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NH Vets See Dogs With Contagious Respiratory Illness – NBC Boston

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Dogs in New Hampshire have been dealing with a contagious respiratory illness.

“We are seeing a large number of dogs with any signs ranging from runny nose and eyes, coughing, up to labored breathing, high fevers,” explained Dr. Erin Crowley of the Veterinary Emergency Center of Manchester. “We are seeing dogs and we are tracing them back to kennels and day cares, groomers, anywhere where a large number of dogs are coming together.”

Antibiotics are prescribed for the illness. Some have been hospitalized from two to seven days. More than 99% of the dogs recover, but vets are finding dogs of all ages becoming very ill.

One dog, 8-month-old Wallace, became sick at doggie day care and was admitted Thursday with pneumonia. He’s now receiving nebulizer treatments.

The Veterinary Emergency Center of Manchester has seen about 300 cases of the aggressive illness in the past couple of months. Most of the phone calls to the 24-hour clinic have been from owners describing their dogs’ coughing or breathing issues.

Concern started around school vacation week in April, and the veterinarians attribute this recent spike to people leaving their dogs to go on vacation.

The illness is airborne, and because it is contagious, the clinic has set up a separate entrance to keeps sick dogs isolated.

Antibiotics are prescribed. Some dogs, like Wallace, are hospitalized from two to seven days.

“It’s a scary thing when your animal is sick,” Crowley said.

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What is ‘tomato flu’? ‘Very contagious’ virus detected in kids

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As the world continues its fight against COVID-19 and the ever-spreading monkeypox virus, it seems as though there’s another illness gaining a foothold.

“Tomato flu” was first identified in India on May 6 and has so far infected 82 children, who are all under the age of 5, according to a study by the Lancet Respiratory Medicine Journal.

A further 26 kids up to the age of 10 are suspected of having cases of tomato flu.

Aptly named for the red blisters that appear on the skin, the new virus comes armed with fever and joint pain.

“Just as we are dealing with the probable emergence of fourth wave of COVID-19, a new virus known as tomato flu, or tomato fever, has emerged in India in the state of Kerala in children younger than 5 years,” the Lancet reported.

“The rare viral infection is in an endemic state and is considered non-life-threatening; however, because of the dreadful experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, vigilant management is desirable to prevent further outbreaks.”

The virus has so far been detected in the Kollam district of Kerala, India, and nearby areas of Anchal, Aryankavu and Neduvathur.

“Children are at increased risk of exposure to tomato flu as viral infections are common in this age group and spread is likely to be through close contact,” Lancet’s report added.

Medics say the infection, which currently has no drug to fight it, is “very contagious” and has striking similarities to hand, foot and mouth disease.

Aptly named for the red blisters that appear on the skin, the new virus comes armed with fever and joint pain.
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“Given the similarities to hand, foot and mouth disease, if the outbreak of tomato flu in children is not controlled and prevented, transmission might lead to serious consequences by spreading in adults as well,” the study added.

Other reported symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration and body aches.

Some cases, albeit very few, reported a change in limb color.

“It is not a fatal disease, but it is contagious and can spread from person to person, although the actual ways in which the infection spreads are still being studied,” Dr. Subhash Chandra, assistant professor of Internal Medicine at Amrita Hospital told India Today.

“Patients who develop tomato fever should drink plenty of fluids and rest in bed, as it is also advised for other viral fevers, to keep the body hydrated and well-rested.”

Those who contract the virus are placed in isolation for 5 to 7 days.

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How to know you’re no longer contagious with covid, according to experts

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You’ve got covid-19. When can you exit isolation? If you do resume activities outside your home, can you be sure you’re no longer contagious?

It’s complicated. Be forewarned: Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are nuanced but a little confusing.

Those guidelines are under review and may change. Several infectious-disease experts said they believe patients with covid should have a negative antigen test — which gives results within minutes — before exiting isolation. The CDC currently leaves that as an option and does not explicitly recommend it.

The important thing to consider, experts say, is that every person and every case of covid is unique. There is no hard-and-fast rule for how sick a person will get or how long a person remains infectious. The guidelines offer a general framework, but patients should take into account their different circumstances, priorities and resources to assess risk.

