UTMB News

Unvaccinated individuals who were previously infected with COVID may not have as much natural immunity against the virus, especially when it comes to the new omicron variant. “I've never seen anything like this,” UTMB biochemistry professor Dr. Pei-Yong Shi said. Shi shared data from his research, showing how the level of natural immunity of unvaccinated individuals is nowhere near what it was in the past. In fact, it's about 16-fold lower than previous variants a month after the infection. The number drops even further if the infection was six months ago. Other ABC outlets also ran this story.

Amid the large increase in COVID-19 cases across the country, driven by the omicron variant, there also has been an increase in the demand for at-home tests. Between Dec. 16 and Wednesday, the number of active cases in the county rose by 692 people, the highest weekly increase since August. “If you’re symptomatic and your home test is negative, you better go get another test,” said Dr. Janak Patel, the director of Infection Control & Healthcare Epidemiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. “Symptomatic people can do the initial home test and it’s positive, that’s fine. If it’s negative, get a proper test done.”

The rate of people testing positive for COVID-19 at University of Texas Medical Branch facilities tripled from about 5 percent of samples to 15 percent over the past week, an increase that has medical branch officials warning Galveston has joined the rest of the country in a variant-driven spike. Dr. Janak Patel, the director of Infection Control and Healthcare Epidemiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, called the jump in the positivity rate mind- boggling. “We tripled our positivity rate within a week,” Patel said. “Not even a week. Just in five days.”

Just this week, Omicron became the dominant COVID-19 variant in the U.S. It's now responsible for 73.2% of U.S. COVID-19 cases—a steep climb from the late November levels at 0.1%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “It’s already going very fast. Previously, almost 100% used to be Delta. That's why we need to closely monitor the increase of the Omicron in the population here,” Dr. Pei-Yong Shi, chair in innovations in molecular biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told Verywell.

A fresh surge of COVID-19 cases is appearing in Brazoria County as the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus sweeps across the country, though the number of severe cases requiring hospitalization has not risen sharply, area health officials said. “Although our inpatient census for COVID positive patients has slightly increased, we have seen a larger volume of positive cases through the outpatient setting as well as more patients seeking the antibody treatments we offer for COVID-positive patients,” said Beth Reimschissel, UTMB Health Angleton Danbury administrator and associate chief nursing officer.

New research from the University of Texas Medical Branch found that Filipino seafarers — who make up a third of the workforce that transports goods from around the world into the Port of Houston — often avoid or delay medical care when they get injured or sick for fear of workplace retaliation. “It’s the question of ‘how far can I go without seeking medical care through US hospitals and clinics?'” said Dr. Shannon Guillot Wright, the author of the paper documenting these experiences. “‘Can I call the second officer’s wife who is a nurse? Can I treat this burn myself? Are there antibiotics on board if my thumb gets cut off in machinery?’”

A panel of experts on the Houston Public Media program talked about ways to deal with depression during the holidays, signs and symptoms of depression, as well as what you can do to manage your mental wellness during this time of year. Dr. Jeff Temple, director of the Center for Violence Prevention at University of Texas Medical Branch, was one of the experts.

Previvors and survivors alike can be active participants in wellness-promoting activities such as healthy diets, regular exercise, management of stress, cultivating and maintaining social and spiritual support. They also can avoid risky behaviors such as smoking, excess alcohol, obesity, sedentary lifestyle and even too much worrying about cancer, writes Dr. Victor S. Sierpina, WD and Laura Nell Nicholson Family Professor of Integrative Medicine and Professor of Family Medicine at UTMB.

If you know that bacteria cause tooth decay, it should come as no surprise that researchers are working on vaccines against cavities. More than 40 years have been spent trying to develop such a vaccine, write Drs. Megan Berman and Richard Rupp in the Vaccine Smarts column.

To really understand how effective vaccines remain, we need to see who becomes sick with the variant, and how severe that disease becomes. That takes time. “It’s been about two, three weeks since South Africa started reporting these cases. What I’ll be looking for is: Is there a corresponding increase in hospitalizations, and a week later, an increase in deaths?” said Dr. Vineet Menachery, an immunologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch who studies the interaction between the immune system and coronaviruses.

Dr. Pei-Yong Shi, chair in innovations in molecular biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told Verywell that sequencing data is meaningless if it cannot be paired with information on the variant’s severity and its impact on the population. “(Variants) need to be very carefully studied, because otherwise it’s just a mutation, it’s just a code,” Shi said. “You can speculate a little bit based on the knowledge of the closer-related (mutations), but you really have to do experiments to find out what is the impact.”

Scientists at UTMB are reverse engineering this version of the coronavirus to figure out exactly what they are dealing with. “The data we've presented has been presented to the FDA, CDC, and government agencies and of course our long-term collaborators of Pfizer BioNTech,” Dr. Pei-Yong Shi said.

The TULSA-PRO MRI treatment uses ultrasound technology to eliminate cancer but leaves surrounding, healthy tissue unharmed. “(T)he computer is sending these waves out like a beacon from a lighthouse and it’s destroying the tissue as it sweeps back-and-forth,” said Dr. Eric Walser, UTMB urologist.

Several non-credible social media threats targeting Virginia schools appeared following the Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan that left four dead. “There’s a contagion effect that we know about in terms of suicides, shootings, bad things happening, and people copycat what they see,” said Dr. Jeff Temple, a professor and psychologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch who studies adolescent violence. “Coupled with the real adolescent mental health crisis caused by COVID and everything else, we’re seeing more and more of this.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit two years ago, the country already was facing a different crisis—an opioid epidemic. And as shutdowns and working from home spread, the opioid epidemic worsened as many who struggled with opioid use found themselves isolated from support and spiraling in their addictions, experts say. “All of this physical distancing and this social distancing has impacted the ability to get treatment, remain in treatment and have their support systems in place,” said Dr. Kathryn Cunningham, director of the University of Texas Medical Branch Center for Addiction Research.

The article in The Magazine section of the Greek news website quoted a 2018 study by Dr. Jeff Temple, director of Center for Violence Prevention at UTMB: “As with sex, in sexting if there is no consent or something is done compulsorily, there are negative issues in mental health.”