COVID-19

[Archimid]

Why did the world’s pandemic warning system fail when COVID hit?

To talk about this without talking about Trump or propaganda networks is why the pandemic warning system failed and why it will fail again.

Trump sabotaged the coronavirus response at multiple levels. There was massively harmful propaganda, but there were also executive actions that handicapped the response in multiple ways. From sabotaged testing, to massive profiteering to the Surgeon General of the United States recommending against the use of masks.

2 million people are dead today and that number can double twice in a year if mutations get out of control.

For there be a pandemic warning system that works, it must be proofed against political sabotage.

A good way to do that is by making an example of the mass murderers sabotaged the response.

[Archimid]

I have my doubts about whether the vaccines can end this. I also wonder whether they could be an environmental pressure that causes more mutations, for better or worse.

Virus Expert Says COVID Will 'Not Go Away' and Could Be Around for 'Rest of Our Lives'
https://www.newsweek.com/dr-ian-lipkin-columbia-university-expert-warns-coronavirus-covid19-rest-lives-1550585

LIke many countries have already shown. That is strictly a political choice.

We can pay a small price today by the discomfort of masks, frequent hand washing, and distancing or we can just do whatever today and pay an ever-increasing price in human life.


That is 100% our choice.

Zenith. Right now your posts sound like you are echoing propaganda networks. The propaganda networks want people to give up hope and pretend C19 is inevitable.

Despair is one of their most powerful tools. Don't fall for it. It will disarm you.

[The Walrus]

Why did the world’s pandemic warning system fail when COVID hit?

To talk about this without talking about Trump or propaganda networks is why the pandemic warning system failed and why it will fail again.

Trump sabotaged the coronavirus response at multiple levels. There was massively harmful propaganda, but there were also executive actions that handicapped the response in multiple ways. From sabotaged testing, to massive profiteering to the Surgeon General of the United States recommending against the use of masks.

2 million people are dead today and that number can double twice in a year if mutations get out of control.

For there be a pandemic warning system that works, it must be proofed against political sabotage.

A good way to do that is by making an example of the mass murderers sabotaged the response.

I think you are giving the ex-president too much credit.  First, the U.S. was both the worst hit - not even the top 10 in death rate.  Those are all in Europe.  Perhaps you are implying that all the world’s politicians sabotaged the warning system - or at least those in all the western countries?  That this was all a ruse for political gain?  I find that type of conspiracy hard to swallow.  On top of that, your solution to what you refer to as mass murdering is to murder more?  How would that make you any different from them?

[zenith]

Did you read that article?

The propaganda networks currently have people believing that the vaccines are a silver bullet and as soon as everyone gets jabbed life will go back to normal. Anyone that reads realizes that it's not so simple.

I appreciate the pep talk but I'm curious as to where you draw the line between optimism and delusion?

[Richard Rathbone]

Messy data.

https://twitter.com/theosanderson/status/1352669515583279105

Thread with detail on why the PCR proxies for the new variant used in the infection survey have become less reliable in recent weeks, and hence why the infection survey graphs are misleading.

There are 8 possible results from the PCR tests. 2 are negatives, 1 is a strong proxy for the new variant, 3 are strong proxies for old variants, and 2 aren't strong indicators either way. The fraction of tests which are ambivalent has grown substantially since lockdown (an expected result of more people getting tested earlier in disease progression when viral load is lower) but the infection survey treats all proxies as perfect, and that is likely to be significantly wrong, particularly in the more recent data, and particularly where the new variant is dominant. They have London's old variant positives as pretty constant at 0.9%, its almost certainly less and I reckon the error margin ought to go down to 0.1 or 0.2% to account for how uncertain the proxies actually are in their recent London data. It only needs to go down to 0.3% to be consistent with the advantage in infectiousness staying constant. Sequencing data should allow the proxies to be better calibrated in future but at the moment the error bars on the ratio of new:old variants in London are huge compared to the range the infection survey quotes. They have it close to 2:1 but I reckon thats the bottom end of a range that might go up to 25:1 if allowance were made for the proxies not being perfect.

[Tom_Mazanec]

My aunt got her first jab yesterday. Father Mike gets his first week of February (he teaches at a school). Looking forward to mine.
Then three weeks, another jab, and two weeks (or vice versa).

[kassy]

New Zealand has reported its first case of Covid-19 outside of a quarantine facility in more than two months.

Health officials said a 56-year-old woman who had recently returned from Europe tested positive 10 days after completing a compulsory two-week period of managed isolation.

Contact tracing efforts are under way, and authorities have published a list of locations the woman visited.

New Zealand has been widely praised for its response to the pandemic.

The country, with a population of five million, has recorded 1,927 confirmed cases and 25 deaths over the course of the pandemic.

The Ministry of Health said the woman had tested negative twice before leaving an isolation facility in Auckland on 13 January.

She started developing mild symptoms two days later, which then got progressively worse. She received a positive test result on Saturday and has been isolating at home.

...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55785787

[zenith]

There was far more going on than Orange Man Bad. The US and UK are also home to Wall St. and The City of London, globalization and neoliberal policies. Nobody wanted to shut down and the flat fact is that governments lied about masks as they didn't want locusts descending on supplies that they needed for front-line workers. When China started welding doors shut that got my attention and I found Chris Martenson and Dr. John Campbell on Y-tube. You can go back and watch their early videos as they're both pulling their hair out over the contradictory mess as it unfolded. Despite the Canadian Gov't telling us that masks didn't work we were wearing them, i had some carpentry dust masks on hand and then my wife made some.

Dr. John Campbell is still providing good info.

[The Walrus]

True.  The mask issue was about ensuring there was sufficient supply for medical personnel.  Yes, the CDC purposely mislead the public, but had nothing to do with the president downplaying the virus.  Some posters here just want to hold onto their own biased beliefs, regardless of the truth.  I guess it is easier for them that way.

<Removed quote of post above. kassy>

[zenith]

Cautious optimism is all well and good so long as 'reality' isn't negated. The new strains are spreading faster than the vaccines and there are no definitive answers as to what that means. Europe is struggling with vaccination, imagine Africa, India, etc.

New mutations raise specter of ‘immune escape’
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6527/329

[kassy]

Just a reminder that we care about the news/numbers/science not so much private theories.

[vox_mundi]

AstraZeneca Says Covid-19 Vaccine Deliveries to Europe Will Be ‘Lower than Expected’
https://amp.france24.com/en/europe/20210123-astrazeneca-says-covid-19-vaccine-deliveries-to-europe-will-be-lower-than-expected

A warning from AstraZeneca that initial supplies of its Europe-bound Covid-19 vaccines will be lower than expected has sparked new concern over the rollout of inoculations, with some countries planning for a sharp drop in deliveries.

Friday's announcement by the British pharmaceutical firm followed another last week by Pfizer, which said it would delay shipments of its vaccine for up to a month due to works at its key plant in Belgium.

The companies' warnings come with worry deepening over new Covid-19 variants, particularly one that emerged in Britain and which is more infectious than the original strain.

