传染病研究所等单位研究调查得知，在聚餐或饮酒时拿下口罩的人，感染COVID-19（2019冠状病毒疾病）风险是不参加聚餐者近4倍。
日本放送协会（NHK）报导，国立传染病研究所等组成的团队表示，他们在今年6月到7月间，以未接种疫苗前往东京都内5处发烧门诊看病的753名成人为对象，比较最近两周行动进行感染风险分析。
这753人有257人在病毒筛检呈现阳性、496人呈现阴性；从研究结果进行分析，在聚餐或饮酒时，拿下口罩者的染疫风险，比未参加聚餐者高3.92倍。
在聚餐或饮酒期间，只在有吃喝动作时拿下口罩的人，染疫风险相较未参加聚餐者并无明显不同。
另外，如果从口罩种类来看参与聚餐者染疫风险，比起不织布口罩（医疗用口罩），氨基甲酸乙酯口罩高1.87倍，而棉布或纱布口罩高1.82倍。
研究团队表示，在染疫风险特别高的场所，戴上不织布口罩很重要，「希望大家在跟人碰面时应正确佩戴不织布口罩，且避免人数多及长时间的聚餐」。
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加州老师「拿掉口罩」朗读 全班一半学生中招
大洛杉矶
8/27/2021
根据疾病控制与预防中心的一份最新报告显示，加州一名小学老师在出现新冠症状后继续上课了两天，结果导致全班24名学生中12人感染了新冠病毒。
这次疫情发生在今年5月19日，也就是上一学年的倒数第二周，在加州旧金山被捕的马林县一所公立学校，该校从学前班到8年纪，有205名学生和24名教职工。
值得一提的是，该校教职工的疫苗接种率非常高，仅有2人因为某些原因没有接种疫苗，剩下22人全部接种了，包括后来出现感染的老师。
5月19日，该名老师出现了新冠症状，包括鼻塞和疲劳，但他认为自己已经接种过疫苗了，所以并没有太过担心，只是去医院检测了一下就回来继续上课。
尽管学校要求师生在教室内始终戴口罩，但根据 CDC 的建议，老师在向全班朗读时并没有戴口罩。
2天后，5月21日，老师收到确诊阳性的通知，这才通知学校并自行隔离到5月30日。
与此同时，这名老师班上学生从5月22日起也开始出现症状，总共24名学生中，有22名学生接受了检测，总共12名学生确诊，有7个学生是坐在前排的，这意味着他们离老师更近。
该学校事实上已经提供了尽可能的防疫措施，包括桌子之间相隔6英尺，学生在教室内带着口罩，每间教室都配备二楼便携式的高效微粒 （HEPA） 空气过滤器，另外门窗都敞开着，就这样，该名老师仍然以“一己之力”传染了12名学生。
此外，感染的学生还把病毒带回家，这些感染的学生中，总共有8名兄弟姐妹和2名家长被感染。
后来经过证实，该名老师感染的是印度Delta变种病毒，其传染性比原始毒株快了数倍，如果传染源不戴口罩的话，学生即使全部都戴着口罩，也防不住病毒。
目前，小学生是最危险的群体之一，由于适用于12岁以下的疫苗还没有获得FDA紧急使用授权，他们几乎都是“裸奔”的状态，像上述案例一样，只要班里有一个人感染，那么全班都非常危险。
世卫警告：行动刻不容缓 各国须在病毒变得更危险前控制疫情
来自 / 联合早报 | 文 / 蔡添成
8/01/2021
德尔塔病毒至今已侵入132个国家与地区，世卫组织紧急项目执行主任瑞安说：“德尔塔是个警告，警告人们冠病病毒在变异，也是催促各国在更危险的变种病毒出现之前，赶快采取行动。”
（日内瓦／华盛顿综合电）毒性更强的德尔塔冠病变种病毒持续蔓延到更多国家和地区，世界卫生组织指出，这是对全球的警告，各国必须在它再变异成更危险的病毒之前迅速控制疫情。
德尔塔病毒至今已侵入132个国家与地区，世卫组织紧急项目执行主任瑞安周五（7月30日）在日内瓦的记者会上说：“德尔塔是个警告，警告人们冠病病毒在变异，也是催促各国在更危险的变种病毒出现之前，赶快采取行动。”
世卫组织总干事谭德塞也说，过去四周，在世卫划分的全球六区中，有五区的病例增加了80％。“至今已经出现四种令人担忧的变种毒株，只要病毒继续传播，就有可能出现更多新的变种病毒。”
据谭德塞说，过去一周，全球新增冠病病例近400万起，按照这个趋势，预计未来两周全球累计病例将超过2亿起。
全球累计病例目前已超过1亿9800万起。
对于如何防控疫情，瑞安强调，除了接种疫苗，保持社交距离、戴口罩、勤洗手、避免到人多的场所等仍是可有效抑制病毒的办法。“病毒更强、传播更快，现有的防疫计划仍然奏效，但我们必须大幅提高防疫效能，要比过去任何时候都做得更彻底。”
最新证据都显示，德尔塔的传播威力惊人。美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）周五披露，马萨诸塞州鳕鱼角（Cape Cod）一个小镇在7月3日至26日发生群聚感染，受感染者大多数都已完成疫苗接种。
调查发现，该小镇出现的469起病例中，多达74％的患者已完成疫苗接种；令人关注的是，这些感染者体内的病毒量与未接种者相当，这显示德尔塔的传染性更强。