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Covid rebound: Coronavirus can be contagious during a Paxlovid rebound, researchers warn, even if people don’t have symptoms

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“People who experience rebound are at risk of transmitting to other people, even though they’re outside what people accept as the usual window for being able to transmit,” said Dr. Michael Charness of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Boston.

Charness and his colleagues recently collaborated with a team of researchers at Columbia University to look into cases of Covid-19 that return after Paxlovid treatment. He said they’ve found at least two instances in which people have transmitted to others when their infection recurs.

In one case, a 67-year-old man infected a 6-month-old after a half-hour near the child.

The man was 12 days past his first positive Covid-19 test. He had taken a five-day course of Paxlovid and was feeling better. He didn’t have any symptoms when he saw the baby, who was his grandson, but about eight hours later, he started to feel ill again.

The baby tested positive about three days later, as did both of his parents. Neither the baby nor its parents had any other close contacts before they got sick.

“It indicates that you can transmit during rebound even before you develop symptoms,” Charness said. “And you know, we studied a small number of people. It’s certainly conceivable that there are other people out there who don’t have symptoms and still have a viral rebound.”

In another instance, a 63-year-old man infected two family members during three days of relapse after Paxlovid.

Take precautions after Paxlovid

Based on this research, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance last week for people experiencing Covid-19 rebound after Paxlovid.

The CDC said people who test positive again and whose symptoms come back after finishing their antiviral pills should restart their isolation period and isolate for five full days. The agency says people can end their isolation period after those five additional days as long as their fever has been gone for 24 hours without fever-reducing medication and they’re feeling better. The agency also recommends that people wear a mask for 10 days after their symptoms come back.

The findings and guidance come as Paxlovid use has increased in the United States. According the White House, over the past two months, filled prescriptions for Paxlovid have climbed from about 27,000 a week to 182,000 a week.

The administration credits the increase to its test-to-treat program, which created one-stop hubs in grocery and drug stores where people could take a Covid-19 test and immediately receive and fill a prescription for antiviral medications. The antiviral drugs should be taken within the first few days of symptoms.

The drug works well. In clinical trials, Paxlovid reduced the odds that a person at risk of severe Covid-19 would need to be hospitalized by almost 90% compared with a placebo.

For that reason, the CDC says, early treatment with this medication is still recommended.

As helpful as it is, though, researchers say people should be aware the drug may not completely extinguish the infection.

Charness and his co-authors have now collected at least 10 such cases of Covid-19 recurrence after Paxlovid. Half of them have come from just two families, leading the researchers to conclude that such cases are not all that rare.

The research is shared as a preprint. It has not been scrutinized by outside researchers or published in a medical journal.

Genetic testing suggests that when people get a second round of Covid-19 after Paxlovid, it’s not because they’ve been infected by a different strain of the virus. There’s also no sign that the virus has changed or mutated to develop some kind of resistance to the drug.

So far, rebound cases have been mild. There haven’t been any reports of severe disease during a Covid-19 relapse. Because of this, the CDC says, there’s no reason to think that more treatment is needed.

Cause still not known

Why this might be happening is still a mystery.

In his studies, Charness said, the researchers watched the amount of virus in a person’s body — called their viral load — go down on Paxlovid treatment.

“People take Paxlovid, and what we know it does very well is, it blocks viral replication,” he said. And so the levels of virus go down. But then in some people — no one knows how many, because not enough people have been studied — levels of the virus begin to climb again nine to 12 days after they first test positive, Charness said.

It’s not entirely clear that taht rebound is linked to Paxlovid. In studies of more than 2,200 Covid-19 patients, Pfizer, the company that makes the drug, said there were a few patients who had their Covid-19 come bouncing back after a negative test, but they were in the group that took Paxlovid as well as in those who got the placebo, suggesting that Covid just reappears in some people, even without treatment.