AstraZeneca said in its statement that if EU approval is granted, the "initial volumes will be lower than anticipated", although the start would not be delayed.

The company blamed "reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain".

... Austrian health chief Rudolf Anschober called it "very, very bad news" and said his country would receive in February only slightly more than half of the 650,000 AstraZeneca doses it had anticipated.

Lithuania said it was expecting an 80 percent reduction in AstraZeneca doses in the first quarter.

Germany's FHI health authority now plans to receive only 200,000 AstraZeneca doses in February – far less than the 1.12 million initially expected.

... Meanwhile, the Pfizer delay announced last week was continuing to draw criticism. ... "The 20-percent reduction in Pfizer vaccine supplies is not an estimation, but a sad certainty,"

-----------------------------------------------

Re: Single vaccine dose
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-statement-following-authorized-dosing-schedules-covid-19-vaccines

... What we have seen is that the data in the firms’ submissions regarding the first dose is commonly being misinterpreted. In the phase 3 trials, 98% of participants in the Pfizer-BioNTech trial and 92% of participants in the Moderna trial received two doses of the vaccine at either a three- or four-week interval, respectively. Those participants who did not receive two vaccine doses at either a three-or four-week interval were generally only followed for a short period of time, such that we cannot conclude anything definitive about the depth or duration of protection after a single dose of vaccine from the single dose percentages reported by the companies.

Using a single dose regimen and/or administering less than the dose studied in the clinical trials without understanding the nature of the depth and duration of protection that it provides is concerning, as there is some indication that the depth of the immune response is associated with the duration of protection provided. If people do not truly know how protective a vaccine is, there is the potential for harm because they may assume that they are fully protected when they are not, and accordingly, alter their behavior to take unnecessary risks.

[vox_mundi]

Patients In Cancer Remission at High Risk for Severe COVID-19 Illness
https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2021/january/patients-in-cancer-remission-at-high-risk-for-severe-covid19-illness

PHILADELPHIA--Patients with inactive cancer and not currently undergoing treatments also face a significantly higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19, a new study from Penn Medicine published online today in JNCI Cancer Spectrum shows. Past reports have established an increased risk of severe disease and death for sick or hospitalized cancer patients with COVID-19 compared to patients without cancer, but less is known about patients in the general population.

The findings underscore the importance of COVID-19 mitigation, like social distancing and mask wearing, and vaccinations for all patients, not just those recently diagnosed or with active disease.

... The researchers analyzed the records of more than 4,800 patients who had been tested for COVID-19 from the Penn Medicine BioBank, a centralized bank of samples and linked data from the health system's electronic health records, to investigate the association between cancer status and COVID-19 outcomes. Of the 328 positive cases through June 2020, 67 (20.7 percent) had a cancer diagnosis in their medical history (80.6 percent with solid tumor malignancy and 73.1 percent with inactive cancer).

Patients with COVID-19 -- including both those with active cancer (18) and inactive cancer (49) -- had higher rates of hospitalizations compared to non-cancer patients (55.2 percent vs. 29 percent), intensive care unit admissions (25.7 percent vs. 11.7 percent), and 30-day mortality (13.4 percent vs. 1.6 percent). While worse outcomes were more strongly associated with those with active cancer, patients in remission also faced an overall increased risk of more severe disease compared to COVID-19 patients without cancer.

Notably, the proportion of Black patients -- who make up 20 percent of the patients in the biobank -- was significantly higher in both cancer and non-cancer COVID-19-positive patients (65.7 percent and 64.1 percent, respectively) compared to all patients tested for SARS-CoV-2.

"Our finding that cancer patients with COVID-19 were more likely than non-cancer patients to experience hospitalization and death even after adjusting for patient-level factors supports the hypothesis that cancer is an independent risk factor for poor COVID-19 outcomes," they wrote.

[colchonero]

Ok Israel cases started to drop week over week, I think everyone is wondering will they crush it in the upcoming weeks with the vaccines.

[zenith]

@kassy
 "not so much private theories" no idea who this was directed at or which "private theories" you're referencing but I can easily back up what I said with documentation and/or open discussion, nothing private about any of it. There was plenty of science coming out of Asia that was being dismissed/ignored by the west. The people of the Czech Republic began making their own masks early on in defiance of the official narrative of their government.

"It's easier to sell comfortable lies than it is hard truths"

[vox_mundi]

... the corner bakery had better inventory control ...

CDC Director Says Federal Government Does Not Know How Much Covid Vaccine the U.S. Has
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/01/24/cdc-director-government-does-not-know-how-much-covid-vaccine-the-us-has.html

WASHINGTON – The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Sunday that the federal government does not know how much coronavirus vaccine the nation has, a complication that adds to the already herculean task before the Biden administration.

"I can't tell you how much vaccine we have, and if I can't tell it to you then I can't tell it to the governors and I can't tell it to the state health officials," CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told "Fox News Sunday."

"If they don't know how much vaccine they're getting not just this week but next week and the week after they can't plan. They can't figure out how many sites to roll out, they can't figure out how many vaccinators that they need, and they can't figure out how many appointments to make for the public," Walensky said.

In a dig at the Trump administration, Walensky said the lack of knowledge of vaccine supply is indicative of "the challenges we've been left with."

... White House chief of staff Ron Klain said the nation also faces distribution problems because the Trump administration, which started the program, did not have a clear plan.

"The process of distributing the vaccine, particularly outside of nursing homes and hospitals, out into the community as a whole did not really exist when we came into the White House," Klain told MSNBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

-------------------------------------------

... In an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation" that aired Sunday, Dr. Deborah Birx — who coordinated the Trump White House's Covid-19 response — said the former president had "no team, full-time team in the White House working on coronavirus." The Trump administration's structure meant that she was the "only full-time person in the White House working on the coronavirus response."

... VP Pence, Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator, was also given no additional White House staff, and his existing VP staff worked on the COVID-19 response.

Birx said that she felt her science-based guidance was being censored by the White House and that she was being deliberately blocked from appearing on national media outlets for a time.

Birx said that her efforts to advise then-President Trump about the pandemic were complicated by people presenting him with "a parallel set of data." [... Alternate facts?]

"I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made, so I know that someone - or someone out there or someone inside - was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president. I know what I sent up, and I know that what was in his hands was different from that," Birx said.

Asked by host Margaret Brennan who provided the former president with such data, Birx said she was unsure but that she suspected at least some of the data had been provided by former White House adviser Scott Atlas, who is not an expert on infectious diseases and repeatedly battled with Birx and other experts about the best way to contain the pandemic.

https://mobile.twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1353332977560735744

Birx provided Pence's staff with regular reports, though the senior adviser said he may not have read them all and did not sign off on them.

... In private, Birx encouraged governors to disregard Mr. Trump's dismissiveness of mask-wearing and his pressure to reopen the economy faster than federal health guidelines would permit.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1255455

----------------------------------------------------

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said that former President Donald Trump tried to get him to downplay the severity of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now working for President Biden's administration, Fauci told The New York Times, in an interview published Sunday, that Trump had urged him to be optimistic—even as things got dire.