CDC主任瓦伦斯基说，这是个重要的发现，CDC日前因此更新了防疫指引，要求人们在病例激增的地方务必戴口罩以策安全。
接种后虽仍可能染病 但可避免重症与住院
总统拜登周五告诉媒体，为应对冠病疫情反扑，政府“很有可能”得实施新的限制措施，但他没有透露细节。
证据也显示，接种疫苗后虽然仍可能感染病毒，但可避免冠病重症和住院，可是美国的接种进度却很缓慢。美国人口大约3亿3000万人，至今已完成接种的人占49%，即大半人口还没有完成接种。
美国政府首席传染病专家福奇说，他希望监管机构最快能在下月批准冠病疫苗全面使用，以鼓励更多人尽快接种。“如果我们能够让国内这1亿多人接种疫苗，这就能解答问题。若这些人没有接种，确诊病例会继续快速增加。”
据报道，辉瑞和莫德纳已向美国食品及药物管理局（FDA）申请全面使用，强生则未提出申请。获准全面使用意味也可以为孩童和青少年接种。
世卫组织为全球接种疫苗列出了目标，即到了今年9月底，每个国家至少有一成人口接种了冠病疫苗；到了今年底，达到人口的至少40％；到2022年年中，达到70％。
谭德塞坦承：“我们距离实现这些目标还有很长的路。”
他透露，世卫194个成员国中，只有大略过半成员有至少一成人口完成疫苗接种，至少40％人口完成接种者少过四分之一，只有三个国家有70％人口完成接种。至于非洲大陆，总人口中完成接种者只有1.5％。
世卫首席科学家：B1617变种冠病可逃脱疫苗保护
文 / 林煇智
5/09/2021
（早报讯）世界卫生组织的首席科学家说，在印度传播的冠病变种病毒B1617更具传染性，并可能躲避疫苗的部分抗体，造成该国的暴发性疫情。
法新社报道，世界卫生组织首席科学家斯瓦米纳坦（Soumya Swaminathan）周六（8日）警告说，“我们今天在印度看到的流行病学特征确实表明，这是一种能够极其迅速传播的变异株。”
尽管印度政府一直在努力控制疫情，但是持续恶化的疫情已经让其医疗保健系统不堪重负，而且许多专家怀疑官方公布的死亡人数和病例数字被严重低估了，并且疫情的最高峰仍未到来。
印度卫生部星期天（5月9日）通报，该国在过去24小时新增4092起冠病死例，使单日新增死例连续两天超过4000起。印度当天新增40万3738起冠病确诊病例，累计总数达223万起；目前累计死亡病例则有24万2362起。
身为印度儿科医生和临床科学家斯瓦米纳坦表示，去年10月在印度首次发现的B1617变异株显然是印度疫情失控的一个影响因素。
但迄今为止，世卫组织尚未将该变异株列入“忧虑变种”(variant of concern)的最终候选名单——这一分类意味着该病毒变异株更具危险性，有更强的传播性、致命性，或者能够获逃脱疫苗的保护。
目前包括美国和英国在内的几个国家卫生当局已经将B1617列为一种令人担忧的变异株。斯瓦米纳坦表示，她预计世界卫生组织很快也会做出调整。
不过斯瓦米纳坦认为，印度出现的病例和死亡人数急剧增加，不能仅仅归咎于病毒变异，而是印度似乎放松了警惕，出现了“巨大的社会大规模集会”。许多印度人认为危机已经结束，放弃了戴口罩和其他保护措施，但病毒仍在悄悄地传播。
虽然印度现在正试图扩大疫苗接种规模以控制疫情，但斯瓦米纳坦还警告说，仅仅注射疫苗是不足以控制局势的。
印度是世界上最大的疫苗生产国，但是在13亿多人口中，目前只有大约2%的人完全接种了疫苗。她表示: “要达到70% 至80% 的覆盖率，需要几个月甚至几年的时间。”
斯瓦米纳坦强调，在可预见的未来，全球需要依靠经考验的公共卫生和社会措施来降低传播。她说：“病毒复制、传播和传播的越多，突变产生和适应的可能性就越大。”“积累了大量突变的变异体最终可能会对我们现有的疫苗产生抗药性。”
三人从印度返中国 疑在印感染变异病毒
5/05/2021
印度冠病疫情持续失控，中国关注疫情输入风险。中国一篇科研论文披露了三例从重庆入境中国的确诊病例，感染的病毒是在印度流行的变异病毒。
据澎湃新闻报道，《中国疾病预防控制中心周报》（英文）近日发表的一篇论文披露了三例从重庆入境的确诊病例，论文作者来自重庆市疾控中心、中国疾控中心等。
论文显示，三名年龄在20-30岁之间的患者来自同一家手机公司，该公司在印度诺伊达（Noida）设有生产基地，自2019年底以来他们一直与印度同事在那里工作。
流行病学调查报告显示，三人于4月19日包车从印度诺伊达到新德里，当天转机飞往尼泊尔加德满都。他们在整个行程中都穿着防护服，N95口罩，护目镜和手套。
他们在加德满都乘坐包车到达旅馆，在那里住到4月21日，21日早乘坐包车去机场，并采取了充分保护措施，然后飞往中国重庆市。
报告显示，他们在印度的核酸检测多次出现阴性，而患者A和患者B的最新阴性结果是4月17日，患者C的最新阴性结果是4月19日。
三人在重庆被转移到冠病救治定点医院重庆公共卫生医疗中心，体温均正常，但胸部CT结果提示感染性病变，被确诊为冠病病例。