Charness’ team has done its own comparison study, however, and found something different. When researchers looked at 1,000 cases of Covid-19 diagnosed between December and March in players and support staff of the National Basketball Association who had not taken the drug, they didn’t find any cases of Covid-19 returning. This study is still unpublished.

They say more research is needed to understand whether there could be any connection to the drug.

Charness said the fact that the infection can come back this way after treatment presents some questions. For one, would rebound be as common in people who started the drug later, maybe on day four or five after their first symptoms, after their immune systems have had longer to initially see the virus? Would a longer course of treatment — maybe taking the drug for six or seven days, rather than five — lower the risk that the virus would come back?

“No one knows,” he said. “Somebody should be studying this.”

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New covid subvariants highly contagious, immune evasive, experts say

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A rapidly spreading covid variant is highly contagious and can cause breakthrough infections, but it’s not more severe or dangerous than prior strains, local experts say.

The omicron subvariant — known as BA.5 — has “really taken off, nationally and locally,” said Dr. Lee Harrison, professor of infectious disease and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh.

“It is very, very infectious,” Harrison said. “There’s no doubt about it. In terms of immunity, it looks like even if you’ve had the previous omicron variants, there are enough differences in the BA.5 that you can get reinfected pretty easily.”

Nationally, the subvariant accounted for about 54% of sequenced strains, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, Harrison said. The related BA.4 subvariant constituted about 17% of sequenced strains.

“We’re seeing something very similar to the national trends,” Harrison said. “In Allegheny County, we’ve seen a very rapid increase recently in BA.4 and BA.5, with BA.5 being much more prevalent.”

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CDC data from the week ending July 2 indicates that BA.4 and BA.5 constituted about 59% of cases in the region, he said, and the majority of those were BA.5.

The new covid strain is the latest in a string of variants and subvariants that have emerged since the onset of the pandemic, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a Pittsburgh-based infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

This BA.5 subvariant is “very similar” to the BA.4 subvariant, he said, but “clearly different” from earlier versions of the omicron variant.

As new subvariants have emerged, they’ve become more contagious, said Dr. Tom Walsh, an infectious disease specialist for Allegheny Health Network. The BA.5 subvariant, Walsh explained, is “a little more contagious and a little more immune-evasive,” meaning it’s more likely to cause breakthrough infections — or cases of covid-19 in fully vaccinated individuals.

The disease is now “approaching measles” in terms of how contagious it is, he said of BA.5.

Despite the contagious and immune-evasive nature of the variant, experts said fully vaccinated individuals are still likely safe from the worst outcomes.

“The vaccines are extremely effective when it comes to prevention of serious illness, hospitalization and death,” Adalja said.

Hospitalization numbers “are going up slightly,” Harrison said, but death numbers “are staying relatively flat.”

“What’s happened is the nature of people being admitted to the hospital has changed from earlier in the pandemic,” he said. “So, if they get hospitalized, they tend to be less severe than earlier on. Hospitalizations are going up, because we’re seeing a large number of infections. We still see very severe cases and we still see deaths, but compared to earlier in the pandemic, the severity in the hospital has shifted to being less severe.”

Most people admitted to Allegheny Health Network hospitals with the virus are either unvaccinated or they’re elderly with multiple health problems, Walsh said.

Inpatient and outpatient therapeutics that treat covid-19 are still effective against the latest subvariants, he said, and the same basic mitigation strategies that have been highlighted since the onset of the pandemic can still reduce risk of infection.

In general, Walsh said, omicron infections seem to cause “less severe disease” than prior variants.

Vaccine manufacturers are working to produce new vaccines that may be more effective against omicron and other variants, Walsh said. But creating a vaccine specifically targeting the variant that is currently dominant can be tricky, he said, as variants change so rapidly that a new variant could be taking over by the time that vaccine is ready to be administered.

The BA.5 subvariant won’t be the last new variant or subvariant of the coronavirus, Adalja said.

“BA.5 is the dominant strain of the virus right now. It will eventually get supplanted by something else,” he said. “There’s going to be one after this and one after that, too. That’s what the virus is going to do — it’s going to evolve to continue to be able to infect us.”