"I would try to express the gravity of the situation, and the response of the president was always leaning toward, 'Well, it's not that bad, right?' And I would say, 'Yes, it is that bad,'" he recalled.

"It was almost a reflex response, trying to coax you to minimize it. Not saying, 'I want you to minimize it,' but, 'Oh, really, was it that bad?'" Fauci continued.

"There were a couple of times where I would make a statement that was a pessimistic viewpoint about what direction we were going, and the president would call me up and say, 'Hey, why aren't you more positive? You've got to take a positive attitude. Why are you so negativistic? Be more positive.'"

Fauci also expressed concern about how Trump would take the opinions of his business colleagues and others on pandemic-related issues as important information.

"It was clear that he was getting input from people who were calling him up, I don't know who, people he knew from business, saying, 'Hey, I heard about this drug, isn't it great?' or, 'Boy, this convalescent plasma is really phenomenal,'" he said. "He would take just as seriously their opinion—based on no data, just anecdote—that something might really be important. It wasn't just hydroxychloroquine, it was a variety of alternative-medicine-type approaches."

.... Fauci said he tried to "calmly explain" to Trump that drugs need to undergo a clinical trial, but the former president would say: "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this stuff really works."

https://www.newsweek.com/anthony-fauci-says-trump-tried-coax-him-minimizing-covid-pandemic-more-positive-1564021?amp=1

[vox_mundi]

Diabetes Treatment May Protect Against COVID-19 Mortality
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/amp/articles/diabetes-treatment-may-protect-against-covid-19-mortality

Researchers have found that people with diabetes undergoing treatment with the medication metformin are at significantly less risk of death due to COVID-19 compared with those not taking the medication.

The study, which appears in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology, also found that African American study participants were disproportionately more likely to contract the virus than white participants.

... Researchers found that people with diabetes who tested positive and who were taking metformin — a medication that doctors use to treat diabetes — had an 11% risk of dying, which was the same as that of the general population. In comparison, those with diabetes not taking metformin had a 24% risk of dying.

Prof. Shalev notes, “This beneficial effect remained, even after correcting for age, sex, race, obesity, and hypertension or chronic kidney disease and heart failure.”

“Since similar results have now been obtained in different populations from around the world — including China, France, and a [UnitedHealth] analysis — this suggests that the observed reduction in mortality risk associated with metformin use in subjects with type 2 diabetes and COVID-19 might be generalizable,” Shalev said.

The researchers could not confirm why metformin may be having these effects. As a diabetes treatment, it could be improving glycemic control or obesity.

However, among those with diabetes who took metformin, body mass index (BMI), blood glucose levels, and hemoglobin A1C levels were no higher in the people who died than in those who survived.

As a consequence, Prof. Shalev suggests that “[t]he mechanisms may involve metformin’s previously described anti-inflammatory and antithrombotic effects.”

Metformin Use Is Associated With Reduced Mortality in a Diverse Population With COVID-19 and Diabetes, Frontiers in Endocrinology, (2021)
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2020.600439/full

[Archimid]

CDC Director Says Federal Government Does Not Know How Much Covid Vaccine the U.S. Has

It is obvious that bold, italics or even large fonts are not convincing enough. So I will try one last desperate measure:

S-A-B-O-T-A-G-E

There. Caps and dashes will surely change the world.

[Rodius]

The graphic display is simply too good not to share.

This is a graphic of the Australian journey through Covid from start to today.
It shows returning travel infections, local trans, unknowns, clusters and has footnotes for them as well.

Of personal note, my mother was in the Baptcare Wydnam Cluster

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-25/covid-19-spread-through-australia-over-year/13078574?nw=0

[vox_mundi]

Neat graphic! 

... wish my country had done that. 

[kassy]

CDC Director Says Federal Government Does Not Know How Much Covid Vaccine the U.S. Has

It is obvious that bold, italics or even large fonts are not convincing enough. So I will try one last desperate measure:

S-A-B-O-T-A-G-E

There. Caps and dashes will surely change the world.

Or incompetence etc.

As i said yesterday this thread is for covid news not rehashing the same old rants.

[Jim Hunt]

A press release from Moderna:

https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-retains-neutralizing-activity-against

Out of an abundance of caution, Moderna launches clinical program to boost immunity to emerging variants

Manuscript posted to preprint server; company to host conference call once manuscript is available

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 2021-- Moderna Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNA), a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, today announced results from in vitro neutralization studies of sera from individuals vaccinated with Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine showing activity against emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccination with the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine produced neutralizing titers against all key emerging variants tested, including B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, first identified in the UK and Republic of South Africa, respectively. The study showed no significant impact on neutralizing titers against the B.1.1.7 variant relative to prior variants. A six-fold reduction in neutralizing titers was observed with the B.1.351 variant relative to prior variants. Despite this reduction, neutralizing titer levels with B.1.351 remain above levels that are expected to be protective. This study was conducted in collaboration with the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The manuscript has been submitted as a preprint to bioRxiv and will be submitted for peer-reviewed publication.

This seems to be the preprint mentioned:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.25.427948v1.full.pdf

[zenith]

WEF today. Dr. Fauci is interesting @17 mins. and 32 mins., the rest is meh.

[Archimid]

As i said yesterday this thread is for covid news not rehashing the same old rants.

Trump's sabotage of the C19 response is a direct reply to why the early warning system didn't work. It's is perfectly on topic. Like masks. You just don't like it. You wish to ignore the past and plan for a future early warning system ignoring what happened this time around.

Good luck with that. I'm sure it will cost millions and it will not work because it is based on comfy fantasies, not reality.

[Alexander555]

Looks like somebody sacrificed the population to let Trump look bad. Archimid, you bad boy, was it you ?

Birx said that her efforts to advise then-President Trump about the pandemic were complicated by people presenting him with "a parallel set of data." [... Alternate facts?]

"I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made, so I know that someone - or someone out there or someone inside - was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president. I k

[vox_mundi]

-------------------------------------------------------

White House press secretary Jen Psaki just said that the administration was in a mode of “eyes wide open” about the lack of organized plan it inherited from the Trump administration on vaccine supplies, distribution and administration (shots actually getting into arms).

“We knew we were not walking into circumstances where there was going to be a concrete plan presented to us,” she said.

The new head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rochelle Walensky, said this morning that the agency “does not know how much vaccine we have or how much is coming [from producers Pfizer and Moderna] in the next two to three weeks.”

Meanwhile, Psaki said public officials will hold Covid-19 briefings three times a week, beginning on Wednesday.

Psaki announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been dispatched to assist at an under-staffed vaccination site.

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1353771065495887873

---------------------------------------------------------

Germany Fears AstraZeneca Vaccine Won't Get EU Approval for Those Over 65
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSL8N2K05OP

(Reuters) - AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine is not very effective for people over 65, German coalition sources told tabloid Bild and Handelsblatt, a step which calls into question its suitability in mass vaccination programmes.

