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Fears that China’s lifting of its zero-COVID policy could result in fresh coronavirus variants seem to have not (yet) materialized. A study published in The Lancet on Wednesday found there had been no new COVID-19 variants in the country since it lifted its draconian policy last year, a move which triggered a surge in cases and deaths. (Bencharif, 2/8)

The world should "calm down" about the possibility of new COVID-19 variants circulating in China, leading Chinese scientist George Gao said. A paper by Gao and colleagues published in the Lancet medical journal on Wednesday showed that no new variants had emerged in the initial weeks of China's recent outbreak, after the end of its zero-COVID policy saw a huge wave of cases. (Master and Rigby, 2/8)

China has always shared COVID-related information with the World Health Organization (WHO), the country's National Health Commission said on Wednesday. The Commission said that a Chinese delegation had made that assurance during a WHO meeting held in Geneva from Jan. 30 to Feb. 7. (2/8)

The acting director of the National Institutes of Health pushed back on Wednesday against Republicans’ assertions that a lab leak stemming from taxpayer-funded research may have caused the coronavirus pandemic, telling lawmakers that viruses being studied at a laboratory in Wuhan, China, bore no resemblance to the one that set off the worst public health crisis in a century. Those viruses “bear no relationship to SARS-CoV-2; they are genetically distinct,” the N.I.H. official, Dr. Lawrence A. Tabak, told a House panel, using the formal name for the virus. He added that to suggest otherwise would be akin to “saying that a human is equivalent to a cow.” (Stolberg, 2/8)

A study published yesterday in eLife shows that 60% of cancer patients still have COVID-19 symptoms for 7 months after infection, similar to the general population. University of Texas researchers identified 312 patients at MD Anderson Cancer Center who tested positive for COVID-19 from Mar 1 to Sep 1, 2020, and followed up with them until May 2021. Participants completed daily questionnaires on viral symptoms for 14 days after infection, then weekly for 3 months, and then monthly thereafter. (Van Beusekom, 2/8)

Boston’s COVID-19 statistics continue “to trend downward,” city officials said Wednesday while urging people to maintain precautions against the potentially deadly virus. In a statement, the Boston Public Heath Commission said COVID-19 particles in the city’s wastewater dropped by 47 percent over the previous two weeks, with readings now at an average of “1,014 RNA copies/mL” as of Jan. 29. (Andersen, 2/8)

KHN: Congress Told HHS To Set Up A Health Data Network In 2006. The Agency Still Hasn’t

In early 2020, as they tried to fight covid-19 across two rural counties in North Carolina, the staff of Granville Vance Public Health was stymied, relying on outdated technology to track a fast-moving pandemic. Lisa Macon Harrison, the agency’s health director, said her nurses’ contact-tracing process required manually entering case information into five data systems. One was decades old and complicated. Another was made of Excel spreadsheets. None worked well together or with systems at other levels of government. (Whitehead, 2/9)

When Stephen K. Bannon, the White House strategist turned podcaster, was explaining the latest Covid-19 developments in 2021, he passed the microphone to a special guest: Clay Clark, an evangelist and anti-vaccine activist. For nearly 10 minutes, Mr. Clark rattled off one false and misleading statement after another. Covid is “100 percent treatable” with hydroxychloroquine and other drugs. (No.) Covid vaccines are filled with fetal tissue. (False.) Concentration camps are coming. (Nope.) Bill Gates owns a demonic patent for a cryptocurrency that is injected into your body. (Where to begin?) (Thompson, 2/9)

The Labor Department’s internal watchdog identified nearly $30 billion more in pandemic unemployment benefits that were wrongfully sent out than previously estimated, according to testimony submitted Wednesday to the House Ways and Means Committee. Approximately $191 billion may have been misspent, according to the updated estimate issued by DOL Inspector General Larry D. Turner. Last year, Turner’s office pegged the amount of questionable payments at about $163 billion “with a significant portion attributable to fraud.” (Niedzwiadek, 2/8)