That’s why researchers are working on pan-coronavirus vaccines that would target “all of the variants and subvariants” and provide immunity for ever-mutating strains of the virus, Walsh said.

It’s unclear when updated vaccinations may be available, Walsh said, though some experts have suggested as early as this fall.

Already, a new variant is cropping up overseas. Scientists say the variant — called BA.2.75 — may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection, according to The Associated Press. It’s unclear whether it could cause more serious disease than other omicron variants, including the globally prominent BA.5.

Julia Felton is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Julia at 724-226-7724, jfelton@triblive.com or via Twitter .



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Latest on Super Contagious Omicron Subvariant – NBC Chicago

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A highly-transmissible mutation of the omicron COVID variant known as BA.5 is raising concerns globally as it continues to gain traction in several countries, sparking new waves of cases and, in some instances, hospitalizations.

The rise in case rates, even as metrics remain uncertain due to at-home COVID test availability, has sparked warnings and renewed calls for masking in some locations.

So what is it about the new variant that makes it particularly concerning and what should you be watching for?

Here’s what we know so far.

What should you know about BA.5?

As of July 2, the subvariant BA.5 was responsible for nearly 54% of COVID cases in the U.S. BA.4, a similar subvariant, accounted for nearly 17% more, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

David Montefiori, a professor at the Human Vaccine Institute at Duke University Medical Center, told NBC News that BA.4 and BA.5 are about three times less sensitive to neutralizing antibodies from existing COVID vaccines than the original version of the omicron variant, BA.1. Additional research suggests that BA.4 and BA.5 are four times more resistant to antibodies from vaccines than BA.2. That subvariant replaced omicron as the U.S.’s dominant version of the coronavirus in April.

The European Medicines Agency’s Marco Cavaleri told an online briefing that the BA.4 and BA.5 mutations are expected to become dominant across the continent, “likely replacing all other variants by the end of July.”

He said that while there is no evidence the variants make people more sick than earlier strains of the virus, “the increase in transmission among older age groups is starting to translate into severe disease.”

Which symptoms should you watch for?

The U.K., where BA.4 and BA.5 infections also account for the majority of recent COVID cases, reported runny nose, sore throat, headache, persistent cough and fatigue as its most common symptoms last week.

Less than one-third of people surveyed reported fevers, according to data from the Zoe COVID Symptom Study, which allows people to self-report symptoms through smartphone apps. The symptoms are consistent with those reported in the spring, when the BA.2 subvariant was dominant in the country.

An update to the COVID vaccines is needed to fight Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants that are increasing case counts now, says Dr. Uché Blackstock, an MSNBC medical contributor and head of Advancing Health Equity.

According to the University of California Davis Health, the reported symptoms of BA.5 are similar to previous COVID variants: fever, runny nose, coughing, sore throat, headaches, muscle pain and fatigue. At this point, there doesn’t appear to be a difference in the symptoms seen in BA.4 or BA.5 cases, compared to earlier omicron strains.

If you had COVID before, how protected are you from BA.5?

Francois Balloux, the director of the University College London Genetics Institute, said while BA.1 and BA.2 are “pretty different…BA.2, BA.4 and B.5 from a neutralizing antibody perspective are essentially interchangeable.”

Because of that, people who had BA.2 infections may have some protection from the latest subvariants, he said. While they spread quicker than any others, BA.4 and BA.5 haven’t been found to cause more severe disease, according to doctors.

“There’s really no clear evidence that they’re more or less likely to make people sick and cause severe illness and death,” stated Montefiori.

Dr. Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, said people need to understand that variants like Omicron and BA.5 are a natural part of the progression of the virus.

“Delta was never going to be the last variant—and Omicron is not going to be the last one,” he said, according to an article on the school’s website. “As long as there is a COVID-19 outbreak somewhere in the world, there is going to be something new that emerges.”

What steps can you take to protect yourself?

The best way to prevent new variants, Grubaugh and other doctors say, is to get vaccinated and booster shots. If more people are fully vaccinated, the opportunity for the virus to spread and mutate decreases, they contend.

