It’s the Valentine’s Day Special Edition! Because we love our readers so much, we are bringing you a couple of special Valentine’s features in addition to our normal round up of updates, releases, and events, including Beth Cameron’s departure from the NSC. And no, it isn’t just you- masks really do make people look more attractive, according to one recent study! Finally, because we want you all to share the biodefense love, we have created special Pandora Report Valentine’s Day cards to be shared with all those dear to you. XOXO -The Pandora Report.

Dr. Beth Cameron to Leave the National Security Council

After a year in her position as the NSC Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense, Dr. Cameron will soon leave the position. She previously held the same position under President Obama from 2016 to 2017, helping author a pandemic playbook for the administration. In 2018, President Trump opted to eliminate the office she once led, moving its staffers onto other teams, drawing sharp criticism in 2020 as the pandemic began. She will be replaced by Dr. Raj Panjabi, the Global Health Malaria Coordinator at USAID and former CEO of Last Mile Health, a nonprofit that helps develop community healthcare systems globally. Panjabi’s transition comes as there is tension and debate within the administration about the direction of Biden’s COVID-19 response at home and abroad, including arguments that global vaccine donation efforts targeted at the developing world lack transparency.

Thank you @rajpanjabi ! There is *literally* no one better or more capable to take on this role. You will bring brilliance, excellence, humility. Best part? Getting to finally work with & learn from you on @WHNSC these next few weeks. The nation and world are lucky to have you! https://t.co/a770Wy8KHY

— Beth Cameron (@BethCameron_DC) February 10, 2022

Public Health Vaccines Announces Its First Clinical Trial Evaluating Its Nipah Vaccine

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) recently announced that its development partner, Public Health Vaccines, has initiated the first clinical trial for its Nipah virus vaccine. First identified in 1999, Nipah virus, the inspiration for the fictional MEV-1 virus in the film Contagion, is a zoonotic virus normally found in fruit bats that is known to cause illness in pigs and humans. Its case fatality rate ranges from 40% to 75%, treatment consists of supportive care, and clinical presentations can range from asymptomatic infections (subclinical) to acute respiratory infection and fatal encephalitis. The Cambridge, MA company announced on Wednesday that its single-dose PHV02 vaccine started its Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate its safety and immunogenicity. As the virus can spread person-to-person, Nipah virus is a priority pathogen for the WHO and a category C bioterrorism agent for the CDC. In light of this, CEPI has invested over $100 million in four promising Nipah vaccine candidates, with the first, Auro Vaccines and PATH’s HeV-sG-V vaccine candidate, reaching clinical trials in March of 2020.

Department of State Established the Chemical Forensics International Technical Working Group

The US Department of State established the Chemical Forensics International Technical Working Group (CFITWG) “to address gaps in chemical forensic science and capabilities through an international partnership of experts from science, policy, academic, law enforcement, and export-control organizations.” The State Department website explains that, “The effort is an ad hoc and voluntary association of practitioners of chemical forensics, including participation by policy makers, members of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) designated laboratories network and Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), academic institutions, and the law enforcement community. The group’s efforts have contributed to the work of the SAB to help strengthen the OPCW’s investigative options in the future. The group meets biennially.” Areas of interest for this group include “Identification of chemical attribution signatures and associated data analytics capabilities for selected classes of chemical threat agents including toxic industrial chemicals (TICs), chemical warfare agent surrogates, explosives, pharmaceutical agents (including counterfeits), drugs of abuse, pesticides, and toxins; Development of forensic tools such as analytical and chemometric procedures and standardize methods of data handling and security for advancement of best practices to support forensic-based analyses (such as those governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal procedure); and Investigation of chemical analysis tools and capabilities from other fields for forensic and retrospective analytical purposes (to include survey, compilation, and analysis of reports and publications, in the public sphere).”

Medicare Penalizes Highly-Rated Hospitals for Having High Numbers of Patient Infections

According to a recent article Kaiser Health News, Medicare has penalized 764 hospitals, nearly 40 of which it also happens to rate as the best in the country, for having some of the highest numbers of patient infections and potentially avoidable complications. The penalty is a 1% reduction in Medicare payments over 12 months and is based on experiences of Medicare patients discharged from hospitals between July 2018 and the end of 2019. The penalties are designed to force hospitals to focus on reducing things like bedsores, hip fractures, blood clots, and hospital acquired infections. Top names on the list of penalized hospitals include Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, and two Mayo Clinic hospitals in Red Wing and Phoenix. 2,046 hospitals have been penalized at least once in the near decade since the Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program began. Some researchers continue to cast doubt on whether or not these penalties motivate hospitals to improve their efforts to prevent these issues, which some attribute to the system’s arguable incentivization for hospitals to simply not report the number of these incidents that occur in their facilities accurately. Critics also point to the fact that the Affordable Care Act mandates these penalties be directed at the 25% of hospitals with the highest rates of these issues, even if they have improved or simply fall in the wrong place in a numbers game. Academic institutions argue too that they are disproportionately targeted by these penalties because they are more diligent in reporting such occurrences.

Russian Media Spreading Disinformation About US Bioweapons Amid Build-Up on Ukrainian Border

Tim Kirby, a US ex-patriate and host on Russian state-owned media network RT, recently alleged on his YouTube channel that the US is developing biological weapons in a network of laboratories in Eastern Europe. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently highlighted, Kirby was quoted saying, “Someone I’ve known for a few years has come forward,” Kirby told the almost 60,000 viewers who’ve watched the video so far, “to put together a picture of a network of bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine, that is very large and very Washington-supported that could be quite dangerous for us all.” The Bulletin continues, however, by explaining that Kirby is not alone and that this is being echoed at the top levels of the Russian government. This comes as Russia and China recently released a joint statement condemning supposed US bioweapons activities. Both China and Russia have historically stoked false allegations about US BW development and use, including throughout their histories of the Korean War. In 2021, China offered an alternative version of events in which the US military introduced COVID-19 into the country when it sent members of the US Army from Ft Detrick to Wuhan for the Military World Games in late 2019. The Chinese now also claim the Omicron variant entered the country on a piece of mail from Canada, further demonstrating how eager these countries are to avoid responsibility and sow disinformation. In particular, the Russians have focused on DTRA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, prompting DTRA and the Department of State to make multiple statements fully denying the claims, particularly those made about the Richard G. Lugar Center for Public Health Research in Tbilisi, Georgia. However, as Russia starts a new round of such false claims while also amassing troops on its border with Ukraine, some point to the pattern of previous Soviet/Russian BW claim-making as potential evidence they are trying to sow distrust of the US in Ukraine and the rest of the Russian periphery ahead of an invasion.

Valentine’s Day Special Highlights

If You Don’t Have a Valentine This Year, the Kissing Bugs Might Have Your Back

Nothing says “I love you” quite like a deep dive on a spreading neglected tropical disease, right? We missed wishing you all an informative World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day on January 30, but we will take the chance now to discuss this specific NTD and some of the research currently being done on it. Chagas disease, also sometimes referred to as American trypanosomiasis, is a disease caused by the parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, and is spread primarily by insects of the Triatominae subfamily, known as kissing bugs. Generally, the bugs climb onto people as they sleep, taking a blood meal before walking away. They defecate on people when doing so, allowing the parasite to infect them and cause the disease. As is the case in general with NTDs, there is an established link between poverty and Chagas transmission, associated largely with factors like poor housing and inadequate access to healthcare. Furthermore, according to a January 2022 study on seroprevalence of Chagas in children in New York, there is an “… estimated 1% to 5% risk of transplacental infection among children born to mothers with Chagas disease. This leads to chronic infection among children who may never visit an endemic region. Although up to 40% of neonates with congenital Chagas disease have signs of infection, neonatal diagnosis is rare in the US due to limited clinician awareness. Additionally, Chagas disease treatment with benznidazole is highly effective and well-tolerated during childhood, making pediatric diagnosis ideal for reducing future morbidity.,” further demonstrating how urgent this problem is.

Though screening is not common in the US, it is estimated by the CDC that approximately 238,000 to 347,000 individuals in the United States are infected with T. cruzi, highlighting that this is not an “over there” issue, though many were infected in Latin America. According to Johns Hopkins, some experts estimate as many as 11 million people in South and Central America and Mexico have the disease, with most not even knowing they have it (up to 70% are asymptomatic). Chagas does not go away on its own and, without treatment, can lead to death and is known to cause irreversible cardiac damage in 30% of patients and neurological and digestive lesions in 10%. Treatment is mostly limited to benznidazole and nifurtimox, which bring long administration periods, frequent side effects, and low efficacy once the disease is in its chronic phase. This means that combination therapies, as a study from this year re-affirmed, are important as they allow for more effective dosing and shorter treatment periods, though they are most effective in the acute phase of the disease (including in cases of congenital transmission), diminishing as it progresses. This disease poses a potential massive burden both economically and in terms of human cost, making further research into treatments that are effective in the chronic stage and slowing the spread of the disease incredibly important.

Do you want to learn more about Chagas disease? Check out the This Podcast Will Kill You episode on it here. If you live in an area where there are kissing bugs, consider sending found bugs to Kissing Bugs & Chagas Disease in the United States, a community science program run by Texas A&M University working to use a One Health approach in their research while building clinician awareness of this disease nationally.

But If You Still Don’t Have a Valentine…At Least Your Mask Might Make You Look More Attractive

According to a January 2022 study published by researchers at Cardiff University, “Beyond the beauty of occlusion: medical masks increase facial attractiveness more than other face coverings,” face masks increased the rate at which female participants rated male faces as attractive. This, they explain, is contrary to the sanitary-mask effect, or the finding that medical face masks tend to prompt an image of disease, causing people to perceive masked faces as less attractive. The researchers acknowledge that faces could have been rated higher due to occlusion of negative features in general, rather than occlusion specifically with a face mask. However, their participants rated male faces as most attractive when wearing medical face masks as well as more attractive when wearing cloth masks than when not occluded at all. Base attractiveness was not shown to interact with the type of occlusion, suggesting that this effect was not due to simple occlusion of negative features. After two years perfecting smiling with just our eyes, it makes sense!

Envisioning a New Strategy to Counter Great Power Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction

The US Air Force Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies at Air University has just released this new report authored by Albert J. Mauroni as part of “The Counterproliferation Papers.” The report argues that the past several administrations have been intentionally vague in defining how the US should prevent the proliferation of WMD globally, addressing general threats like weapons systems, natural diseases, and classes of weapons instead of specific threats. The author argues that, “In particular, this behavior has resulted in an erosion as to the norms and rules on the conduct of great powers using non-nuclear WMD in contemporary security scenarios. As a result, the U. S government requires a new strategic approach to countering WMD that adequately addresses CBRN-specific threats in the context of great power competition.” He goes on to argue that interagency efforts to coordinate counter-WMD efforts need to be more focused solely on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons developed by nation-states specifically for military operations. Suggestions in the report include 1) creation of a new National Strategy for Countering WMD that explains how the US government wants to prioritize WMD threat sources and align its resources accordingly, 2) abandon what is described as the “agnostic view” of current national/DoD strategies “so as to adequately address Chinese/Russian WMD challenges as well as acknowledge the differences between peer/near-peer and lesser states, as well as violent extremist organizations,” and 3) encourage a more engaged NSC staff which oversees strategies developed by relevant executive agencies.

Council on Strategic Risks- How are Biological Threats Evolving?

On Friday, February 18 from 12:30pm – 2:00pm EST, join the Council on Strategic Risks as we host How are Biological Threats Evolving in a World with COVID-19, a webinar featuring a keynote address from Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD) Deborah Rosenblum and discussion from a panel of experts. RSVP here. This webinar will center on understanding how biological threats are evolving, including how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced these risks. Hon. Sherri Goodman, Chair of the Board at CSR, will introduce Hon. ASD Rosenblum, who will provide her perspective on key biological threats and DoD’s efforts to address them. 

The discussion will feature three fantastic panelists: 

• Dr. Filippa Lentzos, Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the Centre for Science & Security at King’s College London, who will provide a geopolitical lens and discuss changing norms in bioweapons and biosecurity
• Dr. Kevin Esvelt, Associate Professor and Leader of the Sculpting Evolution Group at MIT, who will explore the influence of technological change on biological threats 
• Christine Parthemore, CEO of the Council on Strategic Risks, who will share CSR’s soon-to-be-released report on how COVID-19 may influence state and non-state actors’ motivations regarding biological weapons.

The panel discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A. This webinar will be recorded and open to the public, including members of the press.

Meetings of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

As stipulated by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is hereby giving notice that a meeting is scheduled to be held for the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB). The meeting will be open to the public via Zoom and teleconference; a pre-registered public comment session will be held during the meeting. Pre-registration is required for members of the public who wish to present their comments at the meeting via Zoom/teleconference. Individuals who wish to send in their written public comment should send an email to CARB@hhs.gov. Registration information is available on the website http://www.hhs.gov/​paccarb and must be completed by February 25, 2022 for the March 2, 2022 Public Meeting. Additional information about registering for the meeting and providing public comment can be obtained at http://www.hhs.gov/​paccarb on the Upcoming Meetings page. The meeting is scheduled to be held on March 2, 2022, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET (times are tentative and subject to change). The confirmed times and agenda items for the meeting will be posted on the website for the PACCARB at http://www.hhs.gov/​paccarb when this information becomes available. Pre-registration for attending the meeting is strongly suggested and should be completed no later than February 25, 2022.

Inaugural Public Meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Children and Disasters (NACCD)

The inaugural public meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Children and Disasters (NACCD) will be held on Thursday, February 17 from 11:00am – 4:00pm ET.  Pre-registration for this event is required and can be accessed along with additional meeting information through the online event page. 

Join the new advisory committee, as they are sworn in along with the presentation and discussion of challenges, opportunities, and priorities for national public health and medical preparedness, response and recovery, specific to the needs of children and their families in disasters.  In addition to having an opportunity to introduce and meet the new advisory committee, we will have presentations from the ASPR Pediatric Disaster Centers of Excellence, HRSA Regional Pandemic Preparedness Network and subject matter experts and colleagues on current challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic and related mental health crisis impacting children and families.                                                   

Following the presentations, committee members are inviting subject matter experts from industry, academia, health systems, health consumer organizations, and state, local, tribal, and territorial public health, and emergency management agencies to provide comments to the NACCD.  Those wishing to speak during the meeting or who wish their written remarks to be addressed during the meeting, may email NACCD@hhs.gov.  Individual remarks during the meeting are limited to 4 minutes each and displaying images and/or slides for public speakers will not be available. For inclusion in the public speaking portion of the agenda, please provide name, position title, organizational or sectoral association, and a brief summary of planned comments.  Those selected for public comments will receive confirmation by email prior to the meeting with additional instructions.  The floor will be opened to as many relevant comments as possible.

Westminster Health Forum- Priorities for the UK Health Security Agency and Preparedness for Future Health Threats

This conference will discuss priorities for the new UK Health Security Agency. It will be an opportunity to discuss priorities and future outlook for the new agency – and key issues for the development and implementation of its role in improving national public health and responding to future health threats. Sessions in the agenda look at:

• the UKHSA’s role – scope, priorities and opportunities for collaboration
• prevention and mitigation – key issues for resources, use of data, and health surveillance capabilities
• public health research – priorities for investment and funding, innovation, and collaboration
• community health and local healthcare  – collaboration and local responses, reducing inequalities, and the role of the UKHSA
• international collaboration – priorities for development and opportunities for UK leadership
• lessons from COVID 19 – the UK’s response, the role of genomics, and preparing for future health threats

A keynote session will be offered by Dame Jenny Harries, Chief Executive, UKHSA. There will be further keynote contributions from Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, Saïd Professorship of Vaccinology, Jenner Institute & Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford; Professor Kate Ardern, Director of Public Health, Wigan Council and Lead Director of Public Health for Health Protection and Emergency Planning, Greater Manchester Combined Authority; Dr. Laura Blackburn, Head of Science, PHG Foundation; and Richard Sloggett, Founder and Programme Director, Future Health; and former Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. This will be taking place April 27, 9 am- 1 pm GMT. More information and registration is available here.

Michigan State- 2022 Innovation Forum: Bridging Technologies and Market Needs

Free registration is now open for the “2022 Innovation Forum: Bridging Technologies and Market Needs,” held virtually on February 25-26, 2022. It is sponsored by the Global Alliance for Rapid Diagnostics (GARD), a multidisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners from around the world committed to improving global health by reducing the spread of infectious diseases through early diagnosis. The focus of this symposium is to serve as a marketplace where innovative technologies can match the customers’ needs. Through this symposium, you will have the opportunity to meet and learn from people worldwide so that we can come together to develop solutions to help those in low-resource populations, prevent future pandemics, and save lives. Register at this link.

Pandora Report Valentine’s Day Cards

Nothing says “I love and am thinking of you” in the middle of a pandemic quite like these Valentine’s cards. Send a couple to your friends and share them on your socials to spread the love. Don’t forget to tag us on Twitter @PandoraReport and on Instagram @thepandorareport!

This edition brings more updates from the CW world as the Council of Europe adopts resolutions calling on Russia to release Navalny and the OPCW releases the report from its Fact Finding Mission’s investigation of alleged use of chemical weapons in Kafr Zeita, Syria in 2016. We also cover the NCSC’s new bulletin discussing threats foreign exploitation poses to US citizens’ health data, excess deaths in the United States since the pandemic began, an opportunity to join us in the biodefense program at the Schar School, and much more.

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Calls on Russia to Investigate Navalny’s Poisoning and Comply with the CWC

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) noted during a plenary session last week “the ample medical evidence” indicating Alexei Navalny was poisoned with an organophosphorus cholinesterase inhibitor structurally related to the Novichok family. The PACE highlighted that five different tests determined its similarity to the family of nerve agents known only to have been produced in state laboratories of the USSR and, reportedly, Russia. PACE adopted a resolution calling on Russia to fulfill its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights “by launching an independent and effective investigation into the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.” According to the organization, “PACE also called on the Russian Federation to “immediately release Mr Navalny” under the interim measure indicated by the European Court of Human Rights on 16 February 2021. The adopted resolution called on the Russian Federation “to investigate the alleged development, production, stockpiling, and use of a chemical weapon on Russian territory”, providing concrete replies to questions posed by other States parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention as soon as possible. Finally, PACE called on the Russian Federation to reach agreement “on a technical assistance visit by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons” at the very earliest opportunity.” A supporting report authored by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights cited two articles co-authored by Drs. Gregory Koblentz and Stefano Costanzi- “Updating the CWC: How We Got Here and What Is Next,” and “Controlling Novichoks after Salisbury: Revising the Chemical Weapons Convention Schedules.”

OPCW Issues Fact-Finding Mission Report on Chemical Weapons Use Allegation in Kafr Zeita, Syria, on 1 October 2016

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ Fact Finding Mission (FFM) released its report on the FFM’s investigation regarding incidents of alleged use of toxic chemicals as weapons in Kafr Zeita, Governorate of Hama, Syrian Arab Republic in October 2016. The report concludes that industrial chlorine cylinder “barrels” were used as weapons in this incident. The FFM report was shared with States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention. The report will also be transmitted to the United Nations Security Council through the UN Secretary-General. The FFM was established in 2014 in response to ongoing claims of CW attacks in Syria with the mandate of determining if the weapons were used or not- not who used them. The FFM has previously determined that the use of chlorine, sulfur mustard, and sarin as chemical weapons took place in other incidents in the Syrian Arab Republic. See the Arms Control Association’s timeline of Syrian CW activity from 2012-2021 here.

