Dr. Lilly Immergluck last week gave what she called the vaccine lecture to a group of Morehouse School of Medicine students.
Immergluck, a pediatrician, infectious disease specialist and an assistant professor at the Atlanta school since 2005, talks each year to all students there about how vaccines have helped control the spread of the measles and other diseases. Part of her goal is to encourage students to share with patients and their communities the effectiveness of vaccines, a conversation thats taken on greater importance as researchers work on a COVID-19 vaccine.
We dont know where (we are on vaccine research), but we need to be informed, Immergluck said in a telephone interview.
Public health experts and local doctors are worried many Americans wont take a vaccine once its ready. Several polls show about 60% of Americans, at most, would be vaccinated while the rest say they wont or are unsure.
Although a vaccine is likely months, or a year away from being approved, the information wars have begun over the effectiveness of a vaccine. Some social media platforms, such as YouTube, earlier this month removed from their sites Plandemic, a short film blaming the outbreak of the disease on the World Health Organization and claiming the flu vaccine increases chances of getting COVID-19. Critics said the film was full of misinformation, but some anti-vaccination activists are continuing to find ways to repost it.
Most communication work on the pro-vaccine front is currently being done by educators and experts instead of public health organizations. Dr. Scott Ratzan, a longtime public health communications expert who is a guest lecturer at the City University of New York, is working with Emory University professor Dr. Ruth Parker on at least one potential public awareness campaign and exploring other ideas with experts worldwide.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not respond to several requests for comment. The U.S. Health & Human Services Department did not respond to an email request for comment.
The Georgia Department of Public Health said in a statement it speaks frequently about the importance of vaccines, particularly for the flu. For now, though, We have not done anything promoting a COVID-19 vaccine as we dont know enough about it yet.
Vaccine hesitancy and skepticism isnt new. The arguments against vaccination in 18th-century Europe, according to an infographic on the Measles Rubella Initiative website, included concerns about safety, a general distrust of medicine or that smallpox was Gods punishment and shouldnt be treated. In recent years, the vaccination debate has focused largely on influenza shots and measles vaccinations, as several states with outbreaks last year tried to tighten exemptions to lower infection rates.
Glen Nowak, a former CDC communications director who now runs the University of Georgias journalism and mass communication Center for Health