The European Union said Monday it’s “critical” that authorities in the 27-nation bloc consider giving second coronavirus booster shots to people between the ages of 60 and 79 years and other vulnerable people, as a new wave of the pandemic sweeps over the continent.

“With cases and hospitalizations rising again as we enter the summer period, I urge everybody to get vaccinated and boosted as quickly as possible. There is no time to lose,” European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides said in a statement.

ECDC Director Andrea Ammon said that the new wave is being driven by the highly transmissible BA.5 mutation of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

‘This signals the start of a new, widespread COVID-19 wave across the European Union,” she said. “There are still too many individuals at risk of severe COVID-19 infection whom we need to protect as soon as possible. We need to remind people of the importance of vaccination from the very first shot to the second booster. We have to start today.”

Meanwhile, New York City public health officials on Friday urged residents to return to indoor mask-wearing, noting how they’re seeing high levels of COVID-19 infection.

To help slow the spread, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recommended in a tweet that “all New Yorkers should wear a high-quality mask, such as an N95, KN95 or KF94 in all public indoor settings and around crowds outside.”

What else should you know?

The spread of BA.5 also comes as scientists worry about a new omicron mutant — called BA2.75 — that is gaining ground in India and popping up in other countries.

Scientists say the new variant may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection. It’s unclear whether it could cause more serious disease than other omicron variants, including BA.5.

“It’s still really early on for us to draw too many conclusions,” said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “But it does look like, especially in India, the rates of transmission are showing kind of that exponential increase.” Whether it will outcompete BA.5, he said, is yet to be determined.

Still, the fact that it has already been detected in many parts of the world even with lower levels of viral surveillance “is an early indication it is spreading,” said Shishi Luo, head of infectious diseases for Helix, a company that supplies viral sequencing information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The latest mutant has been spotted in several distant states in India, and appears to be spreading faster than other variants there, said Lipi Thukral, a scientist at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi. It’s also been detected in about 10 other countries, including Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. Two cases were recently identified on the West Coast of the U.S., and Helix identified a third U.S. case last week.

Fueling experts’ concerns are a large number of mutations separating this new variant from omicron predecessors. Some of those mutations are in areas that relate to the spike protein and could allow the virus to bind onto cells more efficiently, Binnicker said.

Another concern is that the genetic tweaks may make it easier for the virus to skirt past antibodies — protective proteins made by the body in response to a vaccine or infection from an earlier variant.

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COVID seems to be getting less deadly (and more contagious) – HotAir

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It’s pretty clear why it’s getting more contagious. It’s less clear why it’s getting less deadly.

Yesterday the White House’s new COVID coordinator, Ashish Jha, shared some rare good news about the virus. Cases have been rising in the northeast for almost two months. But deaths haven’t.

The picture is the same nationally. Between April 1 and April 27, cases in the U.S. roughly doubled. Deaths fell by half over the same period. There’s been hardly any increase in deaths since April 27 either despite the fact that cases have continued trending upward. In fact, we may be in the middle of a wave at the moment without realizing it:

Why is COVID killing fewer people now than before?

Two obvious reasons. Virtually everyone in the U.S. has some form of immunity at this point, whether naturally or via vaccine, so our bodies are more prepared for an encounter with the virus. We can fight it off before it turns severe, especially those who’ve been boosted. Therapeutics are also now available to disrupt the course of the illness after infection. It wasn’t long ago that Pfizer’s wonder drug, Paxlovid, was in such short supply that the immunocompromised were being given priority for it, but now it’s sufficiently abundant that scientists are complaining that it’s being underused.

Good vaccines + good medicine = less death. But shouldn’t that also mean fewer infections? If everyone has antibodies now, why are we seeing case numbers rise?

It’s all about evolution, writes David Axe:

More cases but fewer deaths, a phenomenon epidemiologists call “decoupling,” has come to define COVID’s evolution as we muddle through the third year of the pandemic. There are signs decoupling might actually get more extreme. After all, the immunity that leads to decoupling also spurs a virus to mutate more quickly into ever more transmissible lineages.

Immunity encourages mutants, which can increase immunity by seeding antibodies from mild infection. It’s an accelerating positive feedback loop whose products are antibodies and viral lineages.

