Mu variant's escape from antibodies may inform vaccine research; US gov't underestimates nursing home data

The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

Mu variant's escape from antibodies may inform vaccine research

The ability of the Mu variant of the coronavirus to escape from antibodies and vaccines can aid in preparations against other emerging variants, Japanese researchers say.

The variant has driven outbreaks in Colombia and is now classified as a "variant of interest" by the World Health Organization, although it appears unlikely to overtake the far more prevalent Delta variant.

In test tube experiments, researchers found that Mu is "highly resistant" to antibodies in blood samples from COVID-19 survivors and from people who got the mRNA vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.

In fact, the spike used by the virus to break into cells was more resistant to neutralization than all other currently recognized variants of interest and variants of concern, the researchers reported on Tuesday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. Dr. Eric Topol of the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California, who was not involved in the research, noted in a tweet on Wednesday that Delta's high infectiousness surpasses Mu's ability to escape from antibodies.

If the Mu variant (B.1.621) is the most immune evasive we've seen in the pandemic, as a lab study preprint suggests, then why is it being displaced by Delta? https://t.co/nefzz2tWI4https://t.co/7lRpCnslm6
Delta's transmissibility overrides Mu's immune evasion (as it did Beta) pic.twitter.com/ZhGa1vRlUJ

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) September 8, 2021

Nevertheless, study coauthor Kei Sato of the University of Tokyo said understanding how variations in spike proteins affect the potency of neutralization antibodies is important for developing new vaccines and predicting breakthrough infections.

US government underestimates nursing home data

US data underestimated COVID-19 nursing home deaths US government data underestimated COVID-19 cases and nursing home deaths at the beginning of the pandemic, a new study suggests.

A comparison of federal numbers to those tallied by individual states, published on Thursday in JAMA Network Open, finds that the US government missed 43.7% of COVID-19 cases and 40% of deaths in nursing homes early in the health crisis because these figures were not tracked until May 24, 2020.

"Because of the delay in federal reporting, roughly 68,000 cases and 16,000 deaths in nursing homes were missed," said coauthor Karen Shen of Harvard University.

Those represent 11.6% of COVID-19 cases and 14.0% of COVID-19 deaths in nursing home residents in 2020, the study estimated.

"The catastrophe of being a resident in a long-term care facility with multiple impairments was almost a death sentence" early in the pandemic, said Dr. John Rowe, a professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health who was not involved in the research.

"The finding that there were 14% more just underlines that fact." -- Reuters