White House Releases New Fact Sheet Reiterating Biden Administration’s Commitment to Global Health

The White House released its new fact sheet discussing the administration’s commitment to global health, boasting that the US remains the largest global health donor in the world, writing “In Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, the United States appropriated over $9 billion in global health programs, in addition to almost $16 billion in emergency supplemental funding for COVID-19.” The fact sheet states that, in addition to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration remains interested in, “strengthening health systems and institutions; advancing global health security; combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis; advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, and maternal, neonatal, and child health; closing gaps in nutrition and non-communicable diseases; and accelerating efforts towards universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Agenda.” Among the priorities listed in the fact sheet are supporting and strengthening the WHO, leading the global pandemic response, advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, continuing global leadership in combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, and building health security capacities. The fact sheet also notes that the US will rejoin the WHO’s Executive Board in May 2022, and will launch a strategic dialogue with WHO to ensure US and WHO mutual priorities are fully aligned. Other major points include improving pandemic preparedness broadly and accelerating global COVID-19 response efforts through the roll out of the Initiative for Global Vaccine Access.

Russia’s New Biosafety Regulations

Russia has drafted two new laboratory biosecurity regulations, one targeted at the physical protection of collections of pathogenic microorganisms and viruses and another approving a list of potentially dangerous biological objects, and measures to prevent accidents involving such objects and limit biological contamination from such accidents. Russian President Vladimir Putin approved measures to re-examine existing chemical and biological safety policies in 2019, with the government noting there are nearly 10,000 potentially dangerous chemical and biological enterprises in the country, most of which are located in cities with populations over 100,000 people. This was followed by Putin’s signing of the 2020 Law On Biological Safety in the Russian Federation, which “defines the principles for ensuring biological safety, the main biological threats and a set of measures to protect the public and the environment from dangerous biological factors, to stave off biological threats, to create and develop a system for monitoring biological risks, combat the spread of infectious diseases, form, preserve and develop collections of pathogenic microorganisms and viruses, plan the creation of production facilities and reserves, including the state material reserve of products to ensure the safety of the public, and to provide medical help to people.” Provisions in these proposals include creating a system for hazardous facilities protection which identifies and accounts for all pathogens, builds fences around facilities to prevent unauthorized access, and ensures that the number of people allowed to work with pathogens is limited.

US COVID Cases On the Rise- The Pandemic’s Uncounted Deaths

As the official number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States approaches 900,000, a recent Wall Street Journal article draws attention to the 987,456 excess deaths the country has suffered since the pandemic began at the time of writing. The article explains that, since the start of the pandemic, 6.8 million Americans have died- nearly one million more than expected in that time period. It explains that these excess deaths, as expected, are overwhelmingly attributed to COVID-19, but that the remainder likely includes improperly recorded COVID-19 deaths as well as deaths from other causes amplified by the pandemic. Examples of the latter include disruptions in healthcare and a spike in overdoses nationally. The article offers a particularly sobering statistic- “Covid-19 has left the same proportion of the population dead—about 0.3%—as did World War II, and in less time.” Important to consider too is how this pandemic has particularly impacted seniors, front-line workers, and minority populations, something that could not be said about the 1918 flu pandemic or major wars, which primarily impact younger people. Worse yet, the United States’ COVID-19 deaths per capita are the highest among large, high-income countries, according to The New York Times. This is the case despite hopes that Omicron’s generally milder nature might spare the US the struggles and destruction of previous waves. However, the Times notes, “Deaths have now surpassed the worst days of the autumn surge of the Delta variant, and are more than two-thirds as high as the record tolls of last winter, when vaccines were largely unavailable.” The United States’ experience with Omicron has differed than those of many comparable countries as hospital admissions continue to climb and vaccination rates lag, particularly among children.

Health Data Security Threatened by Foreign Exploitation

The National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) released a new Safeguarding Our Future bulletin focused on the threats foreign exploitation poses to US health data. The bulletin warns that efforts by the Chinese government to exploit this data, particularly DNA-related data, via hacking and partnering with US organizations have increased over the course of the pandemic. The bulletin goes on to detail risks posed to personal privacy, intelligence, the economy, and military this poses, urging US organizations to exercise caution in partnering with low-cost diagnostic testing organizations or services. Earlier in the pandemic, BGI Group (formerly known as Beijing Genomics Institute) specifically targeted at least eleven US states, sometimes aggressively, with attempts to get their tests in government-run labs as states struggled to build testing capacity. BGI also came under scrutiny in at least five countries for its NIFTY test, a prenatal test that collects DNA from women, which was proven to have been used to amass data from over eight million women globally on behalf of the PLA. While the Pentagon warned in 2019 of the dangers posed to US servicemembers by at-home DNA testing kits, this NCSC bulletin marks a more blunt warning issued to US companies and consumers alike.

NIAID Pandemic Preparedness Plan Targets ‘Prototype’ and Priority Pathogens

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is re-focusing on preparing for a myriad of other viral threats that could cause future public health emergencies, building on decades of major research responses and medical countermeasure development undertaken by the agency. According to NIAID’s new Pandemic Preparedness Plan, the institute will direct its preparedness efforts on two fronts. First, researchers will identify “prototype pathogens” — viruses within viral families with the potential to cause significant human disease. Knowledge gained from studying prototype pathogens will also build a framework for a rapid research and product development response for other viruses within that virus family should an outbreak occur. For example, NIAID’s earlier research on SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV informed rapid vaccine development for SARS-CoV-2 in 2020. The plan’s second key research focus is on priority pathogens — viruses already known to be capable of causing significant human illness or death, such as Zika virus. This plan was informed by a November 2021 workshop NIAID hosted with members of the scientific community to facilitate discussions on the development of a pandemic response strategy and prioritization of prototype pathogens from viral families of concern. This plan also includes support for critical basic and preclinical studies to characterize these prototype and priority pathogens, including understanding viral biology and structure, host-immune responses, mechanisms of immune evasion, disease pathogenesis, and animal models of disease. This is in addition to efforts to support novel epidemiology and pathogen discovery programs, pre-clinical and clinical infrastructure capacity, technology enhancements to hasten therapeutic and vaccine development, and a robust and coordinated communication structure, according to the plan.

Predicting the Next Variant Surge- Dr. Rick Bright’s New York Times Opinion Essay

Dr. Rick Bright, an immunologist, virologist, and vaccine expert at the Pandemic Prevention Institute, recently published an opinion piece in the New York Times– “The Clues to the Next Variant Surge Are All Around Us.” In it he discusses how, often times, by the time a new variant is noticed and analyzed, it is already spreading in a community, if not beyond it. Of this he writes, “This analysis process is like testing every piece of hay in a stack to see whether it’s a needle — or, really, the equivalent of choosing and testing just 1 percent of the haystack.” He continues on to argue that scientists should focus their attention on sewage and the air in order to find new variants faster as people can shed the virus in their feces and exhaled breath, meaning the virus can be spotted before people have been tested or begin showing symptoms. He points to wastewater monitoring during the Omicron surge in places like New York City, Boston, Minneapolis, and St. Paul, which helped these cities identify where in the surge they were at. He writes, too, that far less attention has been paid to testing of air samples, though the Chinese reportedly have developed an air detection system for use at the 2022 Winter Olympics and UC Davis has begun monitoring air filters in elementary schools in the surrounding community. Though these methods offer innovative ways to tackle the challenge of tracking new variants, Bright acknowledges there are hurdles to them, such as how much “background noise” environmental samples contain (such as other viruses, bacteria, and fungi found in human waste) and how these methods would likely fall victim to online misinformation. He concludes that these methods do not offer a singular solution, but that they will be best used alongside other data sources to create a more holistic view of the virus’s spread around the world.

International Union for Conservation of Nature Releases New Situation Analysis

IUCN has released a new publication by Drs. Richard Kock and Hernan Caceres-Escobar, both veterinarians and One Health experts, detailing the roles and risks of wildlife in the emergence of human infectious diseases. This situation analysis presents an evidence-based examination of the relationship between wildlife and zoonosis, wildlife and emerging human pathogens and associated diseases, their origins, drivers, and risk factors. The report highlights key knowledge, and provides perspective on where research, policy, interventions, and capacity building are needed to reduce risks of zoonoses and emergent animal-origin human diseases globally. The publication is available here.

United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs Releases Newsletter Discussing Secretary-General’s Mechanism

UNODA has just released its third edition of its newsletter detailing updates on the Secretary-General’s Mechanism (UNSGM), a framework that helps facilitate the investigation of alleged use of chemical, biological, or toxin weapons in violation of relevant rules or customs of international law. The issue covers UNODA’s briefing on the UNSGM for member states, the nomination process for the mechanism’s roster, and expertise represented on it. It also includes an interview with Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack, a German microbiologist and veterinarian who carried out more than 25 UNSCOM inspection missions (eight of which as Chief Inspector) focused on Iraqi biological weapons.

NDIA Releases Vital Signs 2022

The National Defense Industrial Association’s third annual Vital Signs report is now available. The report features a collaborative study between the NDIA Strategy & Policy team and NDIA Emerging Technologies Institute. With a length of approximately 60 pages, each iteration of the Vital Signs report is able to capture the health of the industrial base in an accessible format for the wider public. Since the report is annual, it serves as an important reference when viewing trends within the defense industrial base and can be used by policymakers, industry professionals, and students alike. In addition to Vital Signs’ standard coverage of competition, emerging technologies, industrial security, and workforce issues, this edition covers the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on both supply chain and surge readiness of the defense industrial base. The report is available for download here.

Schar School of Policy and Government Master’s Degree and Graduate Certificate Open House

The Schar School is offering a virtual open house on Thursday, February 10 at 6:30 pm to allow prospective students the opportunity to become more acquainted with our programs as well as meet Schar School Dean Mark Rozell, program directors, current students, alumni, and the admissions team! This will include opportunities to learn about the Biodefense MS program and graduate certificates, so be sure to register for the event here. Prospective master’s and graduate certificate students who attend this event will be provided with an application fee waiver for the Fall 2022 graduate application.

Strengthening the Public Health Workforce

Join the de Beaumont Foundation and the Public Health National Center for Innovations (PHNCI) at the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) for a webinar entitled Strengthening the Public Health Workforce on February 10 at 1pm EST to learn about the first-of-its-kind research-based estimation of the number of public health workers needed in state and local health departments. Presenters will discuss the national initiative called Staffing Up, which determined workforce levels needed to serve public health services to the nation, including how health departments can use this work to advocate for additional staffing. A conversational format will allow participants to submit questions directly to the presenters. Please register here.

DHS S&T Seeks Innovative Tech to Defense Against Chemical and Biological Threats

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) released a Request for Information (RFI) encouraging chemical and biological defense companies to bring their innovative technologies for test and evaluation in the Chemical and Biological Advanced Capability Testbed (CBT) in the New York City subway system. The deadline for submitting applications to the RFI is 5:00 p.m. EST on February 24, 2022. Qualifying applicants will be invited to participate in the Chemical and Bio-defense Testbed in the NYC subway system, which tests and evaluates cost-effective technologies to detect chemical and biological threats inside an actual subway environment, as well as mitigation strategies if threats are discovered. All applicants will be notified no later than March 9, 2022, if they’ve been chosen to participate. The project team will start integrating the selected technology this spring. This project is a collaboration between S&T, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and Argonne National Laboratory. For more information, visit the SAM.gov and https://cbt.ll.mit.edu/ or contact: 2022ChemicalandBiologicalDefenseTestbed@hq.dhs.gov.

CDC Seeking Feedback on New Rules for Verification of ABSL/BSL-4 Safety Standards

Late last month, the Federal Select Agent Program published a Federal Register Notice seeking public comment on a draft policy statement that describes verification requirements for Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4)/Animal BSL-4 laboratory facilities, including heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems testing. These requirements are designed to help ensure facilities meet design parameters and operational procedures that help meet biosafety requirements in the select agent and toxin regulations. Comments on this notice will be accepted through March 21, 2022. More information on the notice is available for download here.

WHO Seeking Experts for Technical Advisory Group on Biosafety

The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking experts to serve as members of the Technical Advisory Group on Biosafety (TAG-B). TAG-B is composed of technical experts in various areas of biological science, evolving technology, transport, safety and security. The TAG-B provides independent advice to the WHO including its strategic priorities and plans of action on specific topics relating to biosafety and biosecurity. The TAG-B will be multidisciplinary, with members who have a range of technical knowledge, skills and experience relevant to biosafety and biosecurity. Approximately 15 members may be selected. Instructions for submitting expressions of interest, as well as more information about the call for experts, is available here. The call closes on February 28.

This week we bring you a number of updates from the chemical warfare world, including Navalny’s surprise premier at the Sundance Film Festival and the OPCW’s findings on the use of chemical blistering agents in Syria. We continue our coverage of Omicron, including a startling new graphical representation of the latest surge and what this variant means for China as we approach the 2022 Winter Olympics. We also bring more events, new information about antimicrobial resistance globally, and a special feature about the United States’ greatest nuclear defenders- bottlenose dolphins and sea lions in the US Navy Marine Mammal Program.

Navalny Makes Waves at Sundance

The Sundance Film Festival’s mysterious tenth competitor in the US Documentary section, originally known only as “Untitled LP9,” made headlines this week when it turned out to actually be a 90-minute film from Daniel Roher using fly-on-the-wall footage of the Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, healing for several months in Germany after surviving an attack using a Novichok nerve agent in 2020. The film, which included a sequence in which Navalny made a prank call from the Black Forest to someone he believed to be a member of the hit squad that targeted him, convincing the individual to reveal several details about that attack by pretending to be an irate security services boss, drew shock and instant attention across the world. The Guardian explains how people at the festival reacted, with many panicking and wondering if they should get rid of the footage or call the police. Roher, working with Bulgarian investigator Christo Grozev, originally intended to make a film on another subject, but decided to focus on the Navalny poisoning after it made headlines in 2020. The pair sough out information about who may have perpetrated the attack, purchasing telephone and flight records from Russia on the dark web, allowing them to locate a group of eight men from the FBS security services who appeared to have followed Navalny around Russia for several years. Grozev then contacted Navalny in Russia, arranging to meet with him and share what they had found with Roher tagging along to film. The article explains that Navalny was already considering making a film and agreed to work with the pair. The film, which has since sold out subsequent screenings, concludes with Navalny’s January 2021 return to Russia, during which he was detained upon arrival at the airport and promptly sentenced to nearly three year’s in prison for supposedly violating the terms of his sentencing for a prior conviction largely thought to be politically-motivated.

Japan’s COVID-19 Successes

Dr. Hitoshi Oshitani, a virologist at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, recently published an op-ed, “What Japan Got Right About COVID-19,” in The New York Times. Oshitani begins with the country’s struggle as cases first appeared on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, drawing international attention as repatriation flights form Hubei Province in China continued amid historic lockdowns. Nine healthcare workers and quarantine officials who responded to the cruise ship outbreak became infected, though Oshitani contests the official reason provided for them becoming infected (via infectious droplets and contaminated surfaces) and instead contends that each actually failed to wash their hands properly. He goes on to discuss the initial discovery of asymptomatic transmission internationally and what this looked like at the Japanese Ministry of Health, as well as how the country was unique in that it used retrospective contact tracing, an approach where tracers identify an infected person and look back to determine when and where they were infected and who might have been infected simultaneously with them. He explains that this approach allowed the Japanese to determine that it was a small number of infected individuals largely spurring the spread by causing super-spreader events, mostly in closed, indoor environments, all before the end of February 2020. This, he writes, became the basis of Japan’s COVID-19 strategy, even before the WHO declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic. He then discusses how containment was not possible with this disease, unlike with SARS which tends to cause pneumonia, making it easier to identify cases. This led the Japanese to adopting the “Three Cs,” which means “avoid…closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings,” a phrase which was declared buzzword of the year in Japan for 2020. He argues that Japan never implemented lockdowns (which Japanese law prohibits) or went beyond giving strongly-worded warnings to citizens because the country’s strategy from the onset was to find ways to live with COVID-19. He explains that he thinks others have misunderstood Japan’s response, arguing that it was successful despite its challenges and economic and livelihood costs. However, others argue that Japan’s response was fragmented or that it relied too heavily on barring cases from entering the country instead of actively seeking out cases via aggressive testing like that implemented in South Korea, as highlighted by our own HyunJung (Henry) Kim (Biodefense PhD graduate) in early 2020. Oshitani’s advice for learning to live with COVID-19 globally is to embrace the Three Cs whenever there is a surge, which is good advice in general when dealing with an infectious disease, though it does not necessarily solve the problems countries like the United States have with high rates of unvaccinated individuals- especially for a country where the COVID-19 vaccines are readily available- causing them to continue to struggle with hospitalization rates and their downstream effects.

China’s Winter Olympics Woes

With the Olympics starting just one week from today, the pressure has been on for China to stick to its promise of “zero COVID.” While the PRC has claimed to have had just over 150,000 cases total since the novel coronavirus’s initial emergence in Wuhan, many have called into question whether or not the country’s case count is at all accurate. This is especially true as the Omicron variant proves to spread more easily than prior variants, though China’s reporting on case counts of the variant remain questionable at best. The current official story offered by China is that the Omicron variant entered the country on a piece of mail originating in Canada. This claim has been alluded to in news media published around the anniversary of Wuhan’s 2020 lockdown, such as on this cover of the Wuhan Evening News showing an employee in a hazmat suit fumigating a postal office. The Olympics represent an opportunity for Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader of the country since Mao Zedong himself, to demonstrate that his country is the world-class superpower he claims it is, using the prestige and abundance hosting an Olympiad brings to further legitimize the CCP and his rule. Creating a COVID-19-free bubble for the Olympics, too, allows the CCP to further propagate the idea that they have effectively managed COVID-19 and are continuing to manage it well, even as the games bring an influx of foreign athletic delegations to the capital. This COVID-free image is likely to be especially critical for the Chinese to maintain as several countries, including the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, make a diplomatic boycott of the games, citing China’s human rights violations against the minority Uyghur population in Xinjiang and its actions in Tibet and Hong Kong as some of the reasons for the boycott. Even major companies like Coca-Cola find themselves under increasing pressure to withdraw their sponsorship from the games, a sticky situation for foreign companies working hard to appease China’s sensitive nature. Talk of the Olympics has somewhat overshadowed the attention previously afforded to Chinese tennis player, Peng Shuai, a mainstay on the women’s tour who disappeared after accusing a CCP official of sexually assaulting her. After mounting pressure from the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) came down on China, a mysterious email, which the WTA insisted was not from Peng, was sent claiming Peng was safe and well. This was just the latest demonstration of how swiftly any challenging of the Party, even from an internationally-loved tennis star, can be silenced. All this to say- the Olympics represent a huge opportunity for Xi and the CCP to further legitimize themselves and present an attractive image to countries in the developing world China is currently targeting for things like debt traps or switching their diplomatic recognition to the PRC from Taiwan. However, this could be disastrous if the games bring a spike in cases while international press is present en masse, though the Party likely would still not acknowledge the scope if that were to happen. We will keep you posted on how this develops over the next couple of weeks.