As the virus circulates among a population in which everyone has some immunity, the only strains that will prosper are the ones lucky enough to gain the ability to evade the human immune response via mutation. The virus is being “honed” through genetic chance to become more transmissible even in a country where nearly everyone has antibodies. But while those antibodies may not be enough to prevent infection by the new strains, the knowledge of the virus that our T-cells and B-cells have acquired through prior exposure is apparently enough to mount an immune response that limits severe illness. Result: Lots of transmission, not much death.

For now. As Omicron continues to spin off new substrains, the feds are worried that the combination of cold weather and continuing viral evolution will produce a mega-wave this winter that could infect up to 100 million people. There already exist lineages of Omicron that are more contagious than the parent strain, which was itself one of the most contagious respiratory viruses ever seen. Something called BA.2.12.1 is now spreading in the northeast and responsible for the recent surge in cases there. And two substrains known as BA.4 and BA.5 are picking up steam in Africa. Those are worth keeping an eye on, as they’re so immune-evasive that even a previous infection by Omicron doesn’t seem to generate much resistance:

A new preprint study, published ahead of peer review, is pointing to why BA.4 and BA.5 are gaining ground: They can escape antibodies generated by previous infections caused by the first Omicron virus, BA.1, the variant responsible for the huge wave of infections that hit many countries in December and January. They can also escape antibodies in people who’ve been vaccinated and had breakthrough BA.1 infections, though this happened to a lesser degree than seen in people who’ve only been infected…

“Our conclusions from this are, first, that Omicron by itself is not a great vaccine, right?” said Alex Sigal, a virologist at the Africa Health Research Institute who led the study. “Just because you were infected does not mean you have a lot of protection from what’s coming next.”…

The BA.4 and BA.5 viruses and BA.2.12.1 have mutations at location 452 of their genomes. This region codes for a part of the viruses receptor binding domain — the part of the virus that docks onto a door on the outside of our cells. The Delta variant and some others have picked up mutations in this location. Researchers believe that changes there help the virus bind more tightly to our cells and hide from frontline immune defenders called antibodies that try to block the virus from invading our cells.

There’s been no spike in deaths lately in South Africa so maybe BA.4 and BA.5 are just another step in the trend towards a more transmissible virus that causes less severe illness. It does leave me wondering about what this means for the next generation of vaccines, though. If Pfizer and Moderna switch over to a vaccine geared towards Omicron, what good will that vaccine do us if BA.4 and BA.5 can break through immunity generated by Omicron itself?

Speaking of mass contagion, America’s most celebrated superspreader event reportedly continues to pile up victims:

Reporters not reporting on mistakes made by reporters is an old tradition in reporting. Fauci has reportedly complained behind the scenes that the White House set a bad example by letting the WHCD go forward when the virus is still spreading so widely, but at last check not a single person who caught COVID there has been hospitalized. More contagious, less severe, even at the White House Correspondents Dinner.



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A TikTok dentist says cavities are contagious – is the viral claim true? | Dentists

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Next time you’re considering a passionate embrace, you might want to consult your partner’s dental records.

A Houston dentist is confronting TikTok with a brutal truth: you can get cavities from kissing the wrong person. “Thinking about the kiss I gave my husband even though he has cavities,” Dr Tasneem Mahmood writes in her video, captioned: “And that’s on cavities being contagious.” The clip has been viewed more than a million times.

It seems bizarre – how could a void in your tooth result in a similar crater in the mouth of a lover? But to dentists, it’s not exactly breaking news.

Experts have been aware of the transmissibility of tooth decay since at least the 1970s, according to Dr John Featherstone, professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Dentistry at the University of California, San Francisco.

Decay is linked to the presence of certain bacterial strains in our mouths, and that bacteria can be exchanged between people through the saliva – by, say, kissing.

In 2011, a dentist told the New York Times about a patient in her 40s who had never had a cavity – until she started seeing a guy who hadn’t visited the dentist in 18 years. Featherstone, who has spent four decades investigating the management of tooth decay, has seen similar cases in his own research.

