Updates
Should The Government Pay People To Get Vaccinated? Some Economists Think So-NPR
Beating back the pandemic may come down to simple math: getting enough people vaccinated. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, says the country will likely need a vaccination level of between 70% and 90% to reach herd immunity. Right now, that math doesn't quite add up. That's because more than 30% of people say they either won't, or probably won't, get the vaccine. Skeptics run the gamut — from dedicated anti-vaxxers to people with religious objections to some health … Continue Reading
January 12, 2021
How Can Countries Stretch COVID Vaccine Supplies? Scientists Are Divided Over Dosing Strategies-Nature
Amid skyrocketing coronavirus infections, some countries are attempting to stretch limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines by reducing doses or changing vaccination schedules from those shown to be effective in clinical trials. But data are scarce on the impact of such measures, and scientists are split over whether they are worth the risks. Nature, … Continue Reading
January 12, 2021
U.S. Job Postings End 2020 Well Below Pre-Pandemic Levels-The Wall Street Journal
The number of help-wanted ads increased more slowly in December, evidence the labor market is losing momentum amid rising coronavirus cases. Available jobs posted online were down 10.6% at the end of December from a year earlier, according to job-search site Indeed’s measure of job posting trends. Postings rose from the end of November, when the number of available jobs were 11.8% below 2019’s trend, but the pace of improvement has eased since the summer, when businesses started to reopen … Continue Reading
January 12, 2021
US Shifts To Speed Vaccinations; Won’t Hold Back 2nd Doses-The Associated Press
Barely a month into a mass vaccination campaign to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration unexpectedly shifted gears Tuesday to speed the delivery of shots. A slow start had triggered widespread concern from states and public health officials. Now, Health and Human Services Alex Azar has announced two major changes. First, the government will no longer hold back required second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, practically doubling supply. Second, states should … Continue Reading
January 12, 2021
Swedish COVID-19 Cases Cross 500,000 Mark As Hospitals Near Limit-Reuters
Sweden has registered 17,395 new coronavirus cases since Friday, taking the total above 500,000 cases since the start of the pandemic, as hospitals struggled to cope with a rampant second wave of the virus, Health Agency statistics showed on Tuesday. The statistics showed that Dec. 17 was the deadliest day since the start of the pandemic with 116 deaths, surpassing a previous peak of 115 daily deaths set in April. Reuters, … Continue Reading
January 12, 2021
Talking With People In Your Life Hesitant About The Coronavirus Vaccine-NPR
Even as the coronavirus vaccine becomes more widely distributed, lots of Americans say they're still not sure they'll get one. A December study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that about a quarter of Americans remain hesitant. What's the best way to approach the subject with people who remain unsure? NPR, … Continue Reading
January 11, 2021
Japan Has Found A New Covid Variant. Here’s How It Compares To Virus Strains In The UK, South Africa-CNBC
Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases on Sunday said it had detected a new variant of the coronavirus in four travelers arriving from Brazil. The newly discovered mutant strain of Covid-19 was found to share some of the mutations in common with those of concern for increased infectivity, the institute said, referring to highly infectious variants recently discovered in the U.K. and South Africa. However, at this time any information about the new variant is limited to its genetic … Continue Reading
January 11, 2021
China: WHO Experts Arriving Thursday For Virus Origins Probe-The Associated Press
Experts from the World Health Organization are due to arrive in China this week for a long-anticipated investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, the government said Monday. The experts will arrive on Thursday and meet with Chinese counterparts, the National Health Commission said in a one-sentence statement that gave no other details. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the experts will travel to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in … Continue Reading
January 11, 2021
BioNTech Lifts 2021 COVID-19 Vaccine Output Target To 2 Billion Doses-Reuters
Pfizer’s partner BioNTech boosted the 2021 delivery target for their COVID-19 vaccine to 2 billion doses, up from 1.3 billion previously, as they bring new production lines on stream and as more doses can be extracted per vial. Special syringes known as low dead space syringes were instrumental in the increase, which would result in 1 billion people getting the designated two-dose regimen, BioNTech said in a presentation posted on Monday. The syringes allow the extraction of six doses from a … Continue Reading
January 11, 2021
People With Type 1 Diabetes Have A Higher Risk Of Dying From Covid-19. Why Are They Lower On CDC’s Vaccine Priority List?-STAT
Laura Woerner has diligently managed her type 1 diabetes since she was diagnosed at age 11. She’s remained vigilant about anything that might throw her blood sugar levels out of balance, and now, at 36, she has had two healthy pregnancies and avoided such severe complications of diabetes as limb neuropathy or eye disease. Woerner knows what she needs to do to maintain her health. What she doesn’t know is why the nation’s leading public health authority places people like her farther down the … Continue Reading
January 11, 2021
Coronavirus: Numbers Rising In Nearly Every State; Capitol Siege Put Members At Risk-NPR