German officials fear that the AstraZeneca vaccine may not be approved by European Union medicines authority EMA for use in those over 65, the German tabloid said in its online edition.

It marks another potential blow for AstraZeneca, which developed its shot with Oxford University. It told the EU on Friday it could not meet agreed supply targets up to the end of March.

Astrazeneca had no immediate comment.

------------------------------------------

While trial results published in The Lancet found that a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc is safe and effective, more analysis will be needed to see how well it works in people over 55, among those at higher risk from the pandemic.

Because older adults were recruited to the studies later than younger ones, “they’ve had less time for cases to accrue in those age groups and for us to be able to measure an efficacy signal,” said Andrew Pollard, lead investigator on the Oxford trial.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32661-1/fulltext

------------------------------------

France’s Pasteur Institute Says It Is Abandoning Its Principal Covid-19 Vaccine Project
https://amp.france24.com/en/live-news/20210125-france-s-pasteur-institute-says-it-is-abandoning-its-principal-covid-19-vaccine-project

------------------------------------------

Merck Discontinuing Development of Two COVID-19 Vaccine Candidates
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/535634-merck-discontinuing-development-of-two-covid-19-vaccine-candidates?amp

[vox_mundi]

Google Maps Will Soon Show COVID Vaccine Locations
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/01/google-maps-will-soon-show-covid-vaccine-locations/

The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine means a ton of people are soon going to be looking for vaccination sites. As usual, Google wants to be at the center of getting people where they're going, and in a new blog post Google says it will start loading Search and Maps with information on vaccination sites. "In the coming weeks," the company writes, "COVID-19 vaccination locations will be available in Google Search and Maps, starting with Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, with more states and countries to come."

Soon you'll be able to search "COVID vaccine" and get location results showing access requirements, appointment information, and if a site has a drive-through. Google says it is partnering with the Boston Children's Hospital's VaccineFinder.org, government agencies, and retail pharmacies for the data.

https://blog.google/technology/health/vaccines-how-were-helping

Google also says it plans on launching a "Get the Facts" campaign across its services, probably to counter the conspiracy theories the company is often caught promoting via the YouTube algorithm. The post says the initiative will run across Google and YouTube to "get authoritative information out to the public about vaccines."

[vox_mundi]

Speciality Syringe Supply Crunch Strains COVID-19 Vaccinations
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-speciality-syringe-crunch-strains-covid-.html

A shortage of speciality syringes is challenging plans to get an extra dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech coronavirus vaccine out of its vial, medical device giant Becton Dickinson (BD) said.

"Low dead space syringes" can be used to extract six doses instead of five from vials containing the companies' vaccine, but a BD spokesman told AFP on Saturday there is a supply crunch for the syringes and no easy way to address it.

"Low dead space syringes are niche products and there has... traditionally been minimal market demand based on health care provider needs," the spokesman said.

"Because of this, those products have limited production capacity, and it would take time to increase production capacity of these device."

When BD began working with US officials last spring, "there was no emphasis placed on low dead space syringes, so other devices took priority when production was ramped up to meet COVID vaccination needs," the spokesman said.

-------------------------------------------

Minnesota Case Marks 1st Detection of Brazil Variant in US
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-minnesota-case-1st-brazil-variant.html

The Brazil P.1 variant was found in a specimen from a patient who recently returned to Minnesota who lives in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area who became ill in the first week of January after traveling to Brazil, the Minnesota Department of Health said in a statement.

The variant, called P.1, has been circulating in Manaus, Brazil, since at least December

The Minnesota Department of Health has a program that conducts regular surveillance for variants, testing 50 random samples from University of Minnesota laboratories weekly.

[Jim Hunt]

(Reuters) - AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine is not very effective for people over 65, German coalition sources told tabloid Bild and Handelsblatt, a step which calls into question its suitability in mass vaccination programmes.

Allegedly:

"Reports that the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine efficacy is as low as 8% in adults over 65 years are completely incorrect," an AstraZeneca spokesperson told DW in a written response. The company said that an influential UK vaccination committee, the JCVI, and the UK's national MHRA medicines regulator supported the use of its vaccine on that particular age group.

The German Health Ministry also contradicted the claim, suggesting that the source for the 8% figure must have mixed up their numbers.

https://www.dw.com/en/astrazeneca-german-reports-on-low-efficacy-on-over-65s-completely-incorrect/a-56341198

[Jim Hunt]

It seems Robert Peston has been chatting to AZ as well:

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1354019140084916225

The important difference between AstraZeneca's relationship with the UK and with the EU, and the reason it has fallen behind schedule on 50m vaccine doses promised to the EU, is that the UK agreed the deal with AZ a full three months before the EU did - which gave AZ an extra three months to sort out manufacturing and supply problems relating to the UK contract (there were plenty of problems).

[colchonero]

 

Fewer than 0.01% of people who received Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine have contracted the virus more than a week after receiving the second dose, a leading Israeli healthcare provider said on Monday.

The preliminary results shared by Israeli HMO Maccabi showed that only 20 people out of some 128,600 who received both shots have since been infected with the COVID-19 virus.

[crandles]

Fewer than 0.01% of people who received Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine have contracted the virus more than a week after receiving the second dose, a leading Israeli healthcare provider said on Monday.

The preliminary results shared by Israeli HMO Maccabi showed that only 20 people out of some 128,600 who received both shots have since been infected with the COVID-19 virus.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/week-after-2nd-pfizer-vaccine-shot-only-20-of-128000-israelis-get-covid/

Maccabi said it has 128,600 members who have seen seven days pass since full vaccine protection kicked in — and only 20 have caught the coronavirus after they were considered immunized.

Leading immunologist Cyrille Cohen told The Times of Israel that among the general population, around 0.65% are infected in a given week.

0.15% compared to 0.65% would be 77% efficacy but a lot of the 128600 will have had second shot for quite a bit longer than 7 days. So

his calculation indicates that the vaccine is slightly exceeding the 95% effectiveness predicted by Pfizer’s clinical trial.

seems reasonable, maybe. OTOH perhaps several more have got it but not yet tested positive?

[vox_mundi]

Different numbers from an earlier post ...

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2996.msg298669.html#msg298669

Israel's Virus Czar: First Dose Of Vaccine Less Effective Than Pfizer Data Shows
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-virus-czar-says-1st-dose-less-effective-than-pfizer-indicated-report/amp/

... Nachman Ash reportedly says it's not certain vaccines can protect against mutated coronavirus strains; 12,400 Israelis were infected with virus after receiving 1st shot; this figure includes 69 people who have received the second dose.

Over 2 million Israelis have had their first Pfizer shot. Over 400,000 have had the second.

... According to figures released by Clalit, Israel’s largest health provider, the chance of a person being infected with the coronavirus dropped by 33% 14 days after they were vaccinated; separate figures recorded by the Maccabi health provider showed the vaccine caused a 60% drop in the chances for infection after taking the first shot.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/coronavirus-antibodies-may-not-stop-transmission-of-virus-study-finds-655635

[bbr2315]

Fewer than 0.01% of people who received Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine have contracted the virus more than a week after receiving the second dose, a leading Israeli healthcare provider said on Monday.