ASPR TRACIE: 2021 At-a-Glance and Looking Forward

The Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response’s Technical Resources, Assistance Center, and Information Exchange (TRACIE) has just released their Year-in-Review report, featuring more than 100 resources they published in calendar year 2021. The have also released their At-a-Glance and Looking Forward video which highlights how the program’s partnerships have supported their work over the last several years. The report explains how TRACIE supported over 1.2 million site visitors and responded to nearly 10,000 technical assistance requests (3,000 of which pertained to COVID-19) in 2021 alone. The organization is looking forward to offering resources on issues like climate change and healthcare system resilience in the year ahead. They also are creating tools to assist hospital planners better prepare for disasters and learn from challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AMR On the Rise Globally

NPR released a piece this week discussing the rise of superbugs, or drug-resistant bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi, globally in the last several years. Superbugs now kill more people annually than HIV/AIDS or malaria, with low- and middle-income countries being hit the hardest by the rise in drug-resistant infections. Once thought to be a problem isolated to the wealthiest countries of the developed world, these drug-resistant infections directly killed 1.2 million people and contributed to the deaths of over 5 million globally in 2019 alone, though deaths were highest in sub-Saharan Africa (24 deaths per 100,000 population/yr. vs. an average of 13 deaths per 100,000/yr. in high-income countries). A new article in The Lancet discusses these numbers in great depth, providing what is thought to be the most comprehensive assessment of annual AMR-associated deaths. The higher rates of AMR-related deaths in the developing world exist partly because, as Dr. Fiorella Krapp Lopez, an infectious disease physician in Lima, discussed in the NPR article, there are a myriad of reasons these infections are on the rise in lower income countries. These include 1) antibiotics are often available to people in these countries without a prescription, increasing the chances of misuse and overuse, allowing microbes to gain resistance to them, 2) systems to flag potentially drug-resistant infections are generally not as sophisticated in these countries, 3) these countries generally have higher rates of healthcare-associated infections, which are more likely to become drug-resistant, and 4) while there are some new, more potent drugs in development, these lower income countries tend to rely on older, cheaper, and less-effective drugs. These challenges are compounded by the fact that major pharmaceutical companies often lack the financial incentives, or are not willing to take on the massive risks, needed now to create new antibiotics, which are increasingly limited in their applicability. In fact, this has been a problem since at least the 1960s, as this Nature article highlighted in 2020, and Alexander Fleming even warned of this in his 1945 Nobel Prize lecture when he accepted the prize for his role in discovering Penicillin. Worse yet, the NPR article concludes that the further rise of this throughout the developing world may be compounded by the pandemic as healthcare facilities struggle just to keep patients breathing, forcing testing for samples showing resistance to be placed on the back burner. This challenge presents a serious threat to global health, international development, and national security, demonstrating how a myriad of factors in the day-to-day operations of healthcare facilities can have grave, long-lasting implications for us all.

The Bioeconomy Revolution Can End the Panic-and-Neglect Cycle in Health Security”

Ryan Morhard’s new piece in ThinkGlobalHealth explains how progress in biotech can improve pandemic defenses drastically in the coming decades. Morhard is the director of policy at Gingko Bioworks, Inc., an affiliate of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security, and term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In this article, he provides two scenarios, a hypothetical one in which SARS-CoV-2 emerged in 2009 (“COVID-09”) and one in which COVID-19 as we know it exists. He highlights how the world responded to the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic, paying particular attention to vaccines and detecting/tracking variants, contrasting the 350 million doses of influenza vaccine administered during the H1N1 pandemic to the more than 9.8 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered so far following unprecedented development and deployment. He also highlights how, during the H1N1 pandemic, just 10,000 influenza samples were sequences compared to the more than 7 million SARS-CoV-2 sequences shared with GISAID Initiative, aided by the use of AI to analyze all this, something he writes “would have been science fiction in 2009.” He uses these comparisons, which are imperfect given the scope and devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic versus that of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, to argue that, similar to how the advancements we have seen in the last decade improved COVID-19 response, advancements in the coming decade will drastically change future pandemic response, though he does highlight how the world failed to take the pandemic threat seriously even after H1N1. He argues that the bioeconomy, which is expanding away from purely medical applications, will allow this to take place, writing “The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that, when combined with public sector leadership and support, the bioeconomy offers ready capacity for biosurveillance, environmental monitoring, and continuous development and large-scale production of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.” He concludes that adopting policies which take advantage of the growing global bioeconomy is our best shot at ending the panic-and-neglect cycle in pandemic policies by allowing us to develop better tools to detect, respond, and prevent epidemics and pandemics. His piece is very hopeful and does little to address other factors that come with this rapid advancement, including AI governance issues, privacy concerns, and ongoing challenges with mis- and disinformation that plague this era. Nonetheless, he brings valid points about the potential for rapid technological advancement to bring immeasurable good if it is complemented by policy improvements in the coming years.

The Omicron Surge Visualized

Felix Richter, a data journalist with Statista, created this graphic this week depicting how sharply the Omicron surge increased global case counts, pushing them to unthinkable levels. He writes, “According to the World Health Organization, the seven-day average of daily new cases climbed to 3.33 million on January 26, which is quite literally off the charts compared to previous waves. And while some have called Omicron a blessing in disguise, a “natural vaccine” that will bring us closer to the end of the pandemic, most health officials don’t seem to share that sense of optimism. “It’s dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, said an executive board meeting of the organization on Monday. “Globally, the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.””

World Health Organization Executive Board 150 Convenes

The WHO’s Executive Board gathered to conduct a variety of business this week, including nominating Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to continue in his role as WHO Director-General (to be confirmed at the 75th World Health Assembly in May). The Executive Board is comprised of 34 technically qualified members elected for three-years terms. At this annual meeting, the board agrees upon the agenda for the WHA and what resolutions to be considered at the assembly. This year’s Executive Board meeting runs through tomorrow and is being livestreamed and archived here.

The WHO Executive Board #EB150 nominated @DrTedros for WHO Director-General position to be decided at #WHA75 in May 2022 pic.twitter.com/q7Mo5LgGEf

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 25, 2022

This comes amid concerns about the United States’ commitment to the WHO, with Reuters reporting that multiple sources indicate President Biden remains skeptical of the organization and is weary of calls to make the agency function more independently. The US is the WHO’s biggest funder, though it has been resistant to proposals made to increase each member state’s standing annual contribution to the the agency, according to a WHO document dated January 4. This is part of a broader plan to reform the organization in light of issues and limitations it faced in responding to the current pandemic. The US is said to be skeptical that the agency can actually do much more, particularly when it comes to countering health threats from China, as some US officials explained to Reuters. The US is pushing instead for a separate fund to be created, directly controlled by the donors, that could finance prevention and control of health emergencies, striking to the heart of debates about how best to handle global health crises amid growing international tensions between major powers. However, HHS’ Office of Global Affairs released a tweet indicating the US successfully led efforts to build consensus on strengthening the International Health Regulations, a resolution which the Executive Board did adopt brought by the US and over 40 co-sponsors, indicating the US is still committed to improving these regulations and their enforcement.

U.S. successfully led efforts to build consensus on strengthening the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005. Today, the @WHO Executive Board adopted a decision on strengthening the #IHR. Many thanks to the over 40 co-sponsors. #EB150

— Office of Global Affairs, HHS (@HHS_Global) January 26, 2022

America’s Strongest Line of Defense- Nuke-Guarding Dolphins?

Despite all the technological advancements warfare has seen in the last century, the US Navy proves that, sometimes, the natural option does the job just right. As Military.com recently reported, the Navy has trained dolphins and sea lions since 1967 for various military applications like mine clearing, force protection, and recovery missions under the US Navy Marine Mammal Program. Dolphins deployed as early as the Vietnam War and as recently as the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Based at Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, animals in the program train in San Diego Bay and have allowed the Navy to contribute more than 1,200 open scientific publications discussing the animals’ health, physiology, sensory systems, and behavior to the body of academic literature on them. They continue to serve an important mission at home, including defending the waters around Bangor, Washington, which is the largest single nuclear weapons site in the world. This stockpile contains about 25% of the United States’ 9,962 nuclear warheads and has done so since 2010. Information about the program was only declassified in the 1990s, and the US remains the only known country to have such a program currently. The Soviets trained dolphins for similar harbor protection missions, though their program status remained in limbo after the USSR collapsed, though Russia possibly sold the animals to Iran in 2000, according to Military.com. The article concludes with, “Russia is said to have been looking to update its training program, and may even have used them in Syria.” The US military, particularly the Air Force, has publicly struggled with disciplinary and oversight issues at sites tasked with guarding nuclear weapons, including the 2007 incident in which six AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles were flown over the United States on a B-52H heavy bomber and the time USAF Maj. Gen. Michael Carey (then head of the 20th Air Force- the United States’ main nuclear ICBM strike force) was relieved of his duties after a drunken escapade in a Moscow Mexican restaurant while leading a high-level delegation’s trip to meet their Russian nuclear counterparts. The Navy’s marine mammals, however, remain stalwart guardians of the United States’ most sensitive weapons and vigilant companions as they continue to sniff out mines and other munitions, including a rare 19th century Howell torpedo discovered off the coast of Coronado, CA in 2013. You can check out the archived version of the Navy’s “A Brief History of the Navy’s Marine Mammal Program” here.

OPCW Issues Fact-Finding Mission Report on Chemical Weapons Use Allegation in Marea, Syria, in September 2015

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons issued the report of its fact-finding mission (FFM) into the alleged use of toxic chemicals as a weapon in Marea, Aleppo Governorate, Syrian Arab Republic, on 1 and 3 September 2015 this week. The FFM conducted several interviews with witnesses in addition to obtaining environmental samples and digital evidence over the course of their investigation. They write, “On 1 and 3 September 2015, the town of Marea was subject to shelling with both conventional munitions as well as projectiles filled with chemicals that fell in various locations and neighbourhoods in Marea. In some of the targeted locations, a black substance was observed, and in others, a yellow powder was observed. Individuals exposed to the substances developed blisters a few hours after exposure. Affected individuals displayed similar signs and symptoms in both incidents.” This report does conclude that a chemical blister agent was used as a weapon in this case, adding to the list of agents the FFM confirmed have been used in the Syrian Arab Republic, including chlorine, sulfur mustard, and sarin. The OPCW is tasked with implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention, having overseen the destruction of 99% of declared chemical weapon stockpiles globally under its verification, receiving the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize for doing so. Our own Dr. Gregory Koblentz published an article in The Nonproliferation Review in 2020 discussing OPCW’s efforts to hold the Assad regime responsible for use of CW during the Syrian Civil War, “Chemical-weapon use in Syria: atrocities, attribution, and accountability,” which can be found here.

Johns Hopkins Science Policy Group- Impacting Policy Through Science

Gain inside knowledge about how science is communicated to policymakers, by joining JHSPG for the second session in our “Science Communication” series, with Dr. Leah Cairns, Ph.D. Dr. Cairns will discuss her current work at the National Academies, and how reports and the policy recommendations within them are produced and communicated. Cairns is a Program Officer in the Board on Health Sciences Policy at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Her primary interests include health policy and biomedical research. Prior to joining the National Academies, she served as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow working as legislative staff for a member of Congress focusing on health policy and appropriations. Dr. Cairns also previously served as a Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies in the Policy and Global Affairs Division. Dr. Cairns received her Ph.D. in biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a B.A. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Hamilton College. This event will be on February 3 from 12:00-1:00 pm ET. Register here.

CSIS- Covid-19 Vaccine Confidence at One Year

The Center for Strategic and International Studies will host a livestream discussing COVID-19 vaccines’ first year on February 4 from 10:00- 11:00 am ET. A little over a year since Covid-19 vaccines became available, more than 60 percent of the world’s population has received at least one dose. But the global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines is uneven. At least 75 percent of people in the United States have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, but the same is true for just 10 percent of the population in low-income countries. As efforts to improve equity in vaccine supply and delivery advance, more countries are also now confronting the challenge of securing community trust – the final step needed to deliver shots into arms. While countries work to expand vaccine access and accelerate the uptake of vaccines, misinformation and rumors about Covid-19 vaccines crowd the information environment, politicizing vaccines, and undermining efforts to improve health security. What strategies can best equip people to make informed decisions about Covid-19 vaccines for themselves and their families? One year into the distribution of vaccines, are there still opportunities to change people’s minds?

The session will begin with a keynote presentation from Heidi J. Larson, professor of anthropology, risk, and decision science, and director of the Vaccine Confidence Project™ at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Her presentation will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Mollyann Brodie, executive vice president, COO, and executive director of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation; James A. Lewis, senior vice president and director of the CSIS Strategic Technologies Program; and J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center. Katherine E. Bliss, senior fellow and director of immunizations and health systems resilience at the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, will moderate the discussion. Register here.

Biodefense PhD Student Selected for U.S.-Japan Next Generation Leaders Initiative

Danyale C. Kellogg, a first year in the Biodefense PhD program and current Managing Editor of the Pandora Report, was recently chosen to be part of Pacific Forum’s US Japan Next Generation Leaders Initiative. This program is sponsored by The US Embassy in Tokyo and Tokyo International University and selects ten cohort members annually. Members span academia, industry, military, and public policy and are chosen based on strength of application and their research proposal. Cohort members spend several months researching various facets of the US-Japan alliance, receiving mentorship from scholars and practitioners from both countries. They will have the opportunity to present their research in Tokyo later this year, travel restrictions permitting. Kellogg’s research will focus on how the US and Japan can better collaborate on global health security matters moving forward, paying particular attention to the challenge China poses regionally and globally in this area. She is interested in better understanding how the US can balance both encouraging China to improve its outbreak response and reporting record while also acknowledging its past failures, preparing for the security threat this poses, and cooperating with regional allies like Japan and South Korea appropriately.

As the United States continues to struggle amid rising case counts, we again find ourselves addressing a recurring issue- lack of public trust and bad information. That is what much of this week’s issue covers, including the CDC’s current battle to regain the public’s trust, DTRA’s response to allegations it’s running BW labs internationally, and a new study warning of the media’s influence on pandemic response. We also cover a number of new developments before rounding out with fresh publications, events, and a couple of special announcements.

The Biden Administration and CDC’s Ongoing Struggles

As we reached the one year anniversary of the Biden administration’s announcement of its more than 200-page long National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness, experts have taken time to reflect on the year since it was introduced. While the plan itself was well-articulated, encouraging, and created a sharp contrast to the prior administration by providing an actual pandemic exit strategy for the country, the U.S. is still struggling with the latest surge. Among other criticisms, some noted the patchwork of masking policies across the country, arguing the Biden administration has missed many opportunities to be more comprehensive in its approach to this measure in favor of pushing others, such as distributing COVID-19 rapid tests to American households. This is echoed in critiques of the decentralized structure of school and business re-openings nationally as yet more argue school districts have essentially been left to fend for themselves. Still, others continued to praise the administration for making the best it can of the situation, particularly amid uphill political battles. The lack of consistency and failure to deliver on some of the key promises of the administration’s initial COVID-19 plan, combined with focusing on certain mitigation measures, some argue, has allowed variants to push the nation’s healthcare system to its brink. However, it is worth noting that the new administration has made good progress on its vaccination goals and did manage to pass COVID-19 relief packages.

Still, one of the biggest concerns that has emerged is waning faith in the CDC and its leader, Dr. Rochelle Walensky. While the CDC once enjoyed broad public trust, it has suffered as pandemic fatigue grows and it struggles to cope with providing new guidance backed by imperfect science. While President Biden entered office promising to restore CDC’s reputation, this has proved difficult, especially in recent months as even some in the public health community have criticized the agency for what they view as hastily issued guidance (such as last spring, when they declared vaccinated people no longer needed to mask or social distance, or recently when they made major changes to isolation and quarantine guidance), inconsistent communication, and, most recently, controversial statements about whom is most impacted by the Omicron variant. As the administration’s ongoing challenges in curbing the pandemic in the U.S. suggest, all the good intentions in the world quickly mean very little without sound policy implementation and effective communication. While we cannot necessarily fault the administration for struggling to adapt to new variants, the breakdown in communication at CDC is a major problem, particularly as some in the public latch onto changes in guidance as evidence that the threat is overblown or the administration has no idea what to do. Dr. Walensky acknowledges that she should have been more explicit about how her agency’s guidance was likely to change as the situation evolved, but it remains to be seen if this will translate into more effective communication from CDC moving forward.

The Continued Fight Against Mis- and Disinformation

DTRA Responds to Cooperative Threat Reduction Program Allegations

The Department of Defense has responded to recurrent Russian allegations that the United States is producing bioweapons in various laboratories around the world. One lab in particular, the Richard G. Lugar Center for Public Health Research in Tbilisi, Georgia, has repeatedly been targeted by such accusations. These claims, which were first issued by the Russians in 2017, have been refuted by many, most notably the U.S. State Department, Dr. Filippa Lentzos, and Roger Roffey and Anna-Karin Tunemalm of the Swedish Defence Research Agency. The Lugar Center is part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program, which works with foreign partners to “eliminate WMD-related systems and materials, consolidate and secure WMD-related systems and materials, and detect and interdict WMD-related trafficking or outbreaks of especially dangerous diseases.” This program was established to respond to the legacy of the Soviet Union’s WMD programs, which, at the time of the USSR’s collapse, still boasted an estimated 30,000 nuclear weapons, 40,000 tons of chemical weapons, and a “robust biological capability” spread over 15 sovereign states, according to DTRA. The video below includes the statement by Chris Park, Deputy Head of Delegation to the Biological Weapons Convention from the U.S. State Department, refuting the claims once more in November 2021. The United States wholly refutes claims it is developing biological weapons, that these laboratories in the CTR Program violate international law, and that it is unwilling to work with the UN and other countries to strengthen the BWC.

Watch the video below as the U.S. Government responds to false allegations targeted at the DoD CTR Program, executed by DTRA. https://t.co/PkI3ka9l5C

— Defense Threat Reduction Agency (@doddtra) January 11, 2022

Analyzing Natural Herd Immunity Media Discourse in the United Kingdom and the United States

This new article in PLOS Global Public Health analyzes news media publications focused on herd immunity in the U.S. and U.K. from March 11, 2020, through January 21, 2021, totaling 400 U.K. and 144 U.S. articles. The researchers found that government figures and a small but especially vocal group of academics played the most prominent roles in promoting natural herd immunity in the media, while critics of this idea largely stemmed from academia and public health. The researchers argue that this false sense of balance in news media coverage contributed to false belief among the general public that natural herd immunity was a legitimate approach to pandemic response while potentially undermining more widely accepted mitigation techniques. They ultimately conclude that, “The presentation of herd immunity in news media underscores the need for greater appreciation of potential harm of media representations that contain false balance.”

New from GAO- HHS is Solely in Charge of COVID-19 Vaccines Now, but it Remains Unclear if the Department is Ready to Handle Them Alone

A new report issued from the Government Accountability Office on 1/19/2021 discusses how federal efforts to develop, manufacture, and distribute COVID-19 vaccines (previously known as Operation Warp Speed) has transitioned from being led by both the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services. GAO determined that it is unclear if HHS is ready to assume all of this responsibility, particularly in the areas once led by DOD, writing that, though HHS has assessed its workforce capabilities, it has not reconciled the loss of specialized DOD personnel. Of note too, multiple experts have cautioned that the FDA and CDC, both under HHS, struggle to work together cohesively, which doesn’t bode well for this or future pandemics. The report concludes with five recommendations to help HHS better assume this responsibility and coordinate with external stakeholders and prompt the Secretary of Defense to expand the Countermeasures Acceleration Group’s lessons-learned review. Check out this new report here on the GAO website.

Is There Time for Cautious, Preemptive Post-Omicron Optimism?

As many have latched onto the idea that Omicron is “mild” compared to the original and Delta strains, attention has also begun to shift to how Omicron might change the landscape of the pandemic after it dies down. We discussed last week how preliminary studies from South Africa indicate asymptomatic carriage of Omicron may be even more of an important feature than it was with previous strains, but we also have information that, though case counts and hospitalizations are on the rise, the disease is generally more moderate now. This has led some to argue we may have a reprieve after this variant ebbs, though this is hardly encouragement to let down our guard. Rather, it’s a lesson in what relativity looks like in the third year of a pandemic. While some are also insisting Omicron is the last wave of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci argues we are still in the first phase of the pandemic, or “the truly pandemic- where the world is really very negatively impacted as we are right now,” as he explained at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda on Monday. This would mean we still need to get through deceleration, control, elimination, and eradication, the latter of which seems increasingly unlikely as more and more countries begin to seek strategies for living with endemic COVID-19. While the potential for an Omicron-specific booster and the newest data about how a less-severe variant has the potential to weaken COVID-19 overall are hope-inspiring, it’s important to be honest about where we are with the pandemic- the U.S. is still struggling to get it under control at home and vaccination rates continue to lag in much of the developing world, potentially creating more opportunities for new variants to emerge and prolong global suffering. Finally, as Nature recently highlighted, we likely do not even have a correct global death toll for COVID-19. While the current global total is at over 5.57 million, global excess deaths- a number that compares all deaths recorded with those that are expected- are estimated at double to quadruple this number since the pandemic began. So, while we might be able to cautiously prepare to turn a corner, it is important to consider what all we still have to contend with in order to get anywhere near an end to this pandemic.

