Updates
Accidentally Trashed, Thawed Or Expired: Reports Of COVID Vaccine 'Spoilage' Grow-NPR
As the speed of COVID vaccinations picks up, so do the reports of doses going to waste. And it's more than just a handful at the end of the day because of a few appointment cancellations. Health officials are trying to address the problems that lead to waste, but without slowing down the roll out of the lifesaving vaccinations. The incidents include the 335 discarded doses in Lee County, North Carolina that were damaged in shipping, and recent problems in Tennessee, where nearly 5,000 doses … Continue Reading
March 03, 2021
The Search For Animals Harbouring Coronavirus — And Why It Matters-Nature
It was the news Sophie Gryseels had been dreading for months. Almost a year into the pandemic, a seemingly healthy wild mink tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in Utah. No free-roaming animal was known to have caught the virus before, although researchers had been watching for this closely. “It’s happened,” wrote Gryseels, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in an e-mail to her colleagues. Ever since the coronavirus started spreading around the world, scientists have … Continue Reading
March 03, 2021
International Megatrial Of Coronavirus Treatments Is At A Standstill-Science Magazine
The only global trial of potential COVID-19 treatments is languishing. The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Solidarity trial, set up last year to quickly test potential COVID-19 therapies with tens of thousands of patients, produced headlines in October 2020 when it showed that four candidate treatments offer little benefit. But since then, it hasn’t launched any new tests. On 27 January, John-Arne Røttingen, who works at Norway’s foreign ministry and chairs the trial’s executive group, … Continue Reading
March 03, 2021
States Rapidly Expanding Vaccine Access As Supplies Surge-The Associated Press
Buoyed by a surge in vaccine shipments, states and cities are rapidly expanding eligibility for COVID-19 shots to teachers, 55-and-over Americans and other groups as the U.S. races to beat back the virus and reopen businesses and schools. Arizona, Connecticut and Indiana have thrown open the line to the younger age bracket. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are reserving the first doses of the new one-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson for teachers. And in Detroit, factory workers can get … Continue Reading
March 03, 2021
Biden Says It's A 'Big Mistake' For States To Lift Mask Mandates-Reuters
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said decisions to end the required wearing of masks - such as those by governors of Texas and Mississippi - amounted to “Neanderthal thinking” given the rising death toll from the coronavirus pandemic. Asked if he had a message to Texas and Mississippi, Biden told reporters: “I think it’s a big mistake. Look, I hope everybody’s realized by now, these masks make a difference.” Biden said the increasing availability of vaccinations was making a difference in … Continue Reading
March 03, 2021
Biden Says U.S. Will Have Vaccine Supply For All Adults By May, Prioritizes Teachers-NPR
President Biden said on Tuesday that the U.S. will produce enough vaccines for every adult in the U.S. by the end of May, while making a fresh push to vaccinate school staff over the next month. As announced earlier in the day, Biden said his administration is invoking the Defense Production Act to boost production of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration over the weekend. NPR, … Continue Reading
March 02, 2021
CDC Chief Warns Of 'Potential Fourth Surge' And Urges US To Keep Covid Rules-The Guardian
Rochelle Walensky, the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warned on Monday that a recent increase in coronavirus cases indicated a “fourth surge” could occur before a majority of the US is vaccinated. The Guardian, … Continue Reading
March 02, 2021
Chinese Vaccines Sweep Much Of The World, Despite Concerns-The Associated Press
The plane laden with vaccines had just rolled to a stop at Santiago’s airport in late January, and Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, was beaming. “Today,” he said, “is a day of joy, emotion and hope.” The source of that hope: China - a country that Chile and dozens of other nations are depending on to help rescue them from the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccines to more than 45 … Continue Reading
March 02, 2021
Some U.S. Meatpackers Announce Vaccine Plans, But Many Workers Still Waiting-Reuters
COVID-19 vaccines are making their way into the arms of U.S. meat and agriculture workers, but companies and union officials say progress needs to be faster after coronavirus outbreaks idled slaughterhouses and sickened thousands of workers. Vaccinating food workers could help prevent further production disruptions that sent meat prices soaring in spring 2020 and forced retailers like Kroger Co to restrict customers’ purchases of ground beef and other products. Reuters, … Continue Reading
March 02, 2021
The Trump Administration Quietly Spent Billions In Hospital Funds On Operation Warp Speed-STAT
The Trump administration quietly took around $10 billion from a fund meant to help hospitals and health care providers affected by Covid-19 and used the money to bankroll Operation Warp Speed contracts, four former Trump administration officials told STAT. The Department of Health and Human Services appears to have used a financial maneuver that allowed officials to spend the money without telling Congress, and the agency got permission from its top lawyer to do so. Now, the Biden … Continue Reading