The preliminary results shared by Israeli HMO Maccabi showed that only 20 people out of some 128,600 who received both shots have since been infected with the COVID-19 virus.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/week-after-2nd-pfizer-vaccine-shot-only-20-of-128000-israelis-get-covid/

Maccabi said it has 128,600 members who have seen seven days pass since full vaccine protection kicked in — and only 20 have caught the coronavirus after they were considered immunized.

Leading immunologist Cyrille Cohen told The Times of Israel that among the general population, around 0.65% are infected in a given week.

0.15% compared to 0.65% would be 77% efficacy but a lot of the 128600 will have had second shot for quite a bit longer than 7 days. So

his calculation indicates that the vaccine is slightly exceeding the 95% effectiveness predicted by Pfizer’s clinical trial.

seems reasonable, maybe. OTOH perhaps several more have got it but not yet tested positive?

It is not .15%, 20 out of 128K is .015%.

[nadir]

An interesting nyt article that unfortunately I can’t access online:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/24/us/covid-vaccine-rollout.html

[longwalks1]

Short version, I will attempt to listen/view TWiV to get any good things there. 
I guess I owned a television when I owned a homeless shelter, but have not since.  Suffice to say that I will still attempt to listen and pause to get good stuff from the 90 plus minutes  of TWiV (This Week in Virology) in and amidst the banter and chaff while doing dishes, cleaning kitchen, cooking.  Episode 711, all salivation over the new adminstration and going over the 20 page monograph of the 200 page Biden plan on Covid-19. And yes, the second shot can hit harder.     There is a world out there bursting with info. 

Possibly not perfect decorum, but any new trials of the Sino or Russian  (Gam-COVID-Vac  - Sputnik 5)   or India's two vacines  CoviShield and CoVaxin  would be deeply appreciated.  A couple posts here but not from the more upstream or data orientated sites.   This is my heavy week to work. 

https://www.livemint.com/science/health/covishield-to-wait-till-february-for-global-distribution-and-use-11611595182851.html

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO had earlier indicated that it is looking forward to SII’s full data sets for rapid assessment to consider it for emergency use globally. The COVAX Facility intends to provide all 190 participating economies with an indicative allocation of doses by the end of this month.

     I am not sure if it is not -sure if it is just a manufacture of the AZ vaccine in India or if there are modifications.   I do find the usage of the "COVAX facility" confusing as COVISHIELD is allied with AZ whereas the COVAXIN is indigenous. 

https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/general-news/covishield-vs-covaxin-factsheet-who-cannot-take-the-vaccine-and-what-are-the-side-effects.html

Both Indian vaccine manufacturers - Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech (BBL) on Tuesday, have released factsheets regarding their vaccines.     
As the Centre urges health workers to shed 'vaccine hesitancy', both Indian vaccine manufacturers - Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech (BBL) on Tuesday, have released factsheets regarding their vaccines COVISHIELD and COVAXIN respectively. As of date, only 4,54,049 persons have been vaccinated since January 16 with 0.002% of people hospitalised post-inoculation. The Centre aims to vaccinate 3 crore frontline workers in phase-1, with 1.1 crore COVISHIELD doses and 55 lakh COVAXIN doses already purchased.   

Note:  The fact sheets for both are in the article.   

The controversy over COVAXIN -  an indigenous COVID-19 vaccine by Bharat Biotech, developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) - National Institute of Virology (NIV) began after DCGI granted permission for restricted use in an emergency situation. Covaxin - a Whole Virion Inactivated Corona Virus Vaccine - 22,500 participants vaccinated in Phase-III trials and was found to be safe as per the data available till date. Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan explained that COVAXIN is more likely to work against newer variants like N501Y Variant (UK variant) & any other variant and clarified hat COVAXIN was given a different approval i.e 'clinical trial mode' - where all COVAXIN recipients will be tracked, monitored as if they’re in trial. All beneficiaries have to sign a consent form which promises compensation in case of 'adverse effects'. These conditions and the alleged 'rush in approval' for COVAXIN have been questioned by several experts.

About the Gam-COVID-Vac  - Sputnik 5    via Reuters and Mexico trying it out.
https://news.trust.org/item/20210126142455-ktl5j

Not much about the AZ and Gam-COVID trials with AZ first and Gam second. 

I still am intrigued by their usage of slightly different RNA sources for first and second dose to hopefully tailor a stronger longer immunity. via Gam-COVID.

And a slight jaunt into the time machine about a person who seems worthy of more examination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Gamaleya

Gamaleya's later work, including organizing the supply and distribution of smallpox vaccines for the Red Army, made strides toward the eventual eradication of smallpox in the USSR.[

Oh, the days when scientists of the usOfa and sOveit uNion could cooperate on vaccines. 

[Sebastian Jones]

Tha Australian think tank the  Lowy Institute has published a multi variant ranking of the responses by 98 countries to the pandemic.
The interactive site allows one to compare different countries based on region, income, population and type of government.
In aggregate, it is not surprising that New Zealand, Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan rank as having the best responses. It was surprise to me to see Cyprus in the top  five.
Many low income developing countries have managed the pandemic well so far, based, the report says, on their having a bit more lead time ( they have fewer international travellers) and their taking it very seriously because they have fewer resources and more experience with epidemics.
It will not be a surprise to regular followers of this thread that the United States has a place in the bottom five.
https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/covid-performance/

[Richard Rathbone]

https://twitter.com/olivernmoody/status/1354781400071860230/photo/1

Interesting numbers on AZ vaccine. The tweet is actually about over 65s, of which there aren't enough to say anything, but some German newspapers tried anyway which just goes to show the standard of maths in Germany is just as rubbish as elsewhere.

However, it has the asymptomatic numbers too.

All infections
30 in the vaccine arm: 101 in the control arm
Asymptomatic
29 vaccine: 40 control

Which implies
Symptomatic
1 vaccine: 61 control

i.e. the reason AZ has a lower headline figure than Pfizer and Moderna, is that AZ used an asymptomatic endpoint in part of its trial and thats the part where most of the infections in the vaccine arm occurred. If AZ had just used a symptomatic endpoint it would have been in the same ballpark as the mRNA vaccines. 1:61 beats 1:20 and 1:10, but massive error bars with only 1 symptomatic case and the possibility that some that were detected by screening would have been caught later by symptoms if there wasn't screening.

I can read the table, but my German isn't up to tracking down the document let alone reading something technical outside my speciality so I've no idea how much the Low Dose section of the trial might be confounding the asymptomatic screening part, but it does look like the 70% effectiveness headline figure is massively lowballed in order to have enough data to submit to the regulators.

[The Walrus]

Cases in the U.S. have dropped by a third over the past two weeks.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210128&instance_id=26492&nl=the-morning&regi_id=120243410&segment_id=50458&te=1&user_id=d443af962feceecbf0332065f55d48ff

[Tor Bejnar]

Short version, ...
...

