Structural discrimination in the COVID-19 vaccination programme for people with mental health and addiction issues: now is the time to be equally well.

People with mental health and substance use issues (tangata whai ora katoa), regardless of ethnicity, are much more likely to be hospitalised or die from COVID-19 and were identified as a priority population (Priority Group 3) in Aotearoa New Zealand's vaccination roll-out plan. Data released by the Ministry of Health show that, despite tangata whai ora katoa being a priority group, their vaccination rates are well below those of the general population. These inequities are pronounced for Maori with mental health and addiction issues (tangata whai ora Maori). This is not acceptable. To support tangata whai ora physical health and wellbeing, the onus is on all of us in the health system to actively reach out, have conversations, be supportive and provide accessible vaccination for people with mental health and addiction issues. Urgent action is needed. Now is the time to ensure tangata whai ora katoa can be equally well.

Social work and COVID-19 in South Africa

Lockdown was imposed in South Africa on 23rd March 2020 in the context of a society structured by the highest levels of inequality in the world (IMF 2020), extreme levels of poverty, hunger, inadequate housing security and unemployment. Globally, South Africa is defined as one of the emerging epicentres of hunger during COVID-19 (OXFAM 2020). COVID-19 will change the world forever, it will never be the same. Social workers are required to believe that 'another world is possible'. For this reason, a crisis such as this demands that things should be done differently and that there should be innovative responses to not only the effects of COVID-19 itself, but also to devastating socio- economic inequalities that have been exposed once again. It cannot be business as usual. The solutions we need today are profoundly non-capitalist, perhaps the seeds of post capitalism. The solution is community activism, rapid political grassroots responses, and mobilisation of mutual aid in the face of the crisis-as well as a renewed climate of vigour for progressive, anti-capitalist and anti-racist, social justice inspired social work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Rapid GMP-Compliant Expansion of SARS-CoV-2-Specific T Cells From Convalescent Donors for Use as an Allogeneic Cell Therapy for COVID-19.

COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus is characterized by dysregulation of effector T cells and accumulation of exhausted T cells. T cell responses to viruses can be corrected by adoptive cellular therapy using donor-derived virus-specific T cells. One approach is the establishment of banks of HLA-typed virus-specific T cells for rapid deployment to patients. Here we show that SARS-CoV-2-exposed blood donations contain CD4 and CD8 memory T cells which recognize SARS-CoV-2 spike, nucleocapsid and membrane antigens. Peptides of these antigens can be used to isolate virus-specific T cells in a GMP-compliant process. The isolated T cells can be rapidly expanded using GMP-compliant reagents for use as an allogeneic therapy. Memory and effector phenotypes are present in the selected virus-specific T cells, but our method rapidly expands the desirable central memory phenotype. A manufacturing yield ranging from 1010 to 1011 T cells can be obtained within 21 days culture. Thus, multiple therapeutic doses of virus-specific T cells can be rapidly generated from convalescent donors for potential treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Rapid establishment of a COVID-19 convalescent plasma program in a regional health care delivery network.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) represents an appealing approach to the treatment of patients with infections due to SARS-CoV-2. We endeavored to quickly establish a sustainable CCP transfusion program for a regional network of health care facilities. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: A regional collaborative group was activated to address the issues necessary to implementing a CCP transfusion program and making the program sustainable. A wide range of health care providers including physicians (critical care, infectious disease, transfusion medicine), nurses, pharmacists, laboratorians, and information technology (IT) specialists were required to make the program a success. RESULTS: The CCP implementation team initially consisted of four members but quickly grew to a group of nearly 20 participants based on different issues related to program implementation. Overall, six major implementation "themes" were addressed: (a) registration of individual hospitals and principal investigators with a national investigational new drug research protocol; (b) collaboration with a regional blood donor center; (c) targeted recruitment of convalesced donors; (d) IT issues related to all aspects of CCP ordering, distribution, and transfusion; (e) prioritization of patients to receive CCP; and (f) evaluation of CCP products including antibody characteristics and patient response to therapy. CONCLUSION: Within 4 weeks of initiation, CCP was successfully transfused at multiple hospitals in our regional health care delivery system. A program infrastructure was established that will make this program sustainable into the future. This approach has broader implications for the success of multi-institutional programs requiring rapid implementation.