The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention once advised
five days of isolation after a positive Covid test, followed by five days of masking when out in public. That is still a reasonable approach, Dr. Barouch said. “It’s believed that after about five days, then contagiousness goes down substantially,” he said, though that, “doesn’t necessarily mean every single person on day six would not be contagious.” Read Full Article
“COVID is going to stay with us probably forever,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, who runs the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “We need to be vigilant, but we don’t panic.” Read Full Article…
“It shouldn’t be a surprise that there are upticks in infection,” added Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “I think it’s a combination of the hot weather leading to people congregating indoors in air-conditioned areas, as well as new variants.” Read Full Article…
Health authorities say Covid cases are on the rise around the nation, with 15 states reporting high levels of the virus in wastewater. While the severity of the disease is lessening overall, the elderly and immunocompromised are still at higher risk. NBC News’ Erin McLaughlin reports.
Several variants are likely to be contributing to the nationwide trend, said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
“We’re seeing the start of an uptick of infections that is coincident with new variants that are developing: KP.2 and KP.3 and LB.1. It does appear that those variants do have an advantage over the prior ones,” he said. “It’s sort of the newest kid on the block,” Barouch said. “There’s not much known about it.” Read more…
“It looks like those additional mutations make it more immune evasive, so it’s not a surprise that it would then dominate,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Read Full Article…
Whether shuttling between their lab’s two locations, in Boston’s Longwood Medical Area and Cambridgeport, or visiting the offices of Tome, their gene-editing startup, Gootenberg and Abudayyeh have become as well known in science circles for their friendship as their research and business ventures.
“Science is difficult, and it’s great to have someone to do it with,” said Gootenberg. “You got to work with people you enjoy hanging out with.” Read Full Article
“The reason why it hasn’t been eliminated is because there’s an animal reservoir. The bacteria can infect animals, and because we can’t treat all animals in the wild, it persists in nature and thus occasionally causes a limited number of human cases,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who is not involved in the Oregon case.
Barouch thinks it is “very unlikely” that the plague will spread beyond the person in Oregon. “As long as the person and their immediate contacts are treated — which did occur in this case — the chance it will spread any further is very, very low. So I think that people should not be worried, but if people want to reduce their risks, then they should avoid contact with rodents and fleas and sick animals,” he said. “It turns out cats can be infected quite easily because cats have a difficult time controlling the bacteria themselves,” Barouch said. “Dogs can be infected too, but cats can be infected even more easily. Squirrels, chipmunks, rodents are typically the animals that are infected in the wild.” Read Full Article.
Dr. Dan Barouch, who runs the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which helped develop a COVID vaccine for Johnson & Johnson, said that coronavirus vaccines were among the most lucrative pharmaceutical products ever. But, he said, “that will not likely be replicated unless we have another global pandemic, which, of course, we hope we won’t.” Read Full Article
“We are not going to be able to completely stop transmission, and we’re not going to be able to get rid of this virus in the human population,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “Then, the decision of how to bring something into policy is really a summation of the medical risks as well as the risks to society as a whole.” Read Full Article
Boston Globe