... India ... As of date, only 4,54,049 persons have been vaccinated since January 16 with 0.002% of people hospitalised post-inoculation. The Centre aims to vaccinate 3 crore frontline workers in phase-1, with 1.1 crore COVISHIELD doses and 55 lakh COVAXIN doses already purchased.   

...

For some translation/definition, Indians divide large numbers in a different manor from 'the West', therefore the 'odd' placement of commas.

• 1 crore = ten million; one hundred lakhs
• 1 lakh = one hundred thousand

Therefore,

• 450 thousand⁽⁺⁾ people have been vaccinated [or 4 lakh, 54 thousand, 49 people]
• The aim is to vaccinate 30 million frontline workers in Phase 1
• 11 million doses of COVISHIELD already purchased
• 5.5 million doses of COVAXIN  already purchased

[vox_mundi]

Novel Antiviral Drug Significantly More Potent Against SARS-CoV-2
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-antiviral-drug-significantly-potent-sars-cov-.html

The antiviral drug plitidepsin is between 10 and 100 times more effective against SARS-CoV-2, including the new UK variant, than the NHS approved drug remdesivir, finds new preclinical research involving UCL scientists.

As part of a coronavirus collaboration with US researchers, a UCL team was asked to test the efficacy of the drug plitidepsin on the newly identified UK variant mutant strain B.1.1.7.

The UK arm of the study, published on the pre-print server bioRxiv, found plitidepsin was around 10 times more potent than remdesivir in vitro (in human epithelial cells) – at reducing B.1.1.7 infectivity.

Plitidepsin, also known as Aplidin, is a novel drug approved by the Australian Regulatory Agency for the treatment of multiple myeloma, and is part of numerous other Phase II/III clinical cancer trials around the world.

The US arm of the study found that plitidepsin was 27.5 times more potent than remdesivir in vitro, at inhibiting (preventing further infection) SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This research was also carried out in vitro—in cells in the laboratory, not in patients.

In addition, the study found that plitidepsin was 100 times more effective than remdesivir at reducing the viral replication in the lungs and demonstrated an ability to reduce lung inflammation—one of the most serious side effects of COVID-19. This element was conducted in vitro in an established mouse model of human lung cells.

The US arm of the study also assessed the dynamics between the antiviral effects of plitidepsin and remdesivir when used together in vitro. This analysis suggested that plitidepsin has an additive effect with remdesivir and would be a potential candidate to be considered in a combined therapy.

Ann-Kathrin Reuschl et al. Host-directed therapies against early-lineage SARS-CoV-2 retain efficacy against B.1.1.7 variant, (2021)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.24.427991v1.full

--------------------------------------------

Respiratory, Physical, Psych Sequelae ID'd After COVID-19 Discharge
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-respiratory-physical-psych-sequelae-idd.html

For patients hospitalized with COVID-19, respiratory, physical, and psychological sequelae are common at four months after discharge, according to a study published online Jan. 27 in JAMA Network Open.

Researchers examined the prevalence of lung function anomalies, exercise function impairment, and psychological sequelae at four months after discharge among patients aged 18 years and older with confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection serious enough to require hospital admission. Data were included for 238 patients.

The researchers found that diffusing lung capacity for carbon monoxide was reduced to less than 80 percent and less than 60 percent of the estimated value in 51.6 and 15.5 percent of patients, respectively. In 53 patients (22.3 percent), the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) score suggested limited mobility (score <11). Patients with SPPB scores within reference range underwent a two-minute walk test; 75 patients (40.5 percent) had a score outside reference ranges for expected performance. Based on these findings, 128 patients (53.8 percent) had functional impairment. Forty-one patients (17.2 percent) had posttraumatic stress symptoms.

"A significant proportion of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 still reported a high proportion of symptoms associated with COVID-19 up to four months after hospital discharge, with reduced exercise tolerance being the most common," the authors write. "Other midterm sequelae of COVID-19, such as respiratory and physical functional impairment, may impact psychological health."

Respiratory and Psychophysical Sequelae Among Patients With COVID-19 Four Months After Hospital Discharge
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2775643

------------------------------------------

9 Percent Readmitted After Index COVID-19 Hospitalization
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-percent-readmitted-index-covid-hospitalization.html

-------------------------------------------

German Draft Doesn't Recommend AstraZeneca Jab for Over-65s
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-german-doesnt-astrazeneca-jab-over-65s.html

A draft recommendation from Germany's vaccination advisory committee calls for offering the AstraZeneca vaccine only to people aged 18-64 for now, citing what it says is insufficient data to judge its effectiveness for older people.

AstraZeneca noted earlier this week that British regulators supported its use in the older age group despite lack of late-stage effectiveness data. The company pointed to earlier-stage data published in the journal Lancet in November "demonstrating that older adults showed strong immune responses to the vaccine, with 100% of older adults generating spike-specific antibodies after the second dose."

But questions remain about how well the vaccine protects older people. Only 12% of participants in the AstraZeneca research were over 55 and they were enrolled later, so there hasn't been enough time to see whether they get sick at a lower rate than those who didn't get the vaccine.

[El Cid]

https://twitter.com/olivernmoody/status/1354781400071860230/photo/1

Interesting numbers on AZ vaccine. ....

All infections
30 in the vaccine arm: 101 in the control arm
Asymptomatic
29 vaccine: 40 control

Which implies
Symptomatic
1 vaccine: 61 control

This is indeed great news.

[crandles]

https://twitter.com/olivernmoody/status/1354781400071860230/photo/1

Interesting numbers on AZ vaccine. The tweet is actually about over 65s, of which there aren't enough to say anything, but some German newspapers tried anyway which just goes to show the standard of maths in Germany is just as rubbish as elsewhere.

95% confidence interval for efficacy of AZ vaccine for over 65s is from -1405% to 94.2% (best est 6.3%)

Err yeah, I think I will agree with your "not enough to say anything".

But UK approved it for over 65%. Does this say more about UK regulator than it does about standard of maths in Germany?

 

[northsylvania]

Er. Yes.

[Shared Humanity]

Cases in the U.S. have dropped by a third over the past two weeks.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210128&instance_id=26492&nl=the-morning&regi_id=120243410&segment_id=50458&te=1&user_id=d443af962feceecbf0332065f55d48ff

Very good news and we should see deaths begin to fall as well.

[Shared Humanity]

Rarely comment on this site anymore but I still visit some threads daily to catch up on AGW and COVID. Just wanted to thank everyone here for keeping me up to date.

[vox_mundi]

Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine Works, But Less So Against Variants
https://apnews.com/article/novavax-covid-19-vaccine-works-b12421678bb74d840f8c7da6b7d8ce6b

Novavax Inc. said Thursday that its COVID-19 vaccine appears 89% effective based on early findings from a British study and that it also seems to work — though not as well — against new mutated versions of the virus circulating in that country and South Africa.

