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Concern over the highly evolved omicron subvariant BA.2.86 is easing as the first batch of preliminary studies on the virus suggests it may not be as immune evasive or dangerous as its numerous mutations suggest.

But the good news is tempered by the latest COVID-19 data, which shows increasing rates of hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and deaths—all driven by the current gang of circulating omicron subvariants, led in the US by EG.5, FL.1.5.1 and XBB.1.16.6 . No single variant is dominant globally, though EG.5 is on the rise.

In the US, hospitalizations are up nearly 16 percent since last week, and deaths have risen almost 18 percent in that time. Test positivity is also on a steep incline, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data .

Enlarge / Tablets of ivermectin. (credit: Getty | Nurphoto )

A panel of conservative judges has revived a lawsuit over the Food and Drug Administration's statements about the anti-parasitic and de-worming drug ivermectin—statements meant to clarify that the drug is not effective against COVID-19 and that formulations for animals, including livestock, are not safe for use in humans .

After the FDA received reports of people being hospitalized from taking livestock ivermectin , one of the agency's particularly viral posts began: " You are not a horse ."

The lawsuit over the posts comes from three doctors, all of whom have faced charges and/or discipline from their respective state medical boards and employers over the ivermectin prescribing. The disgraced trio argue that the FDA's statements interfered with their ability to prescribe the antiparasitic drug to COVID-19 patients—including some patients the doctors had never actually examined , according to allegations by state medical boards.

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto )

A prominent anti-vaccine activist, Joseph Mercola, yesterday lost a lawsuit attempting to force YouTube to provide access to videos that were removed from the platform after YouTube banned his channels.

Mercola had tried to argue that YouTube owed him more than $75,000 in damages for breaching its own user contract and denying him access to his videos. However, in an order dismissing Mercola's complaint, US magistrate judge Laurel Beeler wrote that according to the contract Mercola signed, YouTube was "under no obligation to host" Mercola's content after terminating his channel in 2021 "for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines by posting medical misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines."

"The court found no breach because 'there is no provision in the Terms of Service that requires YouTube to maintain particular content' or be a 'storage site for users’ content,'" Beeler wrote.

Enlarge / A picture of containers taken from the illegal UMI lab in Reedley, California. (credit: FCDPH )

The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use any at-home tests made by Universal Meditech, Inc. (UMI), the company behind an illegal medical lab hidden in a warehouse in the small city of Reedley, California. The lab was shut down earlier this year by local, state, and federal agencies, which are still working to clear the site, properly dispose of all its hazardous contents, and investigate those responsible.

"UMI has notified the FDA that it has stopped all operations and is no longer providing support for its tests," the FDA said in a safety communication Friday . "The FDA is not able to confirm the performance of UMI’s tests, raising concerns that the tests may not be safe and effective."

UMI manufactured a variety of strip-based tests, mostly pregnancy tests, but also tests for ovulation, ketones, and alcohol in breast milk. The tests were sold under several names—including DiagnosUS, HealthyWiser, DeTec, and PrestiBio. They were available online from at least four distributors, which may not have identified UMI as the manufacturer. The known distributors are: AC&C Distribution, LLC; HealthyWiser; Home Health US Inc.; and Prestige Biotech Inc. The FDA cautions that there may be other distributors that it doesn't know about.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Thomas Trutschel )

For a fourth consecutive summer, COVID-19 is on the rise, though this year's warm-weather wave appears milder than those in the emergency period of the pandemic.

COVID-19 indicators of hospital admissions, emergency department visits, test positivity, and wastewater levels have all been increasing in the past month, with a peak not yet clearly in sight, according to data tracking by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From June 10 to July 29, test positivity rose from 4.1 percent to 8.9 percent. For reference, the most recent winter wave had a peak test positivity of 10.6 percent on December 31, 2022.

On the brighter side, however, weekly COVID-19 hospital admissions and deaths continue to be at their lowest points since the start of the pandemic. For now, deaths do not appear to be rising, though there are lags in data reporting. Weekly new hospital admissions are ticking up only slightly—with admissions rising to about 8,000 in the week of July 22, up from around 6,300 the week of June 24.

Enlarge / A woman watches white flags on the National Mall on September 18, 2021, in Washington, DC. Over 660,000 white flags were installed here to honor Americans who have lost their lives to COVID-19. (credit: Getty | Chen Mengtong )

Amid the pandemic, Republican voters in Ohio and Florida had a significantly higher rate of excess deaths after the nationwide rollout of COVID-19 vaccines compared with those who voted Democratic, according to a study published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine .

As the pandemic coronavirus spread between March 2020 and April 1, 2021, people from both parties saw similar surges in excess deaths—that is, deaths above what would be expected had there not been a global health crisis. But after April 1, when all adults in both states were eligible for vaccination, a gap emerged in the rate of excess deaths between Republican and Democratic voters. Republicans had an excess death rate 7.7 percentage points higher than their blue counterparts, amounting to a 43 percent difference in the excess death rates.

The study is just the latest to find a connection between political party affiliation and deaths during the pandemic . But, it takes the connection a step further, going beyond county-level political leanings and looking at how party affiliation linked to deaths at the individual level. The authors—all researchers at Yale University—focused on Ohio and Florida because those were the only two states with readily available public data on voter registration.

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People in the US transmitted the pandemic coronavirus to white-tailed deer at least 109 times, and the animals widely spread the virus among themselves, with a third of the deer tested in a large government-led study showing signs of prior infection. The work also suggests that the ubiquitous ruminants returned the virus to people in kind at least three times.

The findings, announced this week by the US Department of Agriculture, are in line with previous research, which suggested that white-tailed deer can readily pick up SARS-CoV-2 from humans, spread it to each other , and, based on at least one instance in Canada, transmit the virus back to humans .

But the new study , led by the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), provides a broader picture of deer transmission dynamics in the US and ultimately bolsters concern that white-tailed deer have the potential to be a virus reservoir. That is, populations of deer can acquire and harbor SARS-CoV-2 viral lineages, which can adapt to their new hosts and spill back over to humans, causing new waves of infection. It's conceivable that viruses moving from deer to humans could at some point qualify as new variants, potentially with the ability to dodge our immune protections built up from past infection and vaccination.

Enlarge / A boy smiles as he gets a measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination. (credit: Getty | Robyn Beck )

State health departments are facing federal budget cuts to programs that support childhood vaccination, which are coming at a time when immunization rates among children are slipping and under threat from anti-vaccine rhetoric.

News of the budget cuts was first reported by KFF Health News , which obtained a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention email dated June 27 that informed states of future funding reductions. The email, addressed to state immunization managers and signed by two CDC officials, said that the cuts will be "a significant change to your budget."

"There will be no easy solution for this," the CDC email read. "We know that this change will require some tough decisions."