论文显示，确诊患者的样本已送至重庆市疾病预防控制中心，于4月28日至30日进行了测序。
基因组序列的分析表明，这些分离物属于Pangolin谱系B.1.617，是印度的一种新兴变种，在三个分离株中观察变异位点与印度B.1.617.2变异体相同，支持这三例患者感染可能发生在印度。
研究显示巴西变种冠病病毒可再次感染痊愈者
文 / 陈慧璋
3/02/2021
（早报讯）实验室研究显示，在巴西发现的P.1变种冠病病毒能够再次感染已经痊愈并具有免疫力的人。
《纽约时报》指出，这意味着P.1变种冠病病毒恐将削弱冠病疫苗给予巴西人的保护。巴西正在进行冠病疫苗接种计划，所采用的是中国研发的冠病疫苗。
巴西于去年12月底发现P.1变种冠病病毒感染病例，但对于这个变种毒株的研究工作较迟启动。
现在，三项研究报告为P.1变种冠病病毒在亚马逊城市马瑙斯（Manaus）迅速传播提供了解释。
科学家指出，P.1变种冠病病毒很可能早在去年11月就出现，并在马瑙斯大量传播，部分原因是该城市的疫情蔓延迅速。在实验室进行的实验显示，P.1变种冠病病毒现在有能力再次感染一些已具有免疫力的前冠病患者，并可能削弱目前在巴西使用的中国冠病疫苗的保护作用。
这三项新研究尚未在科学期刊上发表。研究报告的作者强调，他们是根据细胞分析得出有关结果，实验室的发现与真实环境中的情况不一定相符，而他们只是刚开始认识P.1变种冠病病毒的行为。
巴西是全球疫情最严重的国家之一，迄今有超过1000万人感染冠病，超过25万人死亡。
调查：英国变种冠病患者更可能出现咳嗽喉咙痛等症状
文 / 林煇智
01/28/2021
去年12月于英格兰东南部发现的B.1.1.7变种冠病病毒被认为具更高的传播性，也可能与更高的死亡率有关。(路透社）
（早报讯）英国一项调查发现，确诊B.1.1.7变种冠病的人更有可能出现咳嗽、喉咙痛或疲劳等症状，但不太可能失去其味觉或嗅觉。
路透社报道，去年12月于英格兰东南部发现的B.1.1.7变种冠病病毒被认为具更高的传播性，也可能与更高的死亡率有关。但是，目前数据表明，变种病毒与死亡率的增加的直接关联尚不确定。
英国国家统计局表示，当局在那些确诊一般冠病以及变种冠病病毒之间的病患中发现了其差异。
统计局在2020年11月15日至2021年1月16日对英国患有冠病的人群进行的特征分析显示，那些确诊变种冠病的患者中，味觉丧失和气味消失的情况明显比确诊冠病的患者来的少。
“新变种病毒患者更为常见的症状包括咳嗽、喉咙痛、疲劳、肌肉疼痛和发烧。”
彭斯前幕僚倒戈挺拜登：“川普面对疫情超冷漠”！
文章来源: 东森新闻
9/18/2020
美国副总统彭斯（Mike Pence）前幕僚特洛伊（Olivia Troye）在最新释出的政治广告中谴责政府防疫不力，导致生命逝去。她批评，总统川普面对疫情时，态度非常冷漠、不在乎，只关心连任选举，也宣告自己将选择“国家而非政党”，预计11月3日投票给民主党总统候选人拜登（Joe Biden）。
NBC报导，一群反对川普的共和党选民推出政治广告，特洛伊也参与拍摄。她担任彭斯的国土安全与反恐幕僚2年，也在白宫冠状病毒工作小组担任顾问，7月底离职。
特洛伊提到，政府2月中旬就知道美国迟早面临疫情大流行，“但总统不想要听这个，因为他担心的是，我们正在选举年，这将如何影响到他自认为的成功纪录”。她说，“在我们明知不是如此时，眼睁睁看着总统说‘病毒是个骗局、一切都好’真的很令人震惊。事实上，他只关心自己，不关心任何人”。
特洛伊回忆，川普有一次在防疫会议上说，“或许这个新冠病毒是好的，我不喜欢跟别人握手，我不喜欢跟这些恶心的人握手”。她感叹，所谓“恶心的人”就是总统声称关心的人，“这些人对于川普是什么样的人拥有十足的信心，但至今仍无法参加他的造势大会”。
前国安顾问波顿（John Bolton）、国土安全部前幕僚长泰勒（Miles Taylor）也在离任后批评政府，后者甚至表态投票给拜登。但是，特洛伊是副总统在疫情期间最亲密的幕僚之一，这番负面评论对于川普而言无疑是致命一击。
川普的连任之路依然艰辛，民调显示，大多数美国人并不满意他的防疫表现。与此同时，白宫也试图替总统辩护，因为资深记者伍华德（Bob Woodward）在新书《震怒》（Rage）中爆料，川普刻意淡化疫情的严重性。
“It Was All About the Election”: The Ex-White House Aide Olivia Troye on Trump’s Narcissistic Mishandling of COVID-19
The first staffer on the coronavirus task force to go public tells The New Yorker that America’s pandemic response was “derailed by the person at the very top.”