The study of 15,000 people in Britain is still underway. But an interim analysis found 62 participants so far have been diagnosed with COVID-19 – only six of them in the group that got vaccine and the rest who received dummy shots.

The infections occurred at a time when Britain was experiencing a jump in COVID-19 caused by a more contagious variant. A preliminary analysis found over half of the trial participants who became infected had the mutated version. The numbers are very small, but Novavax said they suggest the vaccine is nearly 96% effective against the older coronavirus and nearly 86% effective against the new variant. The findings are based on cases that occurred at least a week after the second dose.

Scientists have been even more worried about a variant first discovered in South Africa that carries different mutations. Results from a smaller Novavax study in that country suggests the vaccine does work but not nearly as well as it does against the variant from Britain.

The South African study included some volunteers with HIV. Among the HIV-negative volunteers, the vaccine appears 60% effective. Including volunteers with HIV, overall the protection was 49%, the company said. While genetic testing still is underway, so far about 90% of the COVID-19 illnesses found in the South African study appear due to the new mutant.

... More concerning is what the study showed about a totally different question — the chances of people getting COVID-19 a second time, said the leader of the South African study, Shabir Madhi of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Tests suggested that nearly a third of study participants had been previously infected, yet rates of new infections in the placebo group were similar.

“Past infection with early variants of the virus in South Africa does not protect” against infection with the new one, he said. “There doesn’t seem to be any protection derived.”

--------------------------------------------

South Carolina Health Officials Detect First-Known U.S. Covid Cases of More Problematic Variant from South Africa
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/01/28/south-carolina-health-officials-detect-first-known-us-covid-cases-of-more-problematic-variant-from-south-africa.html

The first Covid-19 cases in the U.S. of a new, highly contagious strain of the virus first found in South Africa have been detected in South Carolina, according to state health officials.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said the strain, known as B.1.351, was found in two adults with no history of travel or connection to one another.

The state's own public health lab later "identified a separate case of the same variant" in a sample tested on Monday, the South Carolina Department of Health said in a statement

Early findings published in the preprint server bioRxiv, which have yet to be peer reviewed, indicate that the B.1.351 variant can evade the antibodies provided by some coronavirus treatments and may reduce the effectiveness of the current line of available vaccines. On Monday, Moderna said its vaccine might be less effective against the B.1.351 strain and that it's developing a so-called booster shot to guard against that variant "out of an abundance of caution."

... According to the WHO, the B.1.351 strain has now been identified in in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, the French Indian Ocean region of Mayotte, Zambia and 24 other non-African nations. As of Monday, Coronavirus infections in the region have grown by 50% since Dec. 29 when compared with the previous four weeks, the WHO said. Covid-19 deaths have also been on the rise, roughly doubling over that same period.

--------------------------------------------

Variant COVID Among Triggers for Grim Surge in Manaus, Brazil
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/01/variant-covid-among-triggers-grim-surge-manaus-brazil

In one of the most puzzling and worrisome developments in the pandemic, scientists are racing to explain what's happening in Manaus, Brazil, a city of 2.2 million at the edge of the country's rainforest that is experiencing a second explosive outbreak, even though the first one was so bad it was thought to have produced herd immunity.

As the situation deepens in Manaus, overwhelming the city's health system again, researchers from Brazil and the United Kingdom yesterday said four possibilities might explain the recent dramatic resurgence, including variant SARS-CoV-2 viruses that arose in Brazil. They published their analysis yesterday in The Lancet.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00183-5/fulltext

The city's outbreak last spring stunned the world with images of dead bodies in the streets, people buried in cardboard caskets, and mass graves at local cemeteries. Seroprevalence studies over the summer estimated that 76% of Manaus residents had been infected, above the basic 67% herd immunity threshold.

However, a new surge that began in December has overrun the health system again, which prompted pleas for other countries to help by sending oxygen supplies.

Doctors on the frontlines say the second surge overwhelmed hospitals much faster than the first outbreak and that the patients are arriving at hospitals sicker, leading some to suspect that a new variant is circulating that isn't just more transmissible, it may also be more lethal, according to the Washington Post. Noaldo Lucena, MD, an infectious disease specialist at the Tropical Medicine Doctor Heitor Vieira Dourado in Manaus, told the Post. "This isn't a feeling. It's a fact."

... In the Lancet report, experts said four factors may be at play, some possibly related. First, scientists might have overestimated the attack rate for the first surge, and infections might have been below the herd immunity threshold. Second, immunity in people infected in the first wave may have waned by December, which they said wouldn't fully explain the resurgence.

Another factor could be circulation of SARS-CoV-2 variants, some of which originated in Brazil, that evade immune response from earlier infection with the original virus. And as a fourth possibility, the variants circulating in the second wave might be more transmissible than the virus that fueled the first surge.

The authors referenced the discovery of the P.1 variant in Manaus, which started showing up in December with frequent detections. Though little is known about the variant, it shares mutations with variants from the United Kingdom and South Africa that may make it more transmissible.

The latest epidemiologic update from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) had more details about local transmission of P.1 in Manaus, which appears to be based on an analysis of sequencing data by a team based at the Center for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnostics, Genomics, and Epidemiology (CADDE) Genomic Network and posted on Jan 12 at Virological.org.

The researchers wrote that the P.1 variant wasn't even detected in Manaus until after November, and that in December it made up 52.2% of genotyped samples. In January, the proportion spiked to 85.4%. They also saw a rise of the P.2 variant in December, which was at 25.4% but has since declined to 6% in January.

[Richard Rathbone]

https://twitter.com/olivernmoody/status/1354781400071860230/photo/1

Interesting numbers on AZ vaccine. The tweet is actually about over 65s, of which there aren't enough to say anything, but some German newspapers tried anyway which just goes to show the standard of maths in Germany is just as rubbish as elsewhere.

95% confidence interval for efficacy of AZ vaccine for over 65s is from -1405% to 94.2% (best est 6.3%)

Err yeah, I think I will agree with your "not enough to say anything".

But UK approved it for over 65%. Does this say more about UK regulator than it does about standard of maths in Germany?

This is why its emergency approval. Its based on extrapolations rather than a trial that directly addresses the point.

It also says something about the regulator regimes. I don't think this German decision is the last word on 65+ and there's another decision still to be made when they actually have the vials. At the moment they prefer Pfizer, but if they have AZ vials and they don't have Pfizer vials and there are a lot of 65+ arms still unjabbed, AZ may well get used on the over 65s rather than waiting for Pfizer.  I think its final that it can be used on 60 year olds, but its not final that it can't be used on 80 year olds if its the only vial available. The EU is majorly upset at AZ for slow delivery of vials right now, and if they were only going to be used on those at relatively low risk of COVID they shouldn't care nearly as much. Trying to stop 80 year olds in the UK getting jabs in order to use them on 60 year olds in Germany would be a pretty awful way to behave.

The UK changed its mind one it actually had vials (to allow a longer time between jabs). I think the Germans have the option to change their minds once they have the vials too.

