On June 9, 2020, this report was posted as an MMWR Early Release on the MMWR website (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr). Compared with the volume of data on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks among older adults, relatively few data are available concerning COVID-19 in younger, healthy persons in the United States (1,2). In late March 2020, the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived at port in Guam after numerous U.S. service members onboard developed COVID-19. In April, the U.S. Navy and CDC investigated this outbreak, and the demographic, epidemiologic, and laboratory findings among a convenience sample of 382 service members serving aboard the aircraft carrier are reported in this study. The outbreak was characterized by widespread transmission with relatively mild symptoms and asymptomatic infection among this sample of mostly young, healthy adults with close, congregate exposures. Service members who reported taking preventive measures had a lower infection rate than did those who did not report taking these measures (e.g., wearing a face covering, 55.8% versus 80.8%; avoiding common areas, 53.8% versus 67.5%; and observing social distancing, 54.7% versus 70.0%, respectively). The presence of neutralizing antibodies, which represent antibodies that inhibit SARS-CoV-2, among the majority (59.2%) of those with antibody responses is a promising indicator of at least short-term immunity. This report improves the understanding of COVID-19 in the U.S. military and among young adults in congregate settings and reinforces the importance of preventive measures to lower risk for infection in similar environments. In mid-January, the USS Theodore Roosevelt was deployed to the western Pacific. An outbreak of COVID-19 occurred during deployment, which resulted in the aircraft carrier stopping in Guam at the end of March. During this time, approximately 1,000 service members were determined to be infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The United States Navy and CDC investigated this ongoing outbreak during April 20-24; 382 service members voluntarily completed questionnaires and provided serum specimens (a convenience sample comprising 27% of 1,417 service members staying at the base on Guam or on the ship). The 1,417 included persons who were previously infected, currently infected, or never infected. Among these 382 service members,

It has become increasingly clear that the COVID-19 epidemic is characterized by overdispersion whereby the majority of the transmission is driven by a minority of infected individuals. Such a strong departure from the homogeneity assumptions of traditional well-mixed compartment model is usually hypothesized to be the result of short-term super-spreader events, such as individual's extreme rate of virus shedding at the peak of infectivity while attending a large gathering without appropriate mitigation. However, heterogeneity can also arise through long-term, or persistent variations in individual susceptibility or infectivity. Here, we show how to incorporate persistent heterogeneity into a wide class of epidemiological models, and derive a non-linear dependence of the effective reproduction number R_e on the susceptible population fraction S. Persistent heterogeneity has three important consequences compared to the effects of overdispersion: (1) It results in a major modification of the early epidemic dynamics; (2) It significantly suppresses the herd immunity threshold; (3) It significantly reduces the final size of the epidemic. We estimate social and biological contributions to persistent heterogeneity using data on real-life face-to-face contact networks and age variation of the incidence rate during the COVID-19 epidemic, and show that empirical data from the COVID-19 epidemic in New York City (NYC) and Chicago and all 50 US states provide a consistent characterization of the level of persistent heterogeneity. Our estimates suggest that the hardest-hit areas, such as NYC, are close to the persistent heterogeneity herd immunity threshold following the first wave of the epidemic, thereby limiting the spread of infection to other regions during a potential second wave of the epidemic. Our work implies that general considerations of persistent heterogeneity in addition to overdispersion act to limit the scale of pandemics.

No abstract

Monkeypox virus (MPXV) is a member of the genus Orthopoxvirus, endemic in Central and West Africa. This viral zoonosis was introduced into the United States in 2003 via African rodents imported for the pet trade and caused 37 human cases, all linked to exposure to MPXV-infected black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus). Prairie dogs have since become a useful model of MPXV disease, utilized for testing of potential medical countermeasures. In this study, we used recombinant MPXV containing the firefly luciferase gene (luc) and in vivo imaging technology to characterize MPXV pathogenesis in the black-tailed prairie dog in real time. West African (WA) MPXV could be visualized using in vivo imaging in the nose, lymph nodes, intestines, heart, lung, kidneys, and liver as early as day 6 post infection (p.i.). By day 9 p.i., lesions became visible on the skin and in some cases in the spleen. After day 9 p.i., luminescent signal representing MPXV replication either increased, indicating a progression to what would be a fatal infection, or decreased as infection was resolved. Use of recombinant luc+ MPXV allowed for a greater understanding of how MPXV disseminates throughout the body in prairie dogs during the course of infection. This technology will be used to reduce the number of animals required in future pathogenesis studies as well as aid in determining the effectiveness of potential medical countermeasures.

Many well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of new light species that may have been produced in the early universe. Prominent examples include axions, sterile neutrinos, gravitinos, dark photons, and more. The gravitational influence of light relics leaves imprints in the cosmic microwave background fluctuations, the large-scale structure of the universe and the primordial element abundances. In this paper, we detail the physics of cosmological light relics, and describe how measurements of their relic density and mass serve as probes of physics beyond the Standard Model. A measurement of the light relic density at the precision of upcoming cosmological surveys will point the way toward new physics or severely constrain the range of viable extensions to the Standard Model.

We present two different scenarios for a second wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in Illinois and simulate them using our previously described age-of-infection model, calibrated to real-time hospital and deaths data. In the first scenario we assume that the parameters of the second wave in Illinois would be similar to those currently observed in other states such as Arizona, Florida, and Texas. We estimate doubling times of hospitalizations and test positivity in all states with relevant publicly available data and calculate the corresponding effective reproduction numbers for Illinois. These parameters are remarkably consistent in states with rapidly growing epidemics. We conjecture that the emergence of the second wave of the epidemic in these states can be attributed to superspreading events at large parties, crowded bars, and indoor dining. In our second, more optimistic scenario we assume changes in Illinois state policy would result in successful mitigation of superspreading events and thus would lower the effective reproduction number to the value observed in late June 2020. In this case our calculations show effective suppression of the second wave in Illinois. Our analysis also suggests that the logarithmic time derivatives of COVID-19 hospitalizations and case positivity can serve as a simple but strong early-warning signal of the onset of a second wave.

No abstract

We present a mechanism for generating ultralight dark photon dark matter in the early Universe via a dilatonlike scalar field coupled to the dark photon's kinetic term. Energy is initially stored in the condensate of the dilaton, which resonantly produces dark photons when it begins oscillating in the early Universe. While similar scenarios with axion-dark-photon couplings require large coupling coefficients to fully populate the dark photon, the dilatonic coupling features a unique regime: when the dark photon's mass is half that of the dilaton, dark photons are copiously produced even when the dilaton undergoes small-amplitude oscillations. Scenarios consistent with the cosmic microwave background allow for ultralight vector dark matter with mass as light as 10 −20 eV.