By Susan B. Glasser
When I spoke with Olivia Troye on Thursday afternoon, she sounded more than a little scared. She was about to go public with a scorching video, in which she would denounce President Donald Trump and his stewardship of the country during the coronavirus pandemic. Troye, who served as Vice-President Mike Pence’s adviser for homeland security until late July, has witnessed the Administration’s response to the crisis, as Pence’s top aide on the White House coronavirus task force. She had seen Trump rant in private about Fox News coverage as his public-health advisers desperately tried to get him to focus on a disease that has now killed some two hundred thousand Americans. She had decided that Trump was lying to the American public about the disease, and that “words matter, especially when you’re the President of the United States,” and that it was time to speak out. She was nervous and scared and worried for her family and her career. But she plunged ahead anyway.
I asked about her firsthand observation of the President during the crisis. She said that Trump was “disruptive.” That he could not “focus.” That he was consumed by himself and his prospects in November. “For him, it was all about the election,” Troye told me. “He just can’t seem to care about anyone else besides himself.”
Troye joined the coronavirus task force when it was first established, in late January, before any Americans had died from covid-19. Her experience on it, Troye told me, convinced her that Trump’s handling of the situation—the conscious spreading of disinformation, the disregard for the task force’s work—had made the crisis far worse for Americans. She warned about the President’s push for a vaccine before the November election and said that she did not trust him to do the right thing for the country’s health and safety. “What I’m really concerned about is if they rush this vaccine and pressure people and get something out because they want to save the election,” she said.