Walgreens Steps Up to the Plate, Launches COVID-19 Tracking Tool

The pharmacy chain Walgreens launched its COVID-19 Index this week, according to USA Today. The index, which you can access here, provides an overview of national positivity rates and variant proportions by state dating back to 12/21/2021, an Omicron proportion tracker dating back to 11/25/2021, and a variant tracker dating back to 5/2/2021. This index uses data gathered at 5,000 Walgreens stores across the country, using a portion of the PCR tests conducted in storefronts to allow Aegis Sciences Corps. to process the data and update the index every 24-48 hours. Dr. Kevin Ban, Chief Medical Officer for Walgreens, stated that he hopes this national data can “drive down into the state level…and make it actionable.”

2022 Doomsday Clock Still at 100 Seconds to Midnight

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists unveiled the 2022 Doomsday Clock, revealing that it is at 100 seconds to midnight once again. The clock represents the potential for a global, man-made catastrophe and has been maintained by the Bulletin since 1947. The furthest the clock has been from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991, with the closest being 100 seconds (which it has stayed at since 2020). Among top factors influencing the Clock’s time this year were nuclear issues, climate change, disruptive technology and disinformation, and what the Bulletin described as the “burgeoning biological threat to civilization.” Check out Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk’s statement on the 2022 announcement here.

New Proceedings of a Workshop Available from National Academy of Medicine

The National Academies Press has just released the proceedings from its International Workshop on COVID-19 Lessons to Inform Pandemic Influenza Response, hosted in May 2021. The current pandemic has made clear weaknesses in global and domestic preparedness, highlighting the need to improve our planning for future influenza pandemics. The global response to COVID-19 has also demonstrated how quickly we can respond to novel diseases, including through rapid vaccine research and roll-out. As such, the National Academies convened this workshop in an attempt to better understand how we can improve our response capabilities for both seasonal flu and future pandemics. This publication offers a high-level summary of the various presentations and discussions that occurred over the course of the workshop. Sections include global coordination, partnerships, and financing, vaccine R&D, vaccine distribution, and research translation and communication. You can purchase a physical copy or download a free PDF here and watch the workshop’s recording here.

New from CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has released their report, “2022 Is the Year of Decision,” detailing the Commission’s conclusion that, amid the Omicron surge, it’s time for the country to re-think its approaches at home and abroad to not only curtailing this pandemic, but preparing for future global health security threats. Recommendations made in the report include “launch a U.S. international pandemic initiative; appoint a presidential global health security envoy; prioritize vaccines as the backbone of both the domestic and international response; make therapies and tests among the highest priorities; take a strategic approach to developing future vaccines, therapies, and diagnostic technologies; prioritize the establishment and resourcing of a pandemic fund and high-level leaders’ council; elevate the global role of the Department of Defense; and pursue détente with China on global health security.”

“Innovative vaccine approaches- a Keystone Symposia report”

The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences has released a new Concise Original Report detailing expert discussion from June 28-30, 2021, on vaccine research, development, manufacturing, and deployment from the eSyposium, “Innovative Vaccine Approaches”. This report spans a wide variety of topics, including differential outcomes of oral vaccines and use of reverse vaccinology to develop an antigen-based vaccine. It also features a write-up of the symposium’s keynote address from Dr. Rino Rappuoili, entitled “10 months to a COVID-19 vaccine- how did we get here?” The report is available here.

Public Health On Call

This podcast, produced by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has recently released new episodes on the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes one with Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician at UC San Francisco and HIV expert, discussing what the pandemic may look like throughout this year as well as an update episode on COVID-19 vaccines and immunocompromised patients. The podcast continues to offer near real-time updates and expert commentary as the pandemic progresses. Give it a listen here.

Strengthening the Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention

The UN Institute for Disarmament Research is offering this webinar on January 25 at 7 am EST to present findings of the newly published UNIDIR paper, “Enhancing the Management and Enforcement of Compliance in the Regime Prohibiting Chemical Weapons” (link here), and offer an update on the institute’s work on gender and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Speakers will include Dr. Ralf Trapp (independent consultant on CBW), Mr. Cheng Tang (former chair of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Scientific Advisory Board), Dr. Una Jakob (senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt), Ms. María Garzón Maceda (research assistant at UNIDIR WMD Programme), Dr. Renata Hessmann Dalaqua (UNIDIR Gender and Disarmament Lead), and Dr. James Revill (UNIDIR WMD and Other Strategic Weapons Programme Lead). Register for this event here.

Emerging Technologies and Customs Enforcement of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540

The Strategic Trade Research Institute (STRI) along with representatives from the Republic of Korea and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs are offering this online event to discuss emerging technologies available to customs, their applications, and national experiences integrating these technologies into customs enforcement. Discussants will include Dr. Andrea Viski (Director of STRI and Schar School Adjunct Professor teaching courses on strategic trade controls), Ms. Milena Budimirović (Senior Technical Office at the World Customs Organization), and Mr. Sanaullah Abro (Director of Risk Management Systems at Pakistan Customs). It will convene on January 27 at 9 AM EST. RSVP here.

Reimagining Preparedness in the Era of COVID-19

Registration for the 2022 Preparedness Summit, entitled Reimagining Preparedness in the Era of COVID-19, is open. While we continue to combat COVID-19 and concurrent all-hazard events, it is important to come together as a professional community to assess where our preparedness and response efforts have fallen short, met the mark, or exceeded expectations, and to explore opportunities to refocus, plan, and reimagine the future. The Summit will provide an opportunity to reflect on lessons learned from current and previous responses, and highlight tools, resources, and learnings that we can be applied in the future. The summit will take place from April 3-7 in Atlanta, Georgia. To learn more, please visit their site here.

Earth Emergency Now Streaming Through 1/28/2022

This revealing film examines how human activity is setting off dangerous warming loops that are pushing the climate to a point of no return – and what we need to do to stop them. With captivating illustrations, stunning footage and interviews with leading climate scientists as well as support from Greta Thunberg, Earth Emergency adds the missing piece of the climate puzzle. Click here to stream it from the PBS website. Other documentaries are also available currently, including Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria, which discusses ongoing challenges with antimicrobial resistance, and China’s COVID Secrets.

14th Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit

The Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit will be hosted from February 7 through 9 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City (Reagan National Airport) in Arlington, VA. This conference will bring together leaders in nuclear deterrence from across academia, government, and industry to discuss the future of the nuclear deterrence mission and allow attendees to network with one another. Registration is still open here.

Work with Dr. Filippa Lentzos of King’s College London and Dr. Gregory Koblentz of George Mason University

Drs. Lentzos and Koblentz are now seeking a Research Associate for their ongoing project, GlobalBioLabs.org. Two positions are available (one for six months and one for nine months). The job description is as follows:

Job description

The post holder will be required to undertake and support original, high-quality research to map high biocontainment laboratories globally and biorisk management tools and practices locally. The post is part of a project to update and expand the publicly accessible interactive map of global labs and biorisk governance available at GlobalBioLabs.org. The successful candidate will join a project team led by Dr Filippa Lentzos at King’s College London and Dr Gregory Koblentz at George Mason University. This post will be offered on part time (50% FTE), fixed term contract for 9 months.

Serve as an Editor for Upcoming Collection of One Health Resources Launched by CABI

CABI, the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International, has released a call for editors for its One Health Resources Initiative. CABI explains, “Established over a hundred years ago, CABI is an international, inter-governmental, not-for-profit organization that improves lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment. It puts information, skills and tools into people’s hands. CABI’s 49 Member Countries guide and influence its work which is delivered by scientific staff based in its global network of centres.” This initiative will consist of CABI One Health (a new Open Access journal focused on the full-scope of One Health), Collection of One Health Cases (a curated collection of real-world examples of One Health in practice), and the One Health Knowledge Bank.

Editor-in-Chief of CABI’s One Health resources, Professor Jakob Zinsstag, and Deputy Editor, Dr Lisa Crump – both of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute – are now recruiting a global editorial board of Senior and Associate Editors for this integrated collection of resources.  Senior Editors should have demonstrated significant One Health research output in leading journals, with previous membership of journal editorial boards and experience of peer review. They should have a strong international network of collaborators and partners who could contribute research articles and case studies. Associate Editors should have evidence of an active and relevant One Health publication record for their current career stage, and experience of peer reviewing articles. Experience of delivering One Health educational programs is also desirable. Those interested in responding to this open call for editorial board members of the new CABI One Health resources are invited to contact the Editors at CABIOneHealth@cabi.org for more information. Article and case submissions will open in early 2022, with the first content to publish later this year. The Editors would also love to hear from researchers or practitioners who may have research or practical One Health case studies ready to share.

It’s Friday, which means we have all made it through one more week of being hit left-and-right with all the Omicron news as the global case count reaches 320 million. That won’t stop now as this issue tracks a number of Omicron updates, including some preliminary information from studies in South Africa indicating that this variant is spreading so much because more people are carrying it asymptomatically. We round out this week with an assortment of other items, including multiple new publications and virtual events to stay at home with as hospitalizations continue to climb.

OMICRON, OMICRON, AND MORE OMICRON

From NPR: What we know about Omicron and when to get tested

As cases of the Omicron variant continue to surge globally, it is clear now that these cases can present differently than those with other strains, especially as the cough is often milder or non-existent while fever generally remains less common. This comes amid new changes in testing requirements and guidance, creating more confusion for many of us. To help you keep on top of all this new information, keep up with NPR’s ongoing reporting on Omicron symptoms and updates and changes in testing guidelines.

Preliminary findings from studies in South Africa indicate that Omicron has a much higher rate of asymptomatic ‘carriage’ than other variants of concern

These findings, part of the preliminary ones from the paper, “High Rate of Asymptomatic Carriage Associated with Variant Strain Omicron,” suggest the higher number of people carrying the Omicron variant while remaining asymptomatic likely is a major factor in the variant’s global spread- even within populations with previous high rates of COVID-19 infections. The studies these findings come from are ongoing, with the researchers seeking to better understand what Omicron asymptomatic carriage looks like in long-term care facilities and hospitals where high-risk populations might become infected more often. This all comes as the U.S. healthcare system once again is pushed to its limit, despite so much attention being paid to this variant’s milder nature. Though there are more incidental COVID-19 cases among those reporting to hospitals for other emergencies or routine procedures who then test positive, these still present hospitals with dangerous opportunities for the variant to spread internally, as Emily Anthes of the New York Times recently covered in an episode of The Daily. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University conducted research which preliminarily suggests the risk of being admitted to the hospital or ICU amid the Omicron surge is about half the risk there was during the Delta surge which, amid staggering numbers of hospitalizations, again emphasizes the importance of considering how asymptomatic carriers may drive outbreaks and threaten the healthcare system.

A National Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID

As the world breaks its previous record by adding another 100 million cases in just five months, world leaders are increasingly turning to the idea of living with COVID-19 as some sort of new normal. Before the Omicron surge, in fact, countries like South Korea even began to implement plans designed to help their people learn to live somewhat as they used to while remaining aware of the risk. Late last week, the New York Times reported that three opinion articles were published in JAMA by some of President Biden’s top transition advisors, including Drs. David Michaels and Ezekiel Emanuel, urging him to create a new domestic pandemic strategy designed to accept living with COVID-19 indefinitely rather than wiping it out. While it might seem odd for the authors to publish these articles in the journal rather than discussing their suggestions with the administration directly, the authors indicated they did so because they struggled to make progress in talking directly with the White House. Following their publication, Dr. Anthony Fauci declined to comment on them while the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, dodged questions about whether or not POTUS is warming up to the idea or not. However, some point to recent CDC guidance and President Biden’s efforts to keep schools and businesses open as evidence that he does favor this approach. As South Korea’s swift reversal on its planning and the current crisis state of the U.S. healthcare system indicate, the situation that was present when many such calls for living with the virus were made last year is not the one we are living in right now.

Tuberculosis Mortality Increases for the First Time in Over a Decade Amid COVID-19

A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine discusses how, as most of us have witnessed in some capacity, the COVID-19 pandemic has harmed other public health efforts, especially tuberculosis services. The article, “Covid-19’s Devastating Effect on Tuberculosis Care — A Path to Recovery,” explains how inequities in global health continue to exacerbate this problem. For example, just 8% of people in low-income countries had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose by the end of last year, combining higher poverty rates with more chances for new variants to emerge in these areas, further limiting access to tuberculosis care. The researchers explain the WHO estimates almost 10 million people contracted TB in 2020, though only 5.8 million were reported, marking an 18% decrease in reported cases from 2019. However, the decrease was concentrated in 16 countries, with those in Asia (particularly India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China) having the biggest decreases in reporting, all of which also experienced major COVID-19 outbreaks and healthcare disruptions during this period. They note that, in 2020, about 1.5 million people died from TB globally, the first year-over-year increase since 2005. This came with a 15% reduction in the number of people treated for drug-resistant TB (an increasingly pressing challenge globally) and a 21% decrease in people seeking preventative treatment for TB. It’s important to note, too, that this comes as the WHO continues to struggle and seek out a new TB vaccine as the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine is over a century old and is variably effective against adult pulmonary TB. This article serves as a good reminder that the COVID-19 pandemic does not exist in a vacuum and it is actively exacerbating ongoing global health challenges.

OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST

World Economic Forum Releases 2022 Global Risks Report

The World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Risks Report, as expected, is in large part defined by how the world continues to change as the pandemic drags on. The report discusses how the great gap between the developing and developed worlds in ongoing economic recovery risks deepening global divisions “at a time when societies and the international community urgently need to collaborate to check COVID-19, heal its scars and address compounding global risks.” Such risks identified in this edition include disorderly climate transition, digital dependencies and cyber vulnerabilities, barriers to migration, and space competition. Importantly, as Saadia Zahidi, managing director at the WEF, notes in the report, “Last year’s edition of the Global Risks Report warned of potential knock-on economic risks that are now clear and present dangers. Supply chain disruptions, inflation, debt, labour market gaps, protectionism and educational disparities are moving the world economy into choppy waters that both rapidly and slowly recovering countries alike will need to navigate to restore social cohesion, boost employment and thrive.” The last portion of the report also discusses how most countries have seen both great success stories and complete failures at different times throughout their pandemic response, indicating the need to develop flexible response strategies at the national level that use whole-of-society approaches for future pandemics.

Cultivating the Biosafety Profession

The International Federation of Biosafety Associations (IFBA) has just launched its new initiative, Cultivating the Biosafety Profession. Under this program, IFBA will place a priority on “formalizing biosafety and biosecurity as a career path within the higher education university system in selected universities around the globe.” This comes as many countries around the world suffer shortages of professionals trained to ensure biosafety in laboratory facilities that most need them. As such, this initiative will work to ensure that this profession is formalized while trying to attract young scientists and students to this less-visible profession, ultimately scaling up a skilled workforce that is better able to implement the WHO’s Laboratory Biosafety Manual. This will include a pilot undergraduate program at the Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology in Kenya, which IFBA hopes will later serve as a model for other universities and help normalize degree programs specific to biosafety and biosecurity. For more information on the initiative, read here.

Possible Link Between Epstein-Barr Virus and Multiple Sclerosis

Acclaimed New York Times health reporter and author of Flu, Gina Kolata, discussed in her article this week a new study from Science discussing the prevalence of multiple sclerosis (MS) in U.S. service members who were infected with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). The study, “Longitudinal analysis reveals high prevalence of Epstein-Barr virus associated with multiple sclerosis,” analyzed a cohort of over 10 million active duty service members over two decades, ultimately finding that 955 of them were diagnosed with MS while serving. The researchers, led by Dr. Alberto Ascherio at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, determined that the risk of developing MS increased 32x after infection with EBV while it did not increase after infection with other viruses. They note that their findings are not explained by known risk factors for MS and suggest that EBV might be a leading cause of MS. In fact, among the study’s group of service members who were not infected until later in their service, 32 of the 33 were infected with EBV before they developed MS. Kolata notes that the disease is rare, with the risk of developing it sitting at .5%. However, she continues, EBV is known to infect nearly all of us at some point (and stays in the body for life), though most of us will never notice. Other risk factors include things like smoking or low vitamin D levels, which these researchers also identified in their data. For more information, read Kolata’s article here.

HOT OFF THE PRESSES

The past, the present and the future are in our hands – Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Risk Mitigation

The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute has just released their new edition of Freedom From Fear Magazine detailing how the pandemic has highlighted global CBRN vulnerabilities, particularly as criminal elements take advantage of the disorder caused by the pandemic. While there is some debate about whether or not the pandemic will inspire terrorists and criminals to consider using biological weapons, this issue highlights how the CBRN field is often prone to fragmentation, which the authors argue causes threats to be studied in isolation, creating a counterproductive lack of coordination and more vulnerabilities. They advocate for the UNICRI’s CBRN Center of Excellence’s approach to global good governance and cooperation in this area by discussing what the 62 countries involved in the iniative have done in this area since the pandemic started. They conclude that, “A key lesson learned from the CBRN programme is the importance of protecting communities.  Awareness of CBRN risks must be raised across the public at large, starting in local communities with CBRN stakeholders and extending to community leaders, NGOs, media, universities, students, and parents.”

Systematizing the One Health Approach in Preparedness and Response Efforts for Infectious Disease Outbreaks

One Health month brings us a new publication from the National Academies, this time documenting the proceedings of a workshop convened by the Forum on Microbial Threats on February 23-25, 2021. This workshop considered in particular “research opportunities, multisectoral collaboration mechanisms, community-engagement strategies, educational opportunities, and policies that speakers have found effective in implementing the core capabilities and interventions of One Health principles to strengthen national health systems and enhance global health security.” This proceedings of a workshop summarizes the presentations and discussions from the event and is available for pre-order from the National Academies Press here.

Finally- a book on health security intelligence

Routledge has just published the first book on health security intelligence, aptly named Health Security Intelligence, edited by an all-star team comprised of Drs. Michael S. Goodman, James M. Wilson, and Filippa Lentzos. Check out the blurb:

Health Security Intelligence introduces readers to the world of health security, to threats like COVID-19, and to the many other incarnations of global health security threats and their implications for intelligence and national security.

Disease outbreaks like COVID-19 have not historically been considered a national security matter. While disease outbreaks among troops have always been a concern, it was the potential that arose in the first half of the twentieth century to systematically design biological weapons and to develop these at an industrial scale, that initially drew the attention of security, defence and intelligence communities to biology and medical science. This bookcharts the evolution of public health and biosecurity threats from those early days, tracing how perceptions of these threats have expanded from deliberately introduced disease outbreaks to also incorporate natural disease outbreaks, the unintended consequences of research, laboratory accidents, and the convergence of emerging technologies. This spectrum of threats has led to an expansion of the stakeholders, tools and sources involved in intelligence gathering and threat assessments.

This edited volume is a landmark in efforts to develop a multidisciplinary, empirically informed, and policy-relevant approach to intelligence-academia engagement in global health security that serves both the intelligence community and scholars from a broad range of disciplines.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Intelligence and National Security.

This book is available for purchase here and, at the time of writing, Routledge is currently offering it for 20% off.

