Health Alerts

The ECDC reported on Sept 24 that ‘available data from seroprevalence studies suggest that the level of immunity in the population is <15% in most areas within the EU/EEA and the UK’ and has now included nine countries in its list of those which now report <120 infections per 100,000 population. Denmark, Iceland, Hungary and the Netherlands have most recently crossed the threshold. Targeted restrictions have been suggested over lockdowns in Europe as hospitalisations and ICU admissions climbed. Read more. The Sept 28 WHO epi update noted that a nine percent increase in cases over the previous week occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean region, while the rise in deaths in the European region was also nine percent. Read More

Elsewhere, the Sept 28 Johns Hopkins newsletter reported that India’s daily incidence had continued ‘to decline from its peak in mid-September, down 10% over the past 2 weeks. Peru fell out of the top 10 in terms of total daily incidence, and it was replaced by Indonesia.’

Australian data for the fortnight to Sept 13 from the CDI was based on a 61 percent reduction in new cases over the previous reporting period. The report includes a section - In focus: Paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 (PIMS-TS).

In related news -

-Some airlines in the US and Europe are proposing pre-flight coronavirus tests at airports to promote confidence in returning to the skies.

-An informative tweetorial on SARS-CoV-2 vaccines by Prof. Florian Krammer, Dept. of Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

-The first ship to return to the Greek islands since March in a re-launch of local cruises has been ordered into Piraeus after several crew tested positive for COVID-19 among a random sampling. A news article stated that negative tests were received from passengers on embarkation.