[silkman]

I just received an appointment from the UK NHS for a jab at my local pharmacy next Tuesday. My wife has to go a few miles down the road to get hers from our GP next Friday.

Both will certainly be the AZ vaccine given the lack of appropriate refrigeration for Pfizer and, having looked very carefully at the publicly available data, though I’m well over 70, I’m quite happy with the protection I think it will offer against serious disease and hospitalisation.

I’ll keep you informed of the progress of my mini family clinical trial with just two somewhat elderly but pretty fit participants.

On a related theme and reflecting on Macron’s rant at AZ this afternoon, I wonder whether he’s aware that the Belgian plant with the problems in AZ’s EU supply chain is owned by a French company.....

[vox_mundi]

Good luck silkman ...

------------------------------------------

Macron: AstraZeneca Vaccine Seems ‘Quasi-Ineffective’ On Older People
https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-vaccine-europe-astrazeneca-macron-quasi-ineffective-older-pe/amp/

PARIS — French President Emmanual Macron said Friday the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine appeared to be “quasi-ineffective” on people older than 65 — just hours before the EU’s drugs regulator approved it for use on all adults.

“The real problem on AstraZeneca is that it doesn’t work the way we were expecting it to,” Macron told a group of reporters, including POLITICO, in Paris. “We’re waiting for the EMA [European Medicines Agency] results, but today everything points to thinking it is quasi-ineffective on people older than 65, some say those 60 years or older.”

Later in the day, the EMA gave the vaccine the green light. It said: “There are not yet enough results in older participants (over 55 years old) to provide a figure for how well the vaccine will work in this group. However, protection is expected, given that an immune response is seen in this age group and based on experience with other vaccines; as there is reliable information on safety in this population, EMA’s scientific experts considered that the vaccine can be used in older adults.”

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/ema-recommends-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-authorisation-eu

... Macron said problems with the AstraZeneca jab will complicate the vaccination strategy in the EU, given that it is largely based on prioritizing vaccinating the senior population and healthcare workers. He said another unforeseen twist was that the vaccines that are more complicated to produce and store — those based on the mRNA technology that had never been used before to produce a vaccine — are the ones that appear to perform best.

... “When I listen to the scientists who say we accelerate the mutations with only one injection because the virus adapts… we are lying to people when we tell them they’ve been vaccinated by getting one injection of a vaccine that consists of two injections,” Macron added.

----------------------------------------------------

Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 Vaccine is 66% Effective in Global Trial, But 85% Effective Against Severe Disease, Company Says
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/29/health/johnson-coronavirus-vaccine-results/index.html

Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 single-shot vaccine was shown to be 66% effective in preventing moderate and severe disease in a global Phase 3 trial, but 85% effective against severe disease, the company announced Friday.

The vaccine was 72% effective against moderate and severe disease in the US, the company said.

It's a striking difference from vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, and it may give pause to people uncertain about which vaccine to get or when they can get one. The vaccines already on the market in the US are about 95% effective overall against symptomatic Covid-19, with perhaps even higher efficacy against severe cases.

The vaccine's efficacy against moderate and severe disease ranged from one country to another: 72% in the US, 66% in Latin America and 57% in South Africa. This was measured starting one month after the shot.

In South Africa, 95% of cases in the trial were due to a variant known as B.1.351, which is known to be more contagious and carries mutations that may make the virus less susceptible to the antibody immune response -- including antibodies prompted by vaccination.

https://www.jnj.com/johnson-johnson-announces-single-shot-janssen-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-met-primary-endpoints-in-interim-analysis-of-its-phase-3-ensemble-trial

But for Dr. Mathai Mammen, the company's global head of research and development, the key result was how effective the vaccine was at preventing severe disease -- regardless of variant or age group.

"Across all geographies, across all variants, we see 85% protection" against severe disease, he said. That trend increased over time, with no severe cases in the vaccinated group after day 49, according to the company.

From one month after the shot, all hospitalizations and deaths occurred in the placebo group.

The results are based on an analysis of more than 44,000 participants in eight countries, with 468 total cases of Covid-19 split between those receiving the vaccine or placebo. The results have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but the company said it plans to do so "in the coming weeks."

Side effects appear to be lower with this vaccine than the already approved ones, too.

Meanwhile, Novavax, a Gaithersburg, Maryland-based biotechnology firm, showed its COVID-19 candidate vaccine to be safe and roughly 90% effective against the virus

------------------------------------------

CDC director Walensky: Community Spread of South African Variant Is Here
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0128-sc-detects-COVID-variant.html

Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that community spread of the highly contagious South African variant of the coronavirus is likely already occurring in the United States.

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‘People Are Scared’: COVID-19 Outbreak Rattles Crew of the Warship Chafee
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2021/01/29/people-are-scared-covid-19-outbreak-rattles-crew-of-the-warship-chafee/

The U.S. Chafee pulled into San Diego from Hawaii for training last Saturday and has been grappling with a COVID-19 outbreak that sailors onboard and internal documents obtained by Navy Times suggest is decimating the crew.

U.S. 3rd Fleet officials confirmed Wednesday that some Chafee personnel had tested positive for the coronavirus, but declined to say how many cases had emerged among the guided-missile destroyer’s crew, citing Pentagon policy for not specifying such numbers.

“The ship remains able to meet its mission,” Cmdr. Sean Robertson said in an email Wednesday. “No Chafee sailors have been hospitalized and all positives are in isolation.”

But two petty officers aboard the ship tell Navy Times that dozens of sailors have been removed in recent days after either testing positive or coming in close contact with those who have.

A page from the ship’s “ROM Personnel Tracker” document obtained by Navy Times Wednesday shows 41 sailors listed as having either tested positive or been in close contact with infected shipmates out of a crew of about 350.

Geoff Ziezulewicz and David B. Larter
ROM is mil-speak for “Restriction of Movement,” the term for when service members quarantine for COVID-related reasons.

Eleven of those listed sailors are culinary specialists.

One petty officer who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution said in a message to Navy Times that several of the ship’s cooks tested positive for COVID-19 while the ship was transiting from Hawaii to San Diego, and that the galley has been closed for roughly a week as a result.

“Before pulling into San Diego we had seven people in quarantine and three tested positive, all the cooks that come into contact with the whole crew,” the petty officer said.

Another petty officer who also requested anonymity for fear of retribution said COVID cases have since spread to the information technology division, weapons department and engineering.

“No one is giving us information,” the petty officer added.

The sailors also questioned why the entire ship wasn’t getting tested for COVID.

“After they canceled the all-hands testing, we knew they didn’t want to deal with it,” the petty officer said.

One petty officer reported a shortage of N95 masks onboard, as well.

“Today, one of my junior sailors asked me what the difference is between the Navy and prison,” the petty officer said. “I didn’t have an answer for him. I was confused because this is not normal.”

... “This is actually a very scary thing,” one petty officer said in a message Wednesday night. “They just quarantined five more people while I was telling you this.”

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... Diamond Princess déjà vu all over again