EVENTS

COVID-19 Guidance and Mental Health Resources for K-12 Schools

The Federal School Safety Clearinghouse is hosting an information webinar on current COVID-19 guidance and resources for schools hosting grades kindergarten through grade 12. It will be hosted on January 20, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm EST on Adobe Connect and will feature guest speakers from the CDC and Mental Health Technology Transfer Network. Presenters will provide attendees with an overview of the guidance and share resources to help address mental health challenges in students, parents, teachers, and school personnel. Register here.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists- 75th Anniversary Doomsday Clock Announcement

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will host a live virtual news conference at 10:00 am EST on January 20, to announce the 2022 Doomsday Clock time. This year marks the Clock’s 75th anniversary, with it acting as a metaphor for how close humanity is to self-annihilation since 1947. This has served as a call to action in order to move the Clock’s hands backwards, which has happened a total of eight times…though they have moved forward sixteen times. This year’s event will feature Hank Green (science communicator known for his science communication work and appearances on SciShow, Crash Course, and Vlogbrothers), Dr. Rachel Bronson (president and CEO, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), Dr. Asha M. George (executive director, Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, and member, Science and Security Board (SASB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), Dr. Herb Lin (senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and member, Science and Security Board (SASB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), Sharon Squassoni (research professor at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, at the George Washington University, and co-chair, Science and Security Board (SASB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), Dr. Scott D. Sagan (Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) at Stanford University, and member, Science and Security Board (SASB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), and Dr. Raymond Pierrehumbert (Halley Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, lead author on the IPCC Third Assessment Report, and member, Science and Security Board (SASB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists). More information, including access to links, can be found here.

Stunting the Surge: What Leaders Need to Know for 2022 Pandemic Planning

The Naval Post Graduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security is hosting this event on January 25 at 2:00 pm EST. This webinar will feature senior officials from the executive branch who will provide updates and guidance on the Omicron variant and planning considerations for state and local leadership moving into the new year. Panelists include ADM Rachel L. Levine, Dr. Barbara Mahon, Dawn O’Connel, and James Blumenstock. Participants are also encouraged to submit questions in advance! Register here.

CBRN Winter Quarterly Forum

The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) is virtually hosting their winter CBRN quarterly forum on January 19, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm EST. This event will explore various factors affecting a healthy CBRN industrial base and resilient CBRN supply chain. The workshop is interactive, capitalizing on attendees’ expertise to create recommendations on improving the health and resiliency of the CBRN industrial base and supply chain. Register here.

How are emerging technologies (re)-shaping the security landscape?

King’s College London’s War Studies at 60 seminars continue with the Centre for Science and Security Studies’ panel of global experts addressing the intersection of emerging technology, society, and global order. The expert panel will feature Dr. Hassan Elbahtimy, Sean Ekins, Dr. Filippa Lentzos, Dr. Time Stevens, and Dr. Kathleen M. Vogel. Questions to be addressed include, “How do we identify and assess the opportunities and risks of these advances? What new actors and networks are gaining currency in this space? Do these technologies carry the potential to disrupt the existing order or can they be a tool to stabilise it? How can they be most effectively governed and regulated? And ultimately Do they enhance or undermine peace and security?” This event will take place on January 19 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm GMT. Register here.

In this week’s Pandora Report, we examine the debate over COVID-19 booster shots and global vaccine equity, and we bring you more updates on the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Feeling the pandemic fatigue? Then check out the stories on KGB AIDS disinformation, the new National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin, the Alexey Navalny poisoning, and radioactive Japanese snakes.

COVID-19 Booster Shots and Global Vaccine Equity

U.S. health officials just announced that an additional “booster” shot for COVID-19 mRNA vaccines will be available starting September 20, pending approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Anyone 18 and older who received a Moderna or Pfizer vaccine will be eligible for a booster dose 8 months after their second dose. People who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will also likely need a booster shot to prolong the vaccine’s effectiveness and reduce severity of COVID-19 symptoms, but more research is needed before any recommendations are made. These boosters are necessary because the latest data seems to show that COVID-19 vaccines become less effective over time—check out three new studies in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the CDC. However, Eleanor Murray, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, argues that the data doesn’t necessarily support the conclusion that boosters for the entire U.S. population should be implemented quickly; instead, she argues that “it’s possible the changes in vaccine efficacy may have to do with the changes in behaviors of people.” For example, infection rates began increasing over the summer among vaccinated Americans as mask mandates and other restrictions were lifted and people began resuming their normal routines. Dr. Murray argues that a better strategy is to get as many people fully vaccinated (without boosters) as possible to reduce the virus’s ability to mutate as it spreads quickly through large numbers of unvaccinated people.

While countries like Israel and the U.S. make additional doses of the vaccine available to their populations, others are questioning the morality of this move. Dr. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization emergencies chief, likened the situation to “planning to hand out extra life jackets to people who already have life jackets, while…leaving other people to drown without a single life jacket.” Poorer nations will be unprepared for new and potentially deadlier variants of SARS-CoV-2. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky pushed back, saying that the U.S. has the capacity to help other nations while providing boosters to its own citizens. Walensky says the U.S. anticipates giving 100 million booster shots by the end of next year while distributing 200 million vaccine doses worldwide.

Google Developing Vaccine Access Tools

Google is developing a series of new tools to support COVID-19 vaccine access and distribution. For example, the COVID-19 Vaccination Access Dataset “quantifies access to vaccination sites, taking into account travel time via different modes of transportation” using the Google Maps Platform Directions API. This data can help identify areas with insufficient access to vaccines and deploy interventions. This dataset is the source for Ariadne Labs & Boston Children’s Hospital’s new Vaccine Equity Planner dashboard, which “integrates and visualizes the data with other data from relevant COVID-19 sources.” This tool can help identify vaccine deserts, where people have little to no convenient access to vaccines. Google also plans to introduce a COVID-19 Vaccination Search Insights tool to help explore the needs and trends of local communities.

COVID-19: Data Dereliction and the Summer Surge

Booster shots were the big COVID-19 story of the week, but a few other important stories made this news this week as well. Hospitals in the U.S. are in “crisis mode” amidst a summer surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations. Last week, all but four states experienced double-digit growth in COVID-19 hospitalizations. And eight states saw more than 400 new inpatients in a single week. The CDC is under fire for its slow pace collecting and sharing information, particularly on the delta variant: while data from May and June indicated that the delta variant would likely slow progress against COVID-19, the CDC’s failure to use and share real-time data led the Biden administration to paint an “overly rosy assessment of vaccine effectiveness.” A 6-month Politico investigation gets into the data details, finding delays in reporting COVID test results, arcane computer programs that impeded data collection, and severely understaffed contact tracing programs. To attempt to fill these data gaps, the CDC is developing the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics to focus on real-time information sharing to trigger governmental, private sector, and public actions in anticipation of domestic and global health threats.

Several recent articles shine a light on second-order effects of the pandemic. For example, a Washington Post-Schar School poll found that 1 in 7 residents of the D.C. area moved during the pandemic, either temporarily or permanently. Just under half said they moved because of COVID-19 or reasons related to the pandemic. Another 23% of residents said they have seriously considered moving because of the pandemic (and the ability to work remotely). Similarly, U.S. Census Bureau data shows a migration out of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas into smaller regions during the pandemic. Nearly a third of workers under 40 considered changing careers during the pandemic. Reportedly, “the pandemic altered how they think about what is important in life and their careers.” And a new article from PLOS One conducts a systematic review of mental health among healthcare workers and other vulnerable groups during the pandemic, finding that there is currently a research gap on mental health interventions and impacts during COVID-19.

Updates on the Origins of SARS-CoV-2

Continuing to wade through the murky waters of SARS-CoV-2’s origins, the World Health Organization put out a statement on August 12 on advancing the next series of studies to find the virus’s origins. The WHO statement calls for countries to work together without pointing fingers or using the investigation to settle political scores. (For more on origin obfuscation with a political motive, check out this article from Nicholas Wade.) They anticipate that the upcoming studies would “include a further examination of the raw data from the earliest cases and sera from potential early cases in 2019.” The WHO also stood up the International Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) to advise the WHO on the development of a global framework to systematically study future emerging pathogens with pandemic potential.

A new study by Chinese researchers examines gaps and weaknesses in biosafety in provincial CDC laboratories. Specifically, researchers randomly selected 208 laboratory staff from 7 provincial CDCs to complete a self-administered survey to test biosafety awareness. While several characteristics (such as years of laboratory experience and laboratory funding) influenced respondents’ scores, overall “the biosafety knowledge, education, and training of CDC laboratory staff involved in pathogen detection need to improve by paying attention to the content and coverage of biosafety training, exploring new training modalities, and increasing funding for activities related to biosafety in CDC.” You can read the article pre-print here.

This research highlights potential lab safety gaps that could have contributed to a laboratory leak of SARS-CoV-2—though this article does not provide any direct evidence for the lab leak theory. However, Dr. Gregory Koblentz and Dr. Filippa Lentzos recently argued that “whether COVID came from a leak or not, it’s time to talk about lab safety.” Even if a lab leak isn’t determined to be the cause of our current pandemic, global lab safety gaps must be addressed to ensure inadequate biosafety isn’t the cause of a future pandemic.

Taking Stock of the Strategic National Stockpile

Although SARS-CoV-2 was a novel virus and the world had no immunity against it, we were not entirely unprepared for a pandemic, even from an emerging infectious disease. For decades, the U.S. has conducted exercises, invested in research and development for relevant technologies, and stockpiled medical supplies to prepare for a pandemic. However, a new article from the Institute for National Strategic Studies argues that the U.S.’s approach to preparing for a pandemic is outdated, from its biotechnology tools and platforms to its approach to the medical supply system. The authors examine the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) as an example of this antiquated approach. The SNS was created in 1998 as a surge capacity to provide a “stop-gap, short-term back up to individual states’ stockpiles” and house specialized medicines to protect against biological and chemical attacks (countermeasures that pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t produce otherwise). The authors argue that the U.S. needs a “modernized biotechnology construct for the SNS…that features agility and flexibility, that could meet a broader range of threats…and [that] takes advantage of the biotechnology revolution.” You can read the article here.

Planning for Pandemic Prevention

Although COVID has been called a “once in a generation” pandemic, many claim that pandemics caused by emerging infectious diseases will become all too common as globalization, international travel, and climate change create new conditions that allow these diseases to find a human host and rapidly spread. Though there is widespread consensus on the importance of preparing for future pandemics, the proposed approaches vary. Rear Admiral Kenneth Bernard (USPHS, Ret.) has argued that “battling a pandemic is a special kind of war” and should be treated (and defeated) as such.  This means developing a national command, control, and operational structure and capabilities to deal with biothreats (natural, accidental, or intentional), applying a military blueprint to a civilian command structure. Bernard praises Biden’s appointment of a Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the National Security Council but believes this approach needs to be taken further.

A public health oriented approach is the more traditional method for pandemic preparedness. Along these lines, a new report from Harvard’s Scientific Task Force argues that research and investment should be focused on stopping the spillover of animal pathogens to humans—preventing human pandemics at the animal source. An estimated 50% of emerging infectious diseases over the past 50 years originated in wildlife (including HIV, H1N1, SARS, and Zika). Additionally, the rate at which new diseases have emerged is increasing, mainly driven by deforestation, wild animal trade, and industrial animal farms. Yet the world currently spends less than $4 billion per year addressing these drivers of spillover. Investments in conservation, biosecurity, and intergovernmental partnerships around spillover risk could help stop the spread of a virus before it reaches pandemic proportions.

Was the 1889-1891 “Russian Flu” Actually an Early Coronavirus Pandemic?

A recent study in Microbial Biotechnology uses contemporary medical reports from Britain and Germany on patients suffering from a pandemic infection in 1889-1891 to assess whether this pandemic—historically attributed to influenza—was actually an early coronavirus pandemic. The patients experienced many symptoms characteristic of coronavirus infection, including “multisystem affections comprising respiratory, gastrointestinal and neurological symptoms including loss of taste and smell perception; a protracted recovery resembling long covid and pathology observations of thrombosis in multiple organs, inflammation and rheumatic affections.” Additionally, mortality rates were high among elderly patients while children experienced much less severe infections—a pattern common to COVID infections but not to influenza. Finally, “contemporary reports noted trans-species infection between pet animals or horses and humans, which would concur with a cross-infection by a broad host range bovine coronavirus dated by molecular clock arguments to an about 1890 cross-species infection event.” You can read the article here.

New National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin

The Department of Homeland Security released an updated NTAS Bulletin on August 13 regarding the “current heightened threat environment” in the U.S. The bulletin outlines threats from “domestic terrorists, individuals and groups engaged in grievance-based violence, and those inspired or motivated by foreign terrorists and other malign foreign influences.” Several upcoming dates could be exploited by extremist actors for their symbolism, including the anniversary of the September 11^th attacks and several religious holidays. The bulletin also emphasizes that extremist actors are “increasingly exploiting online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity.” Additionally, these threats have been exacerbated by conditions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, including “grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.” You can read the bulletin here.

Operation Denver and the KGB’s AIDS Disinformation Campaign

A new article from Douglas Selvage in the Journal of Cold War Studies shows “how the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) came to play a key role in the disinformation campaign launched by the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) in 1983 regarding the origins of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).” From the abstract: “The KGB launched the campaign itself, but in the mid-1980s it sought to widen the effort by enlisting the cooperation of intelligence services in other Warsaw Pact countries, especially the Stasi. From the autumn of 1986 until November 1989, the Stasi played a central role in the disinformation campaign. Despite pressure from the U.S. government and a general inclination of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to curtail the campaign by the end of 1987, both the KGB and the USSR’s official Novosti press agency continued until 1989 to spread false allegations that HIV was a U.S. biological weapon. Even after the KGB curtailed its disinformation in 1989, the Stasi continued to disseminate falsehoods, not least because it had successfully maintained plausible deniability regarding its role in the campaign. The Stasi worked behind the scenes to support the work of Soviet–East German scientists Jakob Segal and Lilli Segal and to facilitate dissemination of the Segals’ views in West Germany and Great Britain, especially through the leftwing media, and to purvey broader disinformation about HIV/AIDS by attacking U.S. biological and chemical weapons in general.”

The article takes a deep dive into one example of disinformation in the form of allegations of biological weapons development, but history certainly has other examples, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article is the second part of a series. You can read part I here and part II here.

Biological Threat Advisory Board for Heat Biologics Welcomes New Board Members

Heat Biologics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing first-in-class therapies to modulate the immune system, has announced two new additions to its newly formed Biothreat Advisory Board: Biodefense Program Director Dr. Gregory Koblentz and Andrew C. Weber, Former Assistance Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs. They join David Lasseter, Former Deputy Assistance Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Former Representative Jack Kingston on the board. You can read more about the board and its members here.

European Union Statement on the Anniversary of Navalny’s Poisoning

The European Union Lead Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy released a statement in advance of the one year anniversary of Alexey Navalny’s poisoning with a military chemical nerve agent. Navalny, a Russian opposition leader, was poisoned with Novichok, which was “developed by the Soviet Union and presumably accessible only to Russian state authorities.” The statement calls for the Russian Federation to “investigate this assassination attempt in full transparency and without further delay, and to fully cooperate with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to ensure an impartial international investigation.”

Scientist Really Thought Job Would Be Less Grant Writing and More Glow-in-the-Dark Lizard Making

A lighthearted take for your Friday from The Onion: “As she settled in Friday for another long night of onerous paperwork, local scientist Dr. Rudha Zarah told reporters that when she accepted her research position, she had envisioned herself spending a lot less time on grant writing and a lot more time on glow-in-the-dark lizard making. ‘I realize every academic job involves some administrative work, but come on—I’ve been here eight months now, and I haven’t created a single lizard with bright neon pink, blue, or purple skin,’ said the 34-year-old postdoctoral fellow, lamenting the fact that the state-of-the-art genetics laboratory she worked in had ‘a perfectly good CRISPR machine collecting dust’ while she filled out page after page of funding requests that had nothing to do with glow-in-the-dark lizards. ‘Look at all these forms! This is ridiculous. I didn’t get a PhD in bioengineering just to sit behind a desk all day. I got it to pursue my dreams of tinkering with DNA until I gave life to a phosphorescent iguana with a few extra legs and eyebrows and maybe even wings. Unfortunately, it could be a decade or more before I make tenure and am able to spend my time dunking reptiles in uranium until they start to pulsate in otherworldly colors.’ At press time, Zarah confirmed she had been pleasantly surprised to learn Stanford’s institutional review board had signed off on her proposal to genetically engineer a 16-eyed, hyperintelligent human-koala hybrid.”

Radioactive Snakes May Monitor Fukushima Fallout

The article above may be satirical, but the fictional Dr. Zarah would love to work on a project recently reported in Ichthyology and Herpetology. Fukushima’s native rat snakes seem able to act as living monitors of radiation levels in the region where, a decade ago, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant experienced a catastrophic meltdown. There is a high correlation between levels of radiocesium (a radioactive isotope of cesium) in the snakes and environmental radiation levels. The rat snakes have relatively small home ranges and don’t travel far outside their neighborhood; they are also susceptible to accumulating radionuclides. These features make them excellent bioindicators—animals whose health provides insight into environmental health. You can read more about this work here.

Webinar: The New IPCC Climate Report, August 25

Global warming due to human use of fossil fuel is now undeniable, as affirmed in the latest Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Virginians are not exempt from the ongoing changes – there will be a new normal, and we all need to prepare for it. Knowing where, when, and by how much our accustomed climate will change is critically important to plan for the coming decades. An upcoming seminar will explain why and how climate is changing, the impacts on our Commonwealth and the world, and possible responses. People alive today may include the last generation that can take action to avoid the most dire consequences – it’s time to learn more about the climate crisis and what we can do about it. You can register for the webinar, being held August 25 at 1pm, here.

Webinar: Red Teaming the Post-COVID-19 Biological Weapon Threat, August 26

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented global disruption, including loss of life, economic crises, and political disagreements. Beyond these short- and medium-term challenges, the pandemic may have shifted the strategic dynamics surrounding biological weapons (BW). Will some leaders be more likely to put their countries on the path to pursuing biological weapons? Will the pandemic make other countries even less interested in having anything to do with biological weapons? To examine these questions, the National Defense University Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction is hosting a webinar on August 26. Speakers include Gary Ackerman and Ted Plasse. They will describe a project that utilized Asynchronous Strategic Dynamics Red Teaming (ASDyRT) to investigate the extent to which COVID-19 might impact the strategic decision making of 30 states that currently do not possess an offensive BW program, to examine the decision elements that might precipitate changes in current strategic BW decisions by state leaders, and to explore the operational characteristics of any new programs. Results and the implications for BW monitoring, defense, and nonproliferation will be discussed. You can register for the webinar here.

Virtual Workshop: Towards a Post-Pandemic World, September 21-24

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are hosting the second of a two-part series about what we’ve learned since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020. Presentations will examine responses to COVID-19 in the U.S. and abroad, featuring retrospective and prospective discussions on the impacts of the pandemic on human health and society and with a view towards enhancing resilience and preparedness for the future. The workshop will take place over four days and focus on a broad range of topics:

• Sept 21: Anticipated Long-Term Effects of COVID-19
• Sept 22: Addressing Uncertainties During a Pandemic
• Sept 23: Mitigating the Next Pandemic through Current Recovery
• Sept 24: Potentials for a Post-COVID World (Scenario Planning Exercise)

Each day’s session runs from 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT. You can register here.