March 02, 2021
Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Rollout Begins In U.S. As COVID-19 Cases Tick Up-NPR
Johnson & Johnson has begun shipping nearly 4 million doses of its newly authorized COVID-19 vaccine across the U.S., officials said Monday, and is expected to further scale up supply in the coming weeks and months. "We think literally within about the next 24 to 48 hours, Americans should start receiving shots in arms," Alex Gorsky, Johnson & Johnson's CEO and chairman of the board, told NBC's Today. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and … Continue Reading
March 01, 2021
Brazilian Covid Variant: What Do We Know About P1?-The Guardian
Two coronavirus variants have been detected in Brazil, or in people who have travelled from Brazil, called P1 and P2. They are similar but it is P1 that is causing concern in the UK, after the detection of six cases - three in England and three in Scotland. The hunt is on for more - and to identify one of the people infected, who appears not to have registered their full details with NHS test and trace. The Guardian, … Continue Reading
March 01, 2021
Countries Urge Drug Companies To Share Vaccine Know-How-The Associated Press
In an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Bangladesh’s largest city lies a factory with gleaming new equipment imported from Germany, its immaculate hallways lined with hermetically sealed rooms. It is operating at just a quarter of its capacity. It is one of three factories that The Associated Press found on three continents whose owners say they could start producing hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccines on short notice if only they had the blueprints and technical know-how. But … Continue Reading
March 01, 2021
Amid Scramble For COVID-19 Vaccine, Latin America Turns To Russia-Reuters
As Bolivia struggled late last year to secure deals with large drug firms to supply COVID-19 vaccines, the incoming president, Luis Arce, turned to Russia for help. By the end of December, Bolivia clinched its first major COVID-19 vaccine deal, with enough shots for some 20% of the population. The first Sputnik V doses arrived in the country in late January, just as virus cases were spiking. Reuters, … Continue Reading
March 01, 2021
Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 Vaccine To Start Shipping Soon, But Early Supply Could Be Uneven-STAT
Health care providers will begin receiving the first 3.9 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s newly authorized Covid-19 vaccine as early as Tuesday morning, though supply will be uneven in the coming weeks, senior Biden administration officials said. The first shipments account for the entirety of J&J’s current inventory. Officials expect another 16 million doses to be available by the end of March, though J&J told the federal government that the doses will be delivered mostly … Continue Reading
March 01, 2021
CDC Panel Endorses Johnson & Johnson's One-Dose COVID-19 Vaccine-NPR
A panel of experts that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has given its blessing to a new one-shot vaccine for COVID-19. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 12-0, with one recusal, to recommend the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for people aged 18 and older. The move comes one day after the Food and Drug Administration authorized this vaccine for emergency use, making it the third COVID-19 vaccine available in the U.S. NPR, … Continue Reading
February 26, 2021
7 Ways To Reduce Reluctance To Take COVID Vaccines-Scientific American
Like billions of people around the world, I am eagerly awaiting my turn for a COVID vaccine. But not everyone shares my enthusiasm. My sister-in-law, an alternative health practitioner, says she doesn't trust “Big Pharma” to have formulated safe shots. She prefers to fortify her immune system with supplements and a healthy lifestyle. “I avoid all vaccines,” she told me. She is not alone. By now the term “vaccine hesitancy” has entered everyday pandemic discourse, joining “flatten the curve” … Continue Reading
February 26, 2021
Vaccination ‘Passports’ May Open Society, But Inequity Looms-The Associated Press
Violet light bathed the club stage as 300 people, masked and socially distanced, erupted in gentle applause. For the first time since the pandemic began, Israeli musician Aviv Geffen stepped to his electric piano and began to play for an audience seated right in front of him. “A miracle is happening here tonight,” Geffen told the crowd. Still, the reanimating experience Monday night above a shopping mall north of Tel Aviv night was not accessible to everyone. Only people displaying a “green … Continue Reading
February 26, 2021
AstraZeneca, Sputnik Vaccines Face Hurdles If COVID Shots Become Annual Affair-Reuters
Vaccines from AstraZeneca, Russia’s Gamaleya Institute and Johnson & Johnson fight the coronavirus with another virus, leaving scientists concerned the shots may lose potency if annual inoculations become necessary to fight new variants. So-called viral vector shots - also used by several Chinese COVID-19 vaccine developers - use harmless modified viruses as vehicles, or vectors, to carry genetic information that helps the body build immunity against future infections. However, there is a … Continue Reading
February 26, 2021
Tracking An FDA Advisory Panel’s Meeting On J&J’s Covid-19 Vaccine-STAT
Now it’s Johnson & Johnson’s turn. A panel of outside experts is meeting Friday for a third time to consider whether the Food and Drug Administration ought to give an emergency use authorization for a Covid-19 vaccine, this one from J&J. STAT, … Continue Reading