Last summer, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Congress that if the U.S. didn't get the coronavirus outbreak under control, the country could see 100,000 new cases per day. Six months later, the U.S. is adding, on average, more than 271,000 new cases per day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Over the past 24 hours, 3,700 new deaths were recorded. That brings the total number of reported cases in the U.S. to more than 22 million since the start of the outbreak — with a death toll of … Continue Reading
January 08, 2021
Southeast Asia Eyes China’s Sinovac COVID-19 Vaccine-Devex
Brazilian researchers announced Thursday that Sinovac’s new coronavirus vaccine is safe and effective based on the result of phase III clinical trials in the country. That data is being submitted to Anvisa, the country’s regulatory authority, for emergency use application. The much-awaited announcement, which has been delayed multiple times, was released with very few details, which raised some questions. Devex, … Continue Reading
January 08, 2021
Pfizer Study Suggests Vaccine Works Against Virus Variant-The Associated Press
New research suggests Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine can protect against a mutation found in the two more-contagious variants of the coronavirus that have erupted in Britain and South Africa. The results are reassuring, albeit preliminary, and not surprising to scientists who didn’t expect a single mutation to defeat the shots on which the world has pinned its hopes. But the study marks just the beginning of continual monitoring to make sure that all the vaccines being rolled out around the world … Continue Reading
January 08, 2021
U.S. Economy Suffers Job Losses As COVID-19 Ravages Restaurants, Bars-Reuters
The U.S. economy shed jobs for the first time in eight months in December as the country buckled under an onslaught of COVID-19 infections, suggesting a significant loss of momentum that could temporarily disrupt the recovery from the pandemic. The plunge in nonfarm payrolls reported by the Labor Department on Friday was concentrated in the coronavirus-sensitive leisure and hospitality sector, which lost nearly half a million jobs. But with other industries including retail, manufacturing and … Continue Reading
January 08, 2021
Biden’s Plan To End Policy Of Keeping Covid Vaccine Doses In Reserve Is The First Step In A Difficult Journey-STAT
The transition team of President-elect Biden has taken its first step to reexamine the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines put in place by the Trump administration. Instead of keeping half the doses in reserve to make sure that every person who received their first dose can receive their second dose, the transition said Friday that it would release the vast majority of available doses of authorized vaccines at once. STAT, … Continue Reading
January 08, 2021
COVID-19 Vaccinations Are Off To A Slow Start — But Not In Some Rural Areas-NPR
In many parts of the country, the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has been sporadic, if at times, chaotic. But some rural communities, where health care has historically been harder to get, are reporting success stories in the initial phases. "It's early, but I think what we can take away from these past two weeks is states that place a priority on rural tend to have a successful rural rollout," says Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association. NPR, … Continue Reading
January 06, 2021
Viral Mutations May Cause Another ‘Very, Very Bad’ COVID-19 Wave, Scientists Warn-Science Magazine
For COVID-19 researchers, the new year brings a strong sense of déjà vu. As in early 2020, the world is anxiously watching a virus spread in one country and trying to parse the risk for everyone else. This time it is not a completely new threat, but a rapidly spreading variant of SARS-CoV-2. In southeastern England, where the B.1.1.7 variant first caught scientists’ attention last month, it has quickly replaced other variants, and it may be the harbinger of a new, particularly perilous phase … Continue Reading
January 06, 2021
EU Commission Greenlights Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine-The Associated Press
The European Union’s executive commission gave the green light Wednesday to Moderna Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine, providing the 27-nation bloc with a second vaccine to use in the desperate battle to tame the virus rampaging across the continent. The European Commission granted conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine. The decision came against a backdrop of high infection rates in many EU countries and strong criticism of the slow pace of vaccinations across the region of some 450 … Continue Reading
January 06, 2021
CVS, Walgreens To Administer COVID-19 Vaccines At U.S. Nursing Homes By Jan 25-Reuters
CVS Health Corp and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc said on Wednesday they expect to complete administering the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines at U.S. nursing homes by Jan. 25. This comes as the United States has fallen behind its vaccination targets. As of Tuesday, just over 4.8 million had received the first dose, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the government had earlier expected 20 million to have been vaccinated by the end of 2020. Reuters, … Continue Reading
January 06, 2021
For People With OCD — And Fearful Of Germs — The Pandemic Is Upending Years Of Therapy-STAT
The pandemic has made the majority of Americans feel more anxious, but for Renée and millions of people like her, the virus is the encapsulation of every fear they had ever experienced. Invisible. Seemingly on every surface. No treatment. Potentially fatal, with long-term effects that could last months or years. Before Covid, patients would work for months in therapy to overcome the discomfort of entering a public restroom or boarding a grimy train. Now, every single aspect of ordinary life, … Continue Reading