Virtual Conference: Preparing and Responding to New Post-Pandemic Challenges

The Biosafety Level 4 Zoonotic Laboratory Network (BSL4ZNet) invites you to attend the 2021 BSL4ZNet International Conference, taking place virtually from September 23 to October 14. The conference will convene international scientific experts from government, academia, and industry under the overarching theme of Preparing and Responding to New Post-Pandemic Challenges. The conference aims to enhance knowledge and expertise, disseminate findings from ongoing research, and promote collaboration and cooperation with participants from around the world. The conference will consist of presentations and panel discussions in four sessions:

• September 23: Emerging and Re-emerging Pathogens
• September 30: BSL3 and BSL4 Biosafety and Biosecurity: International Perspectives
• October 7: One Health Perspectives
• October 14: Zoonotic Outbreaks and Pandemics: Science Policy and Science Diplomacy

Registration opens August 16. Get more information here. 

This week’s Pandora Report covers the full CBRN spectrum, from Syrian chemical weapons to the National Biodefense Strategy, and from Russian radiation combat skills training to North Korean nuclear provocation. We also look at other catastrophic risks, including a recent report on climate change. And if you’re looking to fill up your calendar for fall, don’t miss the list of upcoming events.

The Debate Continues: Origins of COVID-19

We have been covering developments in the investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 for weeks. Two recent articles take up this ongoing debate. Dr. Nicholas G. Evans and Anna Muldoon reject the idea that a lab accident associated with gain-of-function research experiments caused the COVID-19 pandemic. “Gain-of-function research” refers to research that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent. While the U.S. government did fund experiments that manipulated coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, those experiments don’t qualify as gain-of-function research, and there is no evidence that the manipulated pathogens caused the pandemic. Evans and Muldoon break down the origins of the theory, its many permutations, and why it is an unlikely explanation for COVID-19; you can read more here.

Dr. Andrew Lakoff also tackles whether COVID-19 was the result of a lab leak, rather than a natural spillover event where a virus jumps from animals to humans. The lab leak hypothesis has been able to gain ground in part because scientists have so far been unable to identify the intermediary host animal that could confirm the spillover hypothesis. This uncertainty leads to “a situation of diagnostic uncertainty, both about how to attribute blame and about the horizon of future reform.” Lakoff frames this uncertainty as part of a larger question about laboratory safety and the trade-offs between advancing knowledge to protect from future pandemics and the risks associated with intentional or unintentional spillage of dangerous pathogens from research labs. You can read Lakoff’s piece here.

On Thursday, remarks from a WHO official added a twist to this ongoing conversation. For context, in 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a joint investigation with China into the virus’s origins. The team’s report, released in February 2021, concluded that a leak of the virus from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was “extremely unlikely” to be the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the WHO chief has recently commented that a lab leak cannot yet be entirely ruled out as a source of the pandemic because of China’s lack of transparency on the issue. Now, new commentary from Ben Embarek, the head of this joint investigation, is raising even more questions about COVID-19’s origin story. In an interview for a Danish TV station’s documentary, Embarek expressed concerns about safety standards at a laboratory close to the seafood market where the first human cases of COVID-19 were detected. Embarek claims that the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention was handling coronaviruses “without potentially having the [appropriate] level of expertise or safety.” Embarek also said that the possibility of a lab staffer being infected with the coronavirus while collecting bat samples was “likely.”

Schar School Polling on COVID-19 Behaviors Featured in the Washington Post

The latest Schar School-Washington Post polling results are out, examining attitudes toward daily activities in light of the latest COVID-19 developments. Persistent coronavirus concerns and growth in remote work among D.C.-area residents during the pandemic may work against the comeback of downtown D.C. and other commercial districts in the region. And some residents “express hesitancy in returning to their pre-pandemic work and commuting lives when the pandemic eventually ends, likely fueling a disruption in the rhythm of traffic and mass transit.” Some interesting poll findings include:

• About 4 in 10 area residents expressed virus-related concerns about attending crowded indoor gatherings
• About 2 in 10 residents said they are concerned about dining indoors
• About 2 in 10 residents also say they will ride metro often (including roughly 3 in 10 of those who rode at least weekly before the pandemic)
• Workers are mixed on whether they want to return to their workplaces (and how often)

Want to learn more? You can check out the poll crosstabs here.

This Week in COVID-19

A new story in the Washington Post highlights the rise of the more contagious delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, which now accounts for over 93% of new COVID-19 infections in the U.S. Whereas outbreaks of the delta variant used to be concentrated in poorly vaccinated pockets, two-thirds of Americans in highly vaccinated counties now live in COVID-19 hot spots. The delta variant has changed calculations for what is needed to end the pandemic: “Epidemiologists had hoped getting 70 or 80 percent of the population vaccinated, in combination with immunity from natural infections, would bring the virus under control. But a more contagious virus means the vaccination target has to be much higher, perhaps in the range of 90 percent.” Given the current state of vaccine inequities, vaccine hesitancy, and blatant mis- and disinformation, such a target could take years to achieve.

Employers are revisiting their policies on vaccination, masking, and other requirements. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has mandated that all District government employees must get vaccinated against COVID-19 by September 19. Anyone with a religious or medical exemption will be required to submit a weekly COVID test. Similarly, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is seeking a mandate to require that all service members get the COVID-19 vaccine by mid-September—a date that could be moved up sooner if a vaccine receives full approval from the FDA.

As students prepare to return to school, only about 4 in 10 adolescents (age 12-17) have been vaccinated. Therefore, safety measures like masks, social distancing, and sanitation will be key. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security published guidance to improve indoor ventilation in schools to help reduce COVID-19 transmission. Tips include upgrading air filtration so that HVAC systems can bring in as much outdoor air as possible and adding HEPA air filtration units. The guidance also warns against unproven technologies such as ozone generators, ionization, and air disinfection with chemical foggers and sprays. You can check out the full report here or a graphic summary here.

Hospitals in some U.S. states with low vaccination rates are reaching capacity with COVID-19 patients infected with the delta variant. Hospitalizations tend to be significantly higher in U.S. states with large numbers of unvaccinated people. The graphic from Statista below shows this trend. Out of the five least vaccinated states, four (Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas) are experiencing elevated levels of hospitalizations. Wyoming also has a high level of unvaccinated people, but the state’s relatively sparse population density may afford it some natural level of protection against viral spread. States with vaccination rates of 60% or higher are not experiencing these dangerous surges of COVID-19 hospitalizations.

U.S. Scientist Settles Whistleblower Complaint Over COVID Treatments

Last April, Dr. Rick Bright was removed from his position as the head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA) after he pressed for rigorous vetting of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that Trump had wrongly touted as a treatment for COVID-19. Dr. Bright filed a whistleblower complaint against the federal government for his termination; that complaint was recently settled, and Dr. Bright will receive back pay and compensation for “emotional stress and reputational damage.” The Biden administration confirmed the settlement and praised Dr. Bright, who had advised President Biden during his transition.

The National Biodefense Strategy and Opportunities to Strengthen Preparedness

In 2018, the Trump Administration released the National Biodefense Strategy. The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) just published a review of the key accomplishments and future priorities under this strategy, which “aims to advance the U.S. health security enterprise through prevention, preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts to combat infectious disease and biological threats.” Key accomplishments include a clinical trial for a universal flu vaccine, improvements to biosafety and biosecurity communications and guidance, launching of the Antimicrobial Resistance Challenge, and a range of activities in response to COVID-19. You can read more here.

Under the CARES Act, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was charged with conducting monitoring and oversight of federal efforts to prepare for, respond to, and recover from COVID-19. A new GAO study reviewed biological incident plans and after-action reports from exercises and real-world incidents from 2009-2019 to assess (1) interagency plans key federal agencies developed, and exercises they conducted, to help prepare for biological incidents and (2) the extent to which exercises and real-world incidents revealed opportunities to better achieve National Biodefense Strategy objectives. Based on this analysis, GAO made four recommendations each to the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. Department of Agriculture. These recommendations center on agencies working with the Biodefense Steering Committee to communicate exercise priorities and conduct monitoring. You can read the report here.

Coming in Hot: Bad News from the IPCC Report on Climate Change 2021

Recent findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are a “code red for humanity,” according to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres. The report provides climate projections for the 21^st century, and things aren’t looking good. Climate change has already caused significant damage via droughts, heat waves, extreme rainfall, fires, and other extreme weather events. Now, the world is currently on track to surpass the warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the next 15 years. Once this threshold is crossed, extreme weather events will become more severe and rising sea levels and increasing glacial melt will have catastrophic effects. A dedicated, global effort is needed to stave off the worst effects. Greenhouse gas emissions must be sharply slashed. If global emissions can hit net zero by 2050, then we should be able to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. You can read the report here and check out a discussion of the science behind the report here. This report is sure to surface again at the U.N. Climate Change Conference scheduled for November 2021.

Can Parasitic Worms Protect against Chemical and Biological Weapons?

Researchers at the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine are capitalizing on recent advances in genetic modification using CRISPR-Cas9 and studying whether the helminth genome can produce therapeutic molecules to protect humans against chemical and biological agents. Helminths are parasitic worms that live inside the human body. The intent of this project is to “reduce the burden of soldiers and medical responders who have to wear personal protective equipment when at risk of chemical or biological attack.” You can read more about the research here.

North Korea Conducting Tests at Nuclear Reactor Site

A draft U.N. report states that North Korea has conducted tests at the Yongbyon nuclear complex between December 2020 and February 2021. North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile programs despite the economic struggles it has faced during the pandemic. The report notes that “the external construction of a light water reactor seems to be complete” and “installation of machinery is likely to be in progress.” However, the 5 MW reactor at Yongbyon has shown no signs of operating since 2018. The report also describes how rampant smuggling and other illicit activities allow North Korea to skirt the U.N. economic embargo. You can read Nikkei’s summary of the draft report here; the final report will be released in September 2021.

The United States and South Korea will hold military exercises on August 16-26 this year. Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister, called these exercises an “invasion rehearsal” and warned that this will motivate North Korea to work faster to strengthen its preemptive strike capabilities. These developments don’t bode well for the Biden administration’s desire to resume nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.

Russian Soldiers Conduct Exercises in a Simulated Radioactive Contaminated Warzone

Russian troops recently conducted an exercise simulating an enemy attack using weapons of mass destruction that resulted in radiological contamination. The exercise was based in the Pechenga Valley, near the Russia-Norway border. Troops practiced detecting, measuring, treating, and decontaminating personnel and military vehicles. Read more about this exercise, and watch a YouTube video of the exercise released by the Russian military, here.

WHO Seeking Experts for Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research

The WHO is seeking experts to serve as members of the WHO Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research (ACCVR). The ACCVR was established in 1999 to advise the WHO on the research needed to reach global consensus on the destruction of existing variola stocks and develop a research plan for priority work on the virus. The ACCVR meets annually to provide oversight of this research agenda. The WHO is seeking experts to fill gaps in knowledge about new biotechnologies and public health preparedness measures that would apply to a potential re-emergence of smallpox. You can read more about the committee here.

UN: Work Still Remains on Destruction of Syria’s Chemical Weapons

Last week, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs updated ambassadors on the latest developments under Resolution 2118, which calls for Syria to cooperate with the OPCW [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons] to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons program. Resolution 2118 was adopted in 2013, and 8 years later, “there is still work to be done” before the resolution can be considered fully implemented. The briefing included discussions on re-establishing the norm against chemical weapons, the postponement of an OPCW Declaration Assessment Team visit to Syria, the incomplete nature of Syria’s chemical weapons declaration, and the June 8 attack on a Syrian military installation that housed a declared former chemical weapons production facility. You can read more about these issues here.

Medicine Manufacturing Limits Puts U.S. Health Security at Risk

A new study from the Center for Analytics and Business Insights has found that in the United States, no manufacturing source exists for more than 80% of the active ingredients in medicines that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deems essential for public health (such as antibiotics, antivirals, blood pressure pills, and steroids). The U.S. is incredibly reliant on foreign production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs); the pandemic has highlighted this reliance on long, complex supply chains. The majority of large-scale API manufacturing sites are in India and China (less than 5% of sites are in the U.S.). The graphic below summarizes the dearth of U.S. sources for several key medicines, and you can read more on this study here.

Veterinary Intelligence: Integrating Zoonotic Threats into Global Health Security

A new article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine argues that a One Health approach to zoonotic disease threats is an integral element of the global health security architecture. Recent experiences with COVID-19, Ebola, and other emerging infectious diseases highlights the “systematic disregard of zoonotic disease within what still remains a predominantly human-centric public health approach.” The authors argue that medical and veterinarian communities should be “synergistic collaborators” in outbreak response; veterinary intelligence is a critical but neglected component of health security intelligence. The goal end state is a “systematized health security intelligence framework [that] opens up horizons for a more holistic disease preparedness system, able to detect and respond to an array of infectious disease threats…whether they emerge in animals or humans.” You can read more here.

Webinar: Reviewing the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise, August 13

An ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is conducting a study to evaluate existing Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasure Enterprise (PHEMCE) policy and practices and make recommendations for a re-envisioned PHEMCE, particularly after COVID-19. This review will provide high-level strategic guidance to the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) on emerging issues, research, and activities relevant to the PHEMCE programs, goal, and activities. The committee will review key materials from ASPR and provide recommendations on business practices, medical countermeasure preparedness, and conduct an enterprise-wide review of programs, priorities, and harmonization across agencies.

The first event was held on August 6, but on August 13, from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m., the committee will have an opportunity to engage in discussions with ASPR regarding key public documents, as well as hear from different former members of the Enterprise Senior Council, the body that provides strategic direction and policy oversight for HHS in Medical Countermeasure preparedness activities, and other key PHEMCE partners and stakeholders. Register for the August 13 session here.

Webinar: Red Teaming the Post-COVID-19 Biological Weapon Threat, August 26

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented global disruption, including loss of life, economic crises, and political disagreements. Beyond these short- and medium-term challenges, the pandemic may have shifted the strategic dynamics surrounding biological weapons (BW). Will some leaders be more likely to put their countries on the path to pursuing biological weapons? Will the pandemic make other countries even less interested in having anything to do with biological weapons? To examine these questions, the National Defense University Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction is hosting a webinar on August 26. Speakers include Gary Ackerman and Ted Plasse. They will describe a project that utilized Asynchronous Strategic Dynamics Red Teaming (ASDyRT) to investigate the extent to which COVID-19 might impact the strategic decision making of 30 states that currently do not possess an offensive BW program, to examine the decision elements that might precipitate changes in current strategic BW decisions by state leaders, and to explore the operational characteristics of any new programs. Results and the implications for BW monitoring, defense, and nonproliferation will be discussed. You can register for the webinar here.

Virtual Workshop: Towards a Post-Pandemic World, September 21-24

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are hosting the second of a two-part series about what we’ve learned since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020. Presentations will examine responses to COVID-19 in the U.S. and abroad, featuring retrospective and prospective discussions on the impacts of the pandemic on human health and society and with a view towards enhancing resilience and preparedness for the future. The workshop will take place over four days and focus on a broad range of topics:

• Sept 21: Anticipated Long-Term Effects of COVID-19
• Sept 22: Addressing Uncertainties During a Pandemic
• Sept 23: Mitigating the Next Pandemic through Current Recovery
• Sept 24: Potentials for a Post-COVID World (Scenario Planning Exercise)

Each day’s session runs from 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT. You can register here.

Virtual Conference: Preparing and Responding to New Post-Pandemic Challenges, September 23-October 14

The Biosafety Level 4 Zoonotic Laboratory Network (BSL4ZNet) invites you to attend the 2021 BSL4ZNet International Conference, taking place virtually from September 23 to October 14. The conference will convene international scientific experts from government, academia, and industry under the overarching theme of Preparing and Responding to New Post-Pandemic Challenges. The conference aims to enhance knowledge and expertise, disseminate findings from ongoing research, and promote collaboration and cooperation with participants from around the world. The conference will consist of presentations and panel discussions in four sessions:

• September 23: Emerging and Re-emerging Pathogens
• September 30: BSL3 and BSL4 Biosafety and Biosecurity: International Perspectives
• October 7: One Health Perspectives
• October 14: Zoonotic Outbreaks and Pandemics: Science Policy and Science Diplomacy

Registration opens August 16. Get more information here. 

This week, we cover Chinese nuclear missile silo construction, effective risk communication, the ethics of forensic genetics, and of course, updates on COVID-19. We also feature an article from Biodefense M.S. student Michelle Grundahl on how a Pennsylvania County Animal Response Team implemented a One Health approach to community assistance during COVID-19. And a big congratulations to HyunJung Kim, who just successfully defended his Biodefense doctoral dissertation.

Congratulations to Dr. HyunJung Kim

HyunJung Kim successfully defended his Biodefense doctoral dissertation, “Use of Unapproved Medical Countermeasures During Public Health Emergencies: Comparing the United States and South Korea,” on August 4. When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, the United States and South Korea were among the only countries in the world with Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) policies to provide large-scale access to unapproved medical countermeasures, such as vaccines, drugs, and diagnostic kits, in the event of a public health emergency. HyunJung argues that these policies were heavily influenced by major crises that each nation suffered and that the policy domains that resulted from these crises shaped the implementation of EUA policy, even during the pandemic.

According to HyunJung, the U.S. EUA policy that emerged in the wake of 9/11 and Amerithrax was part of the new homeland security policy domain while in Korea, the EUA policy that followed the 2015 MERS outbreak was part of the disease containment domain. These different policy domains help explain why EUA policy in both countries diverged and affected each nations response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the United States and South Korea each issued their first EUA for an in vitro diagnostic kit to detect SARS-CoV-2 on the same day (February 4, 2020), there were dramatic differences in the ability of each country to institute large-scale testing programs. While South Korea embarked on a major national campaign to ramp up testing, the United States struggled to develop a reliable test and deploy it widely. The pandemic, in effect, provided a “stress test” for the EUA policies in each country. As HyunJung’s work shows, the U.S. EUA policy was hampered by its homeland security-centric focus on post-exposure prophylaxis whereas the Korean EUA policy that evolved as part of the disease containment domain was better suited for the rapid roll-out of diagnostic tests and integration of these tests into the nations’ public health response to the pandemic. This dissertation contains valuable lessons learned from the U.S. and South Korean experiences that could be used to provide best practices to governments around the world for implementing their own EUA policies to strengthen their preparedness for public health emergencies.

A One Health Approach to Community Assistance During COVID-19

Biodefense M.S. student Michelle Grunhdal is featured in the Summer 2021 One Health newsletter from the Veterinary Public Health (VPH) Special Primary Interest Group (SPIG) of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Grundahl writes about her experience providing community assistance as part of the Pennsylvania County Animal Response Team (CART) during COVID-19. The CART worked alongside food banks to provide pet food to households experiencing food insecurity and “created new local paradigms where emergency management, human social services and local animal welfare groups came together.” This One Health approach has led to permanent changes in the community. You can read the full newsletter here.  

COVID-19 Update: Policies and Pushback

A grim statistic: the known total of global COVID-19 cases has surpassed 200 million. The CDC has updated their guidance on mask wearing and COVID-19 testing in response to the latest data on the delta variant. It is now recommended that fully vaccinated people wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission or if they or someone in their household is at increased risk for severe disease from COVID-19, as we reported last week. Universal indoor masking is recommended for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools regardless of vaccination status. Additionally, fully vaccinated people—even if they’re not showing symptoms—should get tested 3 to 5 days after exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days after exposure or until they receive a negative test result. Previous recommendations said that fully vaccinated people didn’t need testing after exposure unless they showed symptoms.

People around the world are pushing back against more restrictive public health measures as countries try to encourage vaccination through public policy. In Germany, Berlin has refused to authorize over a dozen anti-lockdown protests, citing rising infection rates and protesters’ history of flouting public health requirements, such as mask-wearing. Also in Germany, officials are planning to stop paying for rapid antigen COVID-19 tests after enough Germans have been fully vaccinated. Currently, Germans must show a negative COVID-19 test to enter offices and some shops and restaurants, and testing is free. Taking a different approach toward encouraging vaccination, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte recently addressed the nation, telling citizens: “For those who do not want [the COVID-19 vaccine], well, for all I care, you can die anytime.”