But the bacteria don’t do the job on their own. “The second absolutely essential thing for tooth decay is frequent ingestion of what we call fermentable carbohydrates. So sucrose, glucose, fructose, high fructose corn syrup and bread for that matter,” Featherstone says.

The bacteria feed on the carbohydrates that we unwittingly provide for them, and they produce acid in the process. This acid dissolves the calcium phosphate in our teeth and leads to decay.

So even if your partner does give you some of these bacteria, you can improve your odds of staying healthy by following good dental practices. That includes avoiding excessive ingestion of these risky carbohydrates, maintaining “very low frequency of ingestion of sugars during the day in between meals”, Featherstone says. It also means “brushing twice a day with a fluoride-containing toothpaste”. (Here’s a much more detailed account of Featherstone’s findings, aimed at providers but with useful information for patients.)

“Most of us have these decay-producing bacteria in our mouths,” says Featherstone. “I do. And I don’t have tooth decay – I haven’t had it for decades.”

That doesn’t mean we should let dental nightmares stop us from expressing love, Featherstone says. “Kissing is a really good way to pass on any disease from one to another. So I think it’s very important not to say that kissing is bad, because it’s part of humans’ activity.”

Mahmood agrees, telling Insider she isn’t advising against kissing people with cavities. “Not at all,” she tells the site. “Having cavities is not a moral failing.”

Still, Featherstone says, “be careful if your partner has lots and lots of decay. They are going to transmit to you.” You’ll need to take extra care with your hygiene. “So if your partner is loaded with active decay, do send them to a dentist and get it fixed.”

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When is Covid contagious? How long you’re infectious with coronavirus and when you can test positive

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The BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron is continuing to cause high Covid case numbers in the UK.

It comes at a time when restrictions have all but ended and the Government has scrapped the universal provision of free Covid tests.

The legal requirement to self-isolate after testing positive has also been dropped, with Boris Johnson instead asking people to exercise personal responsibility.

Here’s what you should do if you catch the virus, and how long you can be contagious for.

When are you most contagious with Covid?

For previous variants of Covid-19, such as Alpha and Delta, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said symptoms could begin to develop anywhere between two days and two weeks after infection.

However, the incubation period – the time between infection and symptoms appearing – for Omicron and its offshoots is believed to be much shorter: between three and five days.

Harvard University says: “People are thought to be most contagious early in the course of their illness.

“With Omicron, most transmission appears to occur during the one to two days before onset of symptoms, and in the two to three days afterwards. People with no symptoms can also spread the coronavirus to others.”

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said in December: “Recent analysis from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) suggests that the window between infection and infectiousness may be shorter for the Omicron variant than the Delta variant.”

Data shows that the majority of people are no longer infectious seven days after beginning to experience symptoms or first testing positive, particularly when vaccinated, and the vast majority are no longer infectious after 10 days.

How long can you test positive for?

Most people will stop testing positive within 10 days of starting to experience symptoms, or receiving their first positive test.

However, it is possible to continue testing positive for weeks or even months after having the virus.

The good news is that even if you are continuing to test positive after a long time, it is highly unlikely you are actually contagious.

The Gavi Vaccine Alliance explains: “The time taken to test negative after contracting Covid-19 depends on the severity of the case, and also on the test itself.

“PCR tests that hunt out parts of viral genetic material (RNA in the case of Covid-19) in our bodies and amplify it so we can detect it are extremely sensitive and can even pick up the presence of few viral fragments. This is because fragments of viral RNA can remain in our bodies long after the infection is over and the virus has been cleared from our system.”

What are the symptoms of Covid?

The NHS now lists the following as official Covid symptoms:

  • High temperature or shivering (chills) – a high temperature means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
  • New, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or three or more coughing episodes in 24 hours
  • Loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
  • Shortness of breath
  • Feeling tired or exhausted
  • Aching body
  • Headache
  • Sore throat
  • Blocked or runny nose
  • Loss of appetite
  • Diarrhoea
  • Feeling sick or being sick

For most of the pandemic, only the first three symptoms above were listed by the NHS.