Troye is the first White House staff member who has worked on the coronavirus response to speak out publicly against Trump, but the President and the Administration she described were drearily consistent with portraits that have emerged in countless other tell-all interviews and books: a White House riven by backstabbing and suspicion, where trouble flowed from the top and good governance was subordinate to Presidential whim and partisan calculation. She told me she believed that most other staffers on the coronavirus task force were genuinely motivated to help Americans weather the pandemic but that Trump blocked them from implementing the right policies. “Everything that you’re putting in place is derailed not just by a random person—it’s derailed by a No. 1. It’s derailed by the person at the very top,” she said.
Troye described herself to me as a lifelong Republican, whose first job out of college was at the Republican National Committee. On 9/11, she fled her office on foot, walking home past the smoldering fire of the Pentagon, a moment that convinced her, like many others in her generation, to pursue a career in national security. She went on to serve as a George W. Bush Administration appointee in the Pentagon. For the first year and a half of the Trump Administration, she worked at the Department of Homeland Security, as a career intelligence official, before being detailed to Pence’s staff. Civil servants like herself were reviled as “deep staters” by Trump’s political appointees, she said. They were viewed with even more suspicion after Trump’s impeachment in the House, in December, was aided by testimony from mid-level White House staffers, including Jennifer Williams, Pence’s national-security aide, who worked in the office next to Troye’s. “I actually find that term very offensive,” she told me, “because not once while I was there did I do anything that I believe would lead anyone to think that I was a ‘deep stater,’ constantly undermining his agenda. . . . At the end of the day, I’m a career officer and my job was to serve, no matter who was in office.”
Soon after our conversation, a coalition called Republican Voters Against Trump released Troye’s video, the third such testimonial of a former Administration official speaking out against the President that the group has produced in recent weeks. In the video, Troye speaks directly to the camera. As pictures of her sitting alongside Vice-President Pence flash onscreen, she says that, by mid-February, the task force knew that the coronavirus was a lethal threat to the U.S. “But the President didn’t want to hear that, because his biggest concern was that we were in an election year.” Troye adds, “It was shocking to see the President saying that the virus was a hoax, saying that everything was O.K. when it was not,” despite what he had been very clearly told in private. Troye ends the video by calling herself a “John McCain Republican” and endorsing Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden.
In the video, Troye recounts when Trump, a noted germaphobe, met with the coronavirus task force, early on in the crisis, and told its members that perhaps the pandemic was a good thing because he would no longer have to shake hands with all the “disgusting people” at his rallies and other public events. During our interview, I asked Troye if she could remember other particularly memorable times when Trump spoke privately to the group. She recalled how Trump refused several times to consider urgent business that the task force presented to him, deciding “to talk about himself and a preferred news network and how upset he was with them, instead of focussing on the agenda at hand.” Fox News coverage, in other words, preoccupied the President more than saving American lives. I asked Troye if that shocked her. “No,” she said. She remembered what she thought at the time: “This is exactly what you would expect.”
Sadly, the surprise here is not that Trump acted so callously in the midst of a pandemic but that so many senior government officials know that this is happening and are doing nothing to stop it. Troye’s testimony, like that of so many others, is from inside the room—in this case, from inside the very room that is supposed to be dealing with the single biggest crisis currently afflicting the United States.
Every Presidency has its dissenters, people who leave and tell tales after they do so. But there has never been anything like the stories that have emerged from the Trump White House, from so many who worked with the President and observed him up close. People like his former national-security adviser John Bolton, who called Trump “unfit” for office. And people like the former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, the former White House chief of staff John Kelly, and the former director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, all of whom have relayed grave concerns about Trump that have made their way to Bob Woodward and other journalists.
In the end, this is what struck me most during my conversation with Troye: she is young, only forty-three years old, with a long career ahead of her, and she was willing to put it all on the line publicly, whereas people like Mattis and Kelly were not. That contrast could not have been more stark as I read a Coats Op-Ed in the Times that published the same day as Troye’s video. Coats, clearly referring to Trump’s recent undermining of faith in the upcoming election, said that a national commission should be established by Congress to insure confidence in this fall’s voting. Coats never once referenced Trump by name, and he has never publicly come forward to share with Americans his misgivings about the President. Why not? He is a veteran U.S. senator and a former U.S. ambassador who closed out his career as the head of the massive U.S. intelligence bureaucracy. What does he have to risk?