The Latest on COVID-19 Vaccines

Last week’s CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report reported that nearly three-quarters of people infected in a July COVID-19 outbreak in Massachusetts were fully vaccinated. A total of 469 patients were identified; 90% of specimens from these patients contained the delta variant. The CDC also found that fully vaccinated people who become infected carry as much of SARS-CoV-2 in their nose as unvaccinated people, and they can spread the virus to others. The media has generally reported this information with more alarmism than scientific perspective: bottom line, the majority of new COVID cases in the U.S. are among unvaccinated people, and the odds of unvaccinated people getting sick from COVID is low. Rachel L. Levine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, has stressed that this upcoming fall could be “very challenging,” but vaccination remains the best means of protection. Fortunately, U.S. vaccination rates have risen recently amidst fears over the delta variant.

A new paper from Pfizer (which has not yet been peer-reviewed) shows that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine “remained robustly protective six months after vaccination, providing nearly complete protection against severe disease.” The paper showed a slight drop in efficacy against any symptomatic cases of COVID-19 (from 96% protection in the first few months after vaccination to 84% after four months). Pfizer executives have predicted that vaccine booster shots will be needed. Israel is already offering its most at-risk citizens a third COVID-19 shot, though global health researchers are pushing back, warning that this strategy could set back efforts to end the pandemic because each booster “represents a vaccine dose that could instead go to low- and middle-income countries, where most citizens have no protection at all, and where dangerous coronavirus variants could emerge as cases surge.” The WHO just called for a moratorium for at least the next two months on COVID booster shots based on global vaccine inequity, though the Biden administration has pushed back on this idea.

Two Americans traveling to Toronto have been fined for providing fake COVID-19 proof of vaccination documents and lying about pre-departure tests. In this case, fake vaccination documents are costing roughly $20,000 in fines, while the vaccine itself is free.

In better news, the first phase of an international effort to track COVID-19 vaccines has just been launched by the Task Force on COVID-19 Vaccines, Therapeutics and Diagnostics for Developing Countries (composed of representatives from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Health Organization (WHO), and World Trade Organization). The database and dashboard are intended to highlight specific gaps by country in obtaining and delivering COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, building on the IMF-WHO COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Tracker.

Update on COVID-19 Origins

On July 28, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) responded to a request from Senator Grassley (R-IA) regarding SARS-CoV-2’s origins. The NIH’s view, based on the scientific literature, is that “SARS-CoV-2 infection in people most likely resulted from zoonotic transmission from animals to humans.” Current evidence does not support the assertion that the virus was engineered. However, the NIH does not rule out the possibility of a laboratory accident, such as a scenario “where a naturally occurring virus was unintentionally released during research activities such as collection of animal samples or examination of viruses in a laboratory.” This letter also addressed questions about the NIH’s grant review process (particularly a grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology) and how the U.S. government conducts oversight of research involving enhanced potential pandemic pathogens.

A few days later, a report from Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee concluded that “a preponderance of evidence proves that [SARS-CoV-2] leaked from a Chinese research facility” sometime before September 12, 2019. The report claimed that the Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists, supported by U.S. experts and Chinese and U.S. government funding, were working to modify coronaviruses to infect humans. The report’s findings are based on “new and under-reported information about safety protocols at the lab.”

The U.S. intelligence community (IC) has not come to any such conclusions; President Biden ordered the IC’s report on the virus’s origins to be submitted by the end of August. U.S. intelligence agencies just gained access to a massive trove of genetic data from virus samples studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Officials hope this data will help answer the question of how the virus jumped from animals to humans, but they are facing an uphill battle. Translation of the raw data into usable information requires a great deal of computing power and manpower. The IC will be using the Department of Energy’s National Labs’ supercomputers to process the data, but there is a very small pool of scientists with the security clearance, educational background, and Mandarin-language skills necessary to work on this issue.

Interested in a former IC analyst’s perspective on the debate over COVID’s origins? Denis Kaufman, a former top infectious diseases analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency’s National Center for Medical Intelligence, was featured on a recent SpyTalk podcast discussing the claim that China engineered COVID-19 for use as a biological weapon. In his words: “It would probably rank, in terms of monumental stupidity, as high as you could get—to release an organism that you have no countermeasures against, that was highly infectious, highly dangerous and highly lethal.”

COVID-19: Unprecedented Event or a Taste of What’s to Come?

President Biden’s science advisor Eric Lander warns that “as bad as COVID-19 has been, a future pandemic could be even worse—unless we act now.” He warns that we’re at risk not only from COVID-19’s effects but from the collective amnesia that often accompanies serious, traumatic events like pandemics. New infectious diseases have been emerging at an accelerating rate, and they spread quickly. Although everyone wants to “return to normal,” we can’t forget the weaknesses, gaps, and inequities COVID-19 exposed. Lander outlines several objectives that must be pursued, including developing the capability to design, test, and improve a vaccine within 100 days of detecting a pandemic threat; investing in early-warning systems to spot emerging biological threats anywhere in the world; and strengthening public health systems. He also says to expect a detailed plan from the White House this month describing the capabilities the United States needs to invest in now to prepare for the next pandemic.

Peter J. Hotez discusses the “troubling new expansion of antiscience aggression,” arising from far-right extremism and targeting prominent figures fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Hotez traces the connections and consistent messaging between conservative news outlets, U.S. Congressmembers, and conservative public intellectuals teaming up to discredit scientists, policymakers, and other experts. Hotez lists several steps to begin combating this aggression; you can read more here.

Mass Resignations at Scientific Journal Over Ethically Fraught China Genetics Papers

Eight members of the editorial board of Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine have resigned after the journal published a series of controversial papers that “critics fear could be used for DNA profiling and persecution of ethnic minorities in China.” These papers were initially flagged by Yves Moreau, a Belgian bioinformatician with a history of pursuing the retraction of troubling or unethical scientific papers. There are several concerns with the batch of papers in question, many of whose authors have affiliations with or received funding from Chinese police agencies. First, the papers all address forensic genetics, a controversial field that applies genetic knowledge to legal issues—a problematic subject in China, “where DNA collection is part of a sustained effort to persecute ethnic minorities and other groups.” Second, there are concerns about whether the DNA samples used for some of the papers were collected with proper consent; Chinese policy have forcibly collected DNA from certain groups in the past. Concerns over the articles were raised in March, and after months of stalled progress to get more information about the journal’s stance, editorial board members began resigning. Other board members who have not resigned have expressed their disapproval but remain on the committee to push for scrutiny of the papers.

Attacks on Health Care Resources

The WHO just released an analysis of the impact of attacks on health care in fragile, conflict-affected, and vulnerable areas from 2018-2020. This data came from the WHO Surveillance Systems for Attacks on Health Care, which tracks attacks on health care, the resources that are affected, and their immediate impact on health workers and patients globally. This analysis found that health personnel are the most frequently affected resource in these attacks; such attacks were associated with a higher proportion of deaths in 2020; changing contexts are an important driver for yearly differences in the data; and reports of attacks involving psychological violence, threats of violence, or intimidations decreased in 2020. The report also makes some conclusions about COVID-19’s impact, including that attacks affecting health facilities, transport, and patients became more frequent after the onset of the pandemic.

Interested in health care facilities and resources as a terrorist target? Then you may be interested in a recent article from Studies in Conflict and Terrorism titled “Hospital Attacks Since 9/11: An Analysis of Terrorism Targeting Healthcare Facilities and Workers.” You can read the article here (access required).

China is Building a Second Nuclear Missile Silo Field

A new report from Matt Korda and Hans Kristensen uses satellite imagery to identify a second nuclear missile silo field being constructed in the prefecture-level city of Hami in Eastern Xinjiang, China. This discovery follows a recent report that China “appears to be constructing 120 missile silos near Yumen in Gansu province.” Construction on the Hami site began in March 2021, and since that time “dome shelters have been erected over at least 14 silos and soil cleared in preparation for construction of another 19 silos.” Taken together, the silo construction in Yumen and Hani “constitutes the most significant expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal ever.” The Federation of American Scientists estimates that China’s nuclear arsenal currently includes roughly 350 warheads, though U.S. Department of Defense officials have expressed their belief that China’s stockpile is likely to double (at a minimum) over the next ten years. However, even quadrupling China’s current stockpile would not give China near-parity with Russia and the United States, who each have around 4,000 warheads. You can read the report  on the Hami site and check out the satellite images of the site here.

Guiding Principles for Science and Risk Communicators

Syra Madad and Eleanor J. Murray with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs have published guiding principles for science and risk communicators to provide facts, share evidence and science-based information, and manage rumors, misinformation, and disinformation. They argue that the COVID-19 pandemic has “highlighted the critical role of scientific risk communicators and the ability to provide timely, accurate, and comprehensible guidance.” The CDC’s mantra of risk communication is: be first, be right, be credible. Madad and Murray suggest that an updated approach is needed to give a diverse range of communicators simple guidance on risk communication across different forms of media. You can read more and check out their graphic displaying the principles here.

Back to School Biosafety

Research laboratories are unique environments that present specific risks and challenges. Many undergraduates, and even graduate students, lack rigorous instruction in biological safety. Therefore, ABSA International, in partnership with the National Biosafety and Biocontainment Training Program, is offering training in biological safety for undergraduate and graduate students. The course takes place over 12 weeks, and the course content is designed to be flexible. Some of the topics covered include risk assessment; biosafety levels; personal protective equipment; lab facilities and safety equipment; disinfection, decontamination, and sterilization; and lab security and emergency response. You can learn more about the course here.

Free Resource: Handbook of Terrorism Prevention and Preparedness

Those interested in counterterrorism will find a recently released free resource incredibly helpful: the Handbook of Terrorism Prevention and Preparedness covers a diverse range of topics, from radicalization to terrorist financing to consequence management and much more. Edited by Alex P. Schmid and featuring contributions from leading experts in the field, the Handbook is divided into five parts: (1) Lessons for Terrorism Prevention from Related Fields, (2) Prevention of Radicalization, (3) Prevention of Preparatory Acts, (4) Prevention of and Preparedness for Terrorist Attacks, and (5) Preparedness and Consequence Management. The Handbook also features a chapter from Schar School professor Dr. Mahmut Cengiz, titled “Prevention of the Procurement of Arms and Explosives by Terrorists.”

Workshop: Towards a Post-Pandemic World, September 21-24

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are hosting the second of a two-part series about what we’ve learned since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020. Presentations will examine responses to COVID-19 in the U.S. and abroad, featuring retrospective and prospective discussions on the impacts of the pandemic on human health and society and with a view towards enhancing resilience and preparedness for the future. The workshop will take place over four days and focus on a broad range of topics:

• Sept 21: Anticipated Long-Term Effects of COVID-19
• Sept 22: Addressing Uncertainties During a Pandemic
• Sept 23: Mitigating the Next Pandemic through Current Recovery
• Sept 24: Potentials for a Post-COVID World (Scenario Planning Exercise)

Each day’s session runs from 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT. You can register here.

Event: Reviewing the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise, August 6 & 13

An ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is conducting a study to evaluate existing Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasure Enterprise (PHEMCE) policy and practices and make recommendations for a re-envisioned PHEMCE, particularly after COVID-19. This review will provide high-level strategic guidance to the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) on emerging issues, research, and activities relevant to the PHEMCE programs, goal, and activities. The committee will review key materials from ASPR and provide recommendations on business practices, medical countermeasure preparedness, and conduct an enterprise-wide review of programs, priorities, and harmonization across agencies.

On August 6, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., the committee will hear from ASPR regarding the study charge and key PHEMCE personnel to glean insights into the overall management and operations of the PHEMCE, including major outcomes, accomplishments, and recommendations for the future. On August 13, from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m., the committee will have an opportunity to engage in discussions with ASPR regarding key public documents, as well as hear from different former members of the Enterprise Senior Council, the body that provides strategic direction and policy oversight for HHS in Medical Countermeasure preparedness activities, and other key PHEMCE partners and stakeholders. Register for the April 6 session here and the August 13 session here.

Schar School PhD Virtual Open House, August 11

You’re invited to attend a virtual open house to learn more about the Schar School of Policy and Government and our academic programs. By working closely with faculty who draw on world-class research and practical experience, the Schar School prepares students for a high-powered career in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. The online session will provide an overview of our doctoral degree programs, and our Graduate Admissions team will be available to answer questions about admissions requirements, application deadlines, and materials to prepare. Register here. 

In this week’s Pandora Report, we catch you up on the latest with COVID-19, but there are plenty of other stories if you’re feeling that pandemic fatigue. We also cover chemical and biological weapons and defense; misinformation and disinformation; and biosecurity. And we wrap up with some interesting upcoming (online) events.

The Mask Returns

Citing the surging delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, the CDC is now urging everyone, including vaccinated people, in COVID hot spots to resume wearing masks indoors. Additionally, any individual with vulnerable household members should wear masks indoors. While the CDC continues to recommend in-person learning for students in the fall, they are now calling for universal masking for teachers, staff members, and students in schools regardless of vaccination status. This guidance comes after a summer surge in cases attributed to the delta variant as well as pockets of low vaccination rates in communities across the U.S. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky highlighted the danger associated with the delta variant, citing “its willingness to outsmart us and to be an opportunist in areas where we have not shown a fortified response against it.” The latest findings from the CDC show that the delta variant appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads as easily as chickenpox. And another coronavirus variant was discovered in Colombia and has been showing up in Florida, accounting for roughly 10% of new COVID-19 patients.

In light of these developments, several government entities are implementing new policies. The Smithsonian is now requiring everyone 2 years and older to wear masks in all its indoor spaces regardless of vaccination status. Earlier this week, the Department of Veterans Affairs led the way with a vaccine requirement for its staff. Across the U.S. government, federal workers and contractors are now required to prove their COVID-19 vaccination status or undergo a series of regular, rigorous safety protocols. Biden administration staff are required to wear masks indoors when traveling to any part of the country with a high transmission rate; masks will also be required inside the White House as Washington, D.C. is considered a hot spot. You can check whether an area is considered a COVID hot spot (with a “high” or “substantial” number of cases) using this CDC county map. Currently, nearly 65% of U.S. counties are considered hot spots.

If all this news has you down, you may want to consider a move. New Zealand was just rated the best place to survive global societal collapse, followed by Iceland, the United Kingdom, Tasmania, and Ireland. Read more, and decide if you would rank countries using the same criteria, here. Prefer a more down-to-earth solution? Check out this opinion piece on ways to improve preparedness for the next pandemic.

The National Football League Tackles COVID-19

The National Football League just implemented a policy stating that “if a game cannot be rescheduled during the 18-week schedule due to a COVID-19 outbreak among vaccinated players, the team with the outbreak will forfeit and be credited with a loss.” Players on both teams will not be paid for the lost contest, and if a team is “responsible” for a cancelled game due to unvaccinated players, the team will cover financial losses and be subject to disciplinary action. Vaccines are not currently mandatory for players, but this policy aims to provide an incentive for vaccination. Here’s hoping they don’t fumble the policy’s implementation.

COVID-19 Vaccines: A History

COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are the first approved vaccines ever to use modified messenger RNA (mRNA)—this allowed the vaccines to be rapidly developed. However, this rapid development was backed by a long history of research, starting with the discovery of DNA in 1951 and including one of this article’s featured subjects, Matthew Meselson. Meselson is incredibly well-known in the arms control community as a driving force behind the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, as well as for his role in the U.S.’s renunciation of biological weapons in 1969. Meselson worked for years on understanding DNA, working as part of the team that eventually discovered messenger RNA. This work informed the next generation of scientists who would eventually find a way to harness RNA to treat and prevent disease. You can read the full history here.

Examining the Legacy of the UN Special Commission to Disarm Iraq

The latest issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists features a collection of articles highlighting the history of Iraq’s biological weapons to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), which was established after the 1991 Gulf War to oversee the elimination of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons and the long-range missiles that could deliver them. The collection “does not aim to be a comprehensive account” but “it focuses on UNSCOM’s work to uncover Iraq’s large, hidden biological warfare preparations.” It includes articles and interviews from people who served in a range of roles at UNSCOM, including its executive chair, deputy chair, commissioner, chief inspectors, spokesperson, and official historian. You’ll find the full collection of articles here, though some articles required a login. This (free) readout of a recent webinar by Filippa Lentzos and Henrietta Wilson on how United Nations inspectors found and destroyed Iraq’s biological weapons is particularly interesting.

France Issues Moratorium on Prion Research after Deaths of Two Lab Workers

Five public research institutions in France have imposed a 3-month moratorium on the study of prions after a retired lab worker who had handled prions in the past was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Prions are abnormal, pathogenic agents that are transmissible and can induce abnormal folding of certain proteins that are found mostly in the brain; CJD is the most common prion disease in humans. France is currently investigating whether the patient, who worked at National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment laboratory, contracted CJD on the job. If so, this would not be the lab’s first case: in 2019, a 33-year-old lab worker died 10 years after pricking her thumb during an experiment with prion-infected mice. This incident led to tightened safety measures at French prion labs. The aim of the new moratorium is to “study the possibility of a link with the [new patient’s] former professional activity and if necessary to adapt the preventative measures in force in research laboratories.” French speakers can read the labs’ press release here.

Gain of Function Research: Exploring Benefits, Risks, and Ethics

The Pandora Report has long covered issues and debates over gain-of-function (GOF) research, where new properties are engineered into existing viruses. If you need a refresher on this debate, a new video provides an overview of GOF research and begins to explore its ethics. The MIT Technical Review also has out an interesting interview with Ralph Baric, a long-time coronavirus researcher who has been at the center of the latest GOF controversy due to his collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. You can read much more in the article here.  

Alleged Israeli Strike on Syrian Chemical Weapons Site

Syria is claiming that a June 8, 2021, Israeli airstrike on an underground site called al-Nasiriyah1 led to the destruction of evidence crucial to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW’s) ongoing investigations into Syrian chemical weapons use. Biodefense Program Director Dr. Gregory Koblentz initially flagged this issue as part of a larger campaign of obstruction, arguing that “Syria is trying to destroy evidence showing that its declarations to the OPCW have been incomplete and inaccurate.” Nasiriyah is a former chemical weapons production facility; Syria declared it to OPCW inspectors but claimed that it was never used. OPCW inspectors have some evidence that suggests otherwise, but their investigation is so far incomplete. Additionally, the OPCW is also attempting to determine who was responsible for a 2018 chlorine attack in Douma, and Syria is claiming that crucial pieces of evidence in that attack (two gas cylinders) were “lost” in the Nasiriyah attack. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the air strike that took out Nasiriyah, though “in theory nothing should have been going on there that would make Israel want to bomb it.” Israel usually targets Iranian elements active within Syria, and Nasiriyah had been sealed according to the OPCW’s instructions.

State Department Nominee Calls Russia’s Chemical Weapons Use “Chilling and Shocking”

Karen Donfried, current nominee for assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, characterized Russia’s recent use of chemical weapons “chilling and shocking” and pledged to “stand up to Russia’s reckless and aggressive behavior” if she is confirmed to the position. Donfried also committed to using the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act to push back against Russian influence and malign activities. The Congressional Research Service published a brief on Russia’s chemical weapons activities and the U.S. response; you can read the brief here.

New Chemical and Biological Systems Undergo Testing at Dugway

Two systems recently underwent operational testing at Dugway Proving Ground to provide a training exercise for users and to use data collected during the tests to inform senior leadership on how effective, suitable, and reliable these systems would be during real-world operations. Tests were conducted on the Joint Biological Tactical Detection System (a detector/collector that monitors for biological warfare agents) and the Contamination Indication Closure Assurance System (which indicates chemical agent contaminants so proper decontamination can take place). You can read more about these tests here.