However, it added a further nine signs at the start of April, explaining: “The symptoms are very similar to symptoms of other illnesses, such as colds and flu.”

More on Covid-19

What should you do if you have Covid?

In England and Wales people are no longer legally required to self-isolate after experiencing Covid symptoms or testing positive. Scotland and Northern Ireland still have mandatory isolation in place.

However, the UK Government is continuing to advise people with Covid to stay at home and avoid contact with others.

If you test positive or experience symptoms, the NHS advises taking the following steps:

  • Try to work from home if you can – if you’re unable to work from home, ask your employer about options available to you
  • Stay at home if you can – this helps reduce the number of people you have contact with
  • Avoid contact with people at higher risk from Covid-19, especially if their immune system means they’re at higher risk of serious illness from Covid-19, even if they’ve had the vaccine
  • Follow advice on how to avoid spreading the virus to people you live with
  • Let people who need to come into your home know that you’ve tested positive or have symptoms – they can then take steps to protect themselves, such as wearing a face covering that fits well, staying away from you as much as they can, and washing their hands regularly
  • Contact your healthcare provider and tell them about your positive test result or symptoms if you’re asked to attend a medical or dental appointment in person
  • Ask friends, family or neighbours to get food or other essentials for you

If a child or person aged 18 or under tests positive they should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for three days. This starts from the day after they did the test.

Previously, people were advised to leave isolation after five full days if they tested negative two days in a row, or after 10 days if they were continuing to test positive.

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Health

Dog Owners Warned Of Highly Contagious Virus Spreading Across South Florida – CBS Miami

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami-Dade Animal Services is urging dog owners to keep a watch on their pets out in public as a new highly contagious disease spreads across South Florida.

It’s called Canine Infectious Respiratory Disease Complex (CIRDC).

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“Canine infectious respiratory disease complex is like a canine flu or canine cold. It’s multiple viruses that affect the respiratory tract and causes respiratory symptoms. Sneezing, coughing, and hacking,” said Dr. Maria Serrano, a veterinarian at Animal Services.

Animal Services said there have been many cases of CIRDC reported throughout South Florida. They urge dog owners to help protect their pets by keeping them current on routine vaccines and away from places with multiple dogs.

“Stay away from places that have dogs conglomerating. So dog parks, groomers, just anywhere where there’s a lot of dogs together. Also, avoid nose to nose contact between dogs,” said Serrano.

To protect the pets in its shelter, Animal Services is temporarily suspending the following services until further notice for their dogs.

  • Wellness Clinic – Spay/Neuter surgeries, vaccinations, microchipping
  • Receiving – Owner surrender
  • Offsite pet adoption events

The virus is spread by direct contact with an infected dog and by contact with people who have been exposed to the virus. The virus can be carried on people’s clothing, hands, and on items such as food/water bowls, collars/leashes, toys, and bedding.

However, it is easily killed by most disinfectants, handwashing with soap and water, normal laundering of clothing, and washing bowls and toys with soap and water.

At Trails and Tails Park in Doral, some dog owners said they’ve never heard of CIRDC.

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“No, I haven’t heard about it. It’s the first time I’m hearing about it,” said Giavoni Tardencilla.

When asked if he was concerned about it, he replied, “not really. This is the third time I’ve brought them to this park. I walk him at home but it doesn’t really concern me.”

Ximena Aponte also had little concern.

“We exercise, we eat right, above all the Lord will protect us,” said Aponte. “He’s not around many dogs. He’s always around the neighbors’ dogs and these dogs, but not that many dogs are around.”

Dr. Serrano said the virus passes through droplets in the air and is highly contagious. She said dog owners should treat it like COVID, keep a safe distance from other dogs because it has the potential to be dangerous.

“It can progress to something more serious, pneumonia, fever, lethargy, not eating,” she said.

If your dog starts to present with symptoms, get to your vet because there is a treatment. Your dog can be put on a regimen of antibiotics. The incubation period is three and 10 days. If infected, it can last two weeks to a month.

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Humans and cats can’t catch the virus.

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