Misinformation and Disinformation: A Threat to Public Health

Mis- and disinformation have always accompanied infectious disease outbreaks but have been particularly pernicious in response to COVID-19. A recent report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue takes a deep dive into the online networks of vaccine-skeptics in Germany, analyzing nearly half a million posts from December 2020 through April 2021. Groups and channels promoting anti-vaccine narratives skyrocketed during the study timeframe, and key figures (or “influencers”) created the illusion of peer-reviewed, scientific rigor by referencing each other, creating a “community of anti-vaccination experts.” The study also incorporates perspectives from (actual) experts in health, science, education, and public communication sectors to understand how we can begin to combat this rampant misinformation. You can read the report here.

The U.S. government is also recognizing and taking steps to counter the threat of misinformation. The Surgeon General just released a report on “Confronting Health Misinformation,” recognizing that during the COVID-19 pandemic, “people have been exposed to a great deal of information” and “while information has helped people stay safe throughout the pandemic, it has at times led to confusion.” Although the report acknowledges disinformation—the malicious spread of false information—it focuses on misinformation, which is spread without an intent to misinform. While this report is a step in the right direction, the government should not minimize disinformation and those who spread it. You can read the report here.

New from FEMA: Response to and Recovery from a Chemical Incident

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has just released Key Planning Factors and Considerations for Response to and Recovery from a Chemical Incident (the “Chem KPF”). The Chem KPF helps state, local, tribal, and territorial governments identify considerations that could substantially aid the recovery process by decreasing recovery timelines and costs, improving public health and safety, and addressing major resource limitations and critical decisions resulting from a chemical incident. A draft of this document was circulated for public review and comment in July, and the final version is now available here.

CSIS Report: Biosecurity and the Bioeconomy

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has just released a new report finding that the U.S. government’s pandemic response “has been enabled by the emerging bioeconomy, which provides core biosecurity capabilities that are essential to the success of the mission.” Government engagement with the bioeconomy has steadily increased, and today this engagement spans a range of agencies with a focus on laboratory and product safety as well as research and development. However, “the government lacks mechanisms for providing a broader strategic focus that integrates priorities, including biosecurity, in partnering with the bioeconomy.” Therefore, the government is often unable to fully capitalize on innovations happening throughout the bioeconomy, particularly those developing outside government-sponsored research. Biosecurity policymakers must engage strategically with the bioeconomy beyond the research and development stage—something that is sorely lacking today. The report recommends development of a strategic engagement mechanism, likely housed in the National Security Council and working with a lead federal agency such as the Department of Health and Human Services. You can read more here.

Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition Deadline Extended to August 3

The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Next Generation Global Health Security (GHS) Network have teamed up to launch the fifth annual Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition to find creative answers to the questions: What life science research should not be conducted, if any? Should red lines in life science research be drawn? If so, by whom? Teams of at least three participants, with members from two or more countries, must submit papers by August 3. Papers may be published online by NTI and GHS, and the winning team will also receive travel and lodging support to attend and present during a side-event at the 2021 Biological Weapons Convention Meeting of States Parties in Geneva. You can learn more about the competition here.

Webinar: The Threat of Designer Pathogens, August 3

Since the completion of the human genome project in 2003, there has been a surge of investments and discoveries in the fields of gene sequencing and synthetic biology and biotechnology. However, such advancements give rise to new security challenges. Improvements in the accuracy, accessibility, and speed of synthesis technologies and their possible use by malicious actors increase the risk of newly emerging bioterrorism weapons and agents. NCT CBRNe is hosting a webinar to ask: What is the international stance regarding this threat? How can we deal with it? Which mechanisms exist to tackle it? Biodefense Program Director Dr. Gregory Koblentz will be a panelist at this event, so be sure to register here.

Workshop on COVID-19 Credentials for International Travel, August 3-5

Previously we told you about an upcoming National Academies study on digital vaccine credentials, led by GMU Biodefense Assistant Professor Dr. Saskia Popescu. If you are interested in taking a deeper dive into the utility, feasibility, security, and ethics of establishing verifiable COVID-19 credentials for international travel, Dr. Popescu’s committee is hosting a 3‑day webinar to explore these issues. Participants will contribute perspectives from domestic and international governments, multilateral health and business organizations, academia, and private and non-profit sectors. You can register for the event here, and read the latest WHO guidance on vaccination proof requirements for travel here.

Schar School PhD Virtual Open House, August 11

You’re invited to attend a virtual open house to learn more about the Schar School of Policy and Government and our academic programs. By working closely with faculty who draw on world-class research and practical experience, the Schar School prepares students for a high-powered career in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. The online session will provide an overview of our doctoral degree programs, and our Graduate Admissions team will be available to answer questions about admissions requirements, application deadlines, and materials to prepare. Register here.  

Workshop: Towards a Post-Pandemic World, September 21-24

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are hosting the second of a two-part series about what we’ve learned since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020. Presentations will examine responses to COVID-19 in the U.S. and abroad, featuring retrospective and prospective discussions on the impacts of the pandemic on human health and society and with a view towards enhancing resilience and preparedness for the future. The workshop will take place over four days and focus on a broad range of topics:

• Sept 21: Anticipated Long-Term Effects of COVID-19
• Sept 22: Addressing Uncertainties During a Pandemic
• Sept 23: Mitigating the Next Pandemic through Current Recovery
• Sept 24: Potentials for a Post-COVID World (Scenario Planning Exercise)

Each day’s session runs from 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT. You can register here.

This week’s Pandora Report continues to cover developments in the investigation into SARS-CoV-2’s origins and brings you the latest news on COVID-19, from vaccine passports to the Tokyo Olympics. We round out the report with norms against chemical weapons use, recommendations to improve the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, and the good old-fashioned plague. And don’t miss the summary from the GMU Pandemics and Global Health Security workshop. 

The Debate Continues: Origins of SARS-CoV-2

For several weeks we have been covering the renewed debate over COVID-19’s origins. The WHO Director-General has urged China to increase its transparency about the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and allow greater access to its laboratories to help resolve questions about the virus’s origins. To push back on that narrative, Chinese officials and media are now claiming that the Maryland-based Fort Detrick Research Institute of Infectious Diseases should be investigated as a potential origin source for COVID-19, a theory that Biodefense Program Director Dr. Gregory Koblentz calls “bizarre and ridiculous.” A new article from Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology and Director of the Global Alliance for Preventing Pandemics, describes the “known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns of COVID-19.” Another recent piece, by Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Yanzhong Huang, provides a detailed overview of the recent debate and makes the case that ambiguity over COVID-19’s origins is threatening international efforts to cooperate on biosecurity and public health, with potentially long-lasting negative consequences.

CDC Vote of No Confidence in British “Freedom Day”

Despite a recent rise in COVID-19 cases, almost all lockdown restrictions in England were lifted on July 19^th, what Prime Minister Boris Johnson is calling “Freedom Day.” Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland still have many of their restrictions in place, but in England, masks are no longer mandatory, capacity limits have been lifted, and social distancing requirements are limited to airports and people who have tested positive for the virus. While 68% of England’s adult population is fully vaccinated, in a single day last weekend the country recorded 48,161 new COVID-19 cases. Therefore, on Freedom Day the CDC raised its UK Risk Assessment Level for COVID-19 to “Level 4: COVID-19 Very High,” and the State Department raised its travel advisory level to “Level 4: Do Not Travel.”

Citius, Altius, Fortius…Infectious?

The Olympic motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius” translates to “Faster, Higher, Stronger.” Athletes strive to smash records and take home the gold. Unfortunately, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics may shatter a record as a super-spreader event of COVID-19. Precautionary measures for this year’s Olympics include daily testing, mask requirements, and distancing measures for athletes, and no fans will be in attendance. However, public health experts have pointed out potential issues with testing capacity and indoor ventilation systems, and they assess that “without stricter mitigation measures…clusters of infection are likely to propagate.” Cases are currently rising in Japan, and the country has struggled with vaccine distribution—only 17% of Japan’s population is fully vaccinated. Additionally, 15% of Olympic athletes have not yet been vaccinated. At least 71 people involved with the Olympics have tested positive for COVID-19, and more are in isolation after exposure to the infected. A poll this week in a Japanese newspaper showed that 68% of Japanese respondents doubt the Olympics can be held safely and securely; the chart below shows opinions across multiple countries. The head of the Olympics organizing committee has not ruled out a last-minute cancellation, but said they are monitoring the situation closely.

COVID and Congress

Congress continues consideration of issues related to COVID-19, and several stakeholders have reached out to Congress to advocate for their view. A summary of these activities follows.

On July 14, the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight held a hearing titled “Principles for Outbreak Investigation: COVID-19 and Future Infectious Diseases.” This hearing was the first in a series to understand how COVID-19 started and what can be done to lessen the toll of future outbreaks. Specifically, the committee examined the scientific underpinnings of the investigation into COVID-19’s origins because “the lack of transparency from the Chinese government about health emergencies of international consequence is a very serious geopolitical and science diplomacy challenge.” Though China has not been transparent with its data, the committee chair repeatedly emphasized that “the absence of data is not itself evidence of a lab leak or something more sinister.” You can watch the full hearing here, and we will cover any future hearings on this topic.

Leaders of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition have urged Congressional leadership to establish a national COVID-19 commission to investigate the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and assess the United States’ response to the pandemic. The stated purpose of the commission is “not to point fingers or assign blame, but rather to make the United States stronger and more resilient” for the next pandemic.

The Congressional Research Service published a report that reviews arguments about the pandemic’s potential implications for the international security environment. While some argue that the pandemic could be a “world-changing event with potentially profound and long-lasting implications,” others are more skeptical about these dramatic effects. The report reviews the areas of potential change and provides government assessments and potential issues for Congressional consideration. You can read the report here.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a white paper that will be disseminated to Congress and the Biden administration. Titled “Time to Escalate U.S. Leadership on COVID-19 and Beyond,” the white paper makes five key recommendations. First, the White House should establish a leadership structure to coordinate pandemic preparedness and response activities across the interagency. Second, the U.S. should develop a detailed strategy to achieve 70% vaccine coverage of low- and lower-middle-income countries by mid-2022. Third, the U.S. and international partners should establish an international financing mechanism to underwrite basic elements of pandemic preparedness in low- and middle-income countries. Fourth, the U.S. should systematically address the current economic crises in low- and middle-income countries. And finally, the U.S. should invest in basic global health security and epidemic preparedness, focusing on primary healthcare and immunization; research and development for vaccines, therapeutics, and manufacturing capacity; strengthening the WHO; and undertaking a domestic review of biosafety and biosecurity practices. You may also be interested in this newly released GAO report with additional recommendations to improve COVID-19 response.

And finally, the American Society for Microbiology has issued a letter to the House Appropriations Committee “urging them to reject attempts to impose restrictions on federally funded research or the operations of federal science agencies based on premature conclusions about how the pandemic emerged.” Such restrictions could impede potentially lifesaving research; any restrictions should be based firmly in science and not in political posturing.

COVID-19 Vaccine Inequities

Although much has been written about those who voluntarily choose to forego the COVID-19 vaccine, several recent stories highlight the struggles groups are facing in getting the vaccine even if they want it. The International Council of Nurses is sounding the alarm that healthcare workers are being left behind in efforts to provide vaccines against COVID-19 worldwide. Official WHO estimates count 6,643 healthcare worker deaths from COVID-19 worldwide, though the WHO itself estimates the real figure is at least 115,000 (if not much higher) because “many countries are not officially reporting the number of health and care workers who have died” from COVID-19. Just 1 in 8 healthcare workers is fully vaccinated, and the vast majority of these are in richer nations. This vaccine inequity among countries is incredibly stark: for example, while Canada has procured more than 10 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for every 1 resident, Haiti has just received its first delivery of vaccines—and only received 500,000 doses for a population of over 11 million. This global inequity can be attributed to several factors: export restrictions initially kept COVID-19 doses within vaccine manufacturers’ borders, the global purchase plan to provide vaccines for poorer countries was severely flawed and underfunded, and “intellectual property rights vied with global public health for priority.” You can read more about these factors here.

Another Successful Workshop on Pandemics and Global Health Security

On July 19-21, 38 individuals from across the United States and around the world participated in the Biodefense Graduate Program’s virtual summer workshop on Pandemics and Global Health Security. As usual, the workshop attracted a highly experienced group that represented the multiple sectors, agencies, and disciplines that are involving in preventing, preparing for, and responding to pandemics, bioterrorism, and other threats to global health security. This year’s attendees included members of government agencies such as the Department of Defense, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, Sandia National Laboratory, the state health departments of Arkansas and New Mexico, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Defence Research and Development Canada; the private sector including Booz Allen Hamilton and the biosurveillance firm BlueDot; non-profits such as CRDF Global; universities including Aga Khan, George Mason, Howard, University of Maryland, Naval Postgraduate School, and the University of Sussex; and international organizations such as Europol and the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs.

Over the course of three half-days, the workshop attendees received briefings from world-class experts in the fields of virology, science communication, global health, medical countermeasures, ethics, hospital biopreparedness, and biodefense. While the format was virtual, participants were able to interact with the faculty and each other during stimulating Q&A and discussion sessions. Even though all of the presentations focused in some way on the COVID-19 pandemic, the instructors provided insights applicable to a wide range of biological threats. Based on the presentations and discussions, there is no shortage of lessons learned from the current pandemic that could be used to develop institutions and systems to prevent the next local outbreak of a novel respiratory disease from becoming a global pandemic.

Workshop on COVID-19 Credentials for International Travel, August 3-5

Last week we told you about an upcoming National Academies study on digital vaccine credentials, led by GMU Biodefense Assistant Professor Dr. Saskia Popescu. If you are interested in taking a deeper dive into the utility, feasibility, security, and ethics of establishing verifiable COVID-19 credentials for international travel, Dr. Popescu’s committee is hosting a 3‑day webinar to explore these issues. Participants will contribute perspectives from domestic and international governments, multilateral health and business organizations, academia, and private and non-profit sectors. You can register for the event here, and read the latest WHO guidance on vaccination proof requirements for travel here.

Don’t Forget the Classics: Updates on Plague

SARS-CoV-2 may be the trendy pathogen these days, but like bellbottom jeans and choker necklaces, plague appears to be making a comeback…in the academic literature at least. The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report just published updated recommendations for antimicrobial treatment and prophylaxis of plague. The original recommendations were published in 2000 and are being updated to incorporate new human clinical data, animal study data, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals of additional countermeasures. Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, is naturally present worldwide and has been recognized as a potential bioweapon—the CDC classifies it as a Category A agent. These recommendations can be used by clinicians and public health officials to prepare for and respond to a plague mass-casualty event. Additionally, a recent article in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal examined the potential for plague transmission from corpses and carcasses to humans. While the authors did not find direct evidence for this type of transmission in the literature, they described a transmission pathway and assessed the potential for transmission at each step. Ultimately, they concluded that “pneumonic plague can be transmitted by intensive handling of the corpse or carcass, presumably through the inhalation of respiratory droplets, and that bubonic plague can be transmitted by blood-to-blood contact with the body fluids of a corpse or carcass.” These findings should be used when developing protocols for handling bodies of people or animals who died of plague.

Opinion: Putin Escapes Accountability for Chemical Weapons Use

Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow Anthony Ruggiero and research fellow Andrea Stricker contend that Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of the Biden administration’s relative inaction on the enforcement of the global norm against chemical weapons. Although Russia claims that its chemical weapons program was dismantled in 2017, there have been two confirmed cases of Russian chemical weapons use since then. Both cases involved assassination attempts with Novichok, a nerve agent “developed by the Soviet Union and presumably accessible only to Russian state authorities.” Russia also defies the norm against chemical weapons by supporting the erroneous claim that the Syrian government dismantled its chemical weapons stockpiles in 2014, despite multiple confirmed instances of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government since that time. The article authors argue that “Putin knows that if the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons cannot hold a lesser rogue state like Syria accountable, then it will never challenge Moscow.” You can read their assessment of the problem and proposed solutions here.

Improving the DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office

In 2018, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) consolidated the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and Office of Health Affairs into the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Office. This office “leads DHS efforts and coordinates with domestic and international partners to safeguard the United States against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear and health security threats.” Over the years, GAO has evaluated and made recommendations for a number of programs managed by legacy offices, including biosurveillance, nuclear/radiological detection, and chemical defense programs. GAO recently testified before Congress on the status of these recommendations and the consolidation into the CWMD Office. They identified ongoing challenges with the proposed replacement for the BioWatch system, low employee morale, collaboration between the National Biosurveillance Integration Center, and the Securing the Cities program. You can read the full testimony here.

How to Build a Global Pathogen Early Warning System

The Council on Strategic Risks has just released a report assessing the current state of global biosurveillance and recommending the creation of a global pathogen early warning system to “catch the full range of biological threats before they become devastating pandemics.” Informed by the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report identifies critical gaps in biosurveillance, such as inconsistent capabilities across geographic areas, poor information-sharing, and time delays. However, the report is generally optimistic that the foundation for robust global biosurveillance exists. The envisioned global pathogen early warning system would cover key high-risk nodes, and the technologies would be flexible and interoperable to work in a variety of operational settings. The authors also propose enabling recommendations, such as conducting additional deep dives into biosurveillance systems, investing in a wide range of tools, and launching confidence-building measures and other diplomatic efforts to develop trust and foster collaboration. You can learn much more in the report here.

Congratulations to Bonnie Jenkins on Her Recent Confirmation

Bonnie Jenkins has just been confirmed as the Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs. Undersecretary Jenkins has a long history within the arms control and national security communities, particularly in chemical, biological, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. She has served as the Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs and she is a military veteran, professor, and academic who has worked in government, think tanks, nonprofits, and philanthropy. Hers is a historic nomination of the first African American person to hold the rank of Undersecretary of State, and her expertise and perspective will help tackle key challenges in arms control and disarmament today.

Webinar: The Threat of Designer Pathogens, August 3

Since the completion of the human genome project in 2003, there has been a surge of investments and discoveries in the fields of gene sequencing and synthetic biology and biotechnology. However, such advancements give rise to new security challenges. Improvements in the accuracy, accessibility, and speed of synthesis technologies and their possible use by malicious actors increase the risk of newly emerging bioterrorism weapons and agents. NCT CBRNe is hosting a webinar to ask: What is the international stance regarding this threat? How can we deal with it? Which mechanisms exist to tackle it? You can register for the event here.

Schar School PhD Virtual Open House, August 11

You’re invited to attend a virtual open house to learn more about the Schar School of Policy and Government and our academic programs. By working closely with faculty who draw on world-class research and practical experience, the Schar School prepares students for a high-powered career in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. The online session will provide an overview of our doctoral degree programs, and our Graduate Admissions team will be available to answer questions about admissions requirements, application deadlines, and materials to prepare. Register here.

George Mason University Announces New Vaccination Requirements

GMU has announced updated requirements for COVID-19 vaccinations among students, faculty, and staff in light of the most recent data. Everyone who works, studies, and lives on campus must get vaccinated and share verification of their vaccination status, except in cases of approved exemptions for medical and religious reasons. You can read more here.

Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition Deadline is Approaching

The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Next Generation Global Health Security (GHS) Network have teamed up to launch the fifth annual Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition to find creative answers to the questions: What life science research should not be conducted, if any? Should red lines in life science research be drawn? If so, by whom? Teams of at least three participants, with members from two or more countries, must submit papers by July 28. Papers may be published online by NTI and GHS, and the winning team will also receive travel and lodging support to attend and present during a side-event at the 2021 Biological Weapons Convention Meeting of States Parties in Geneva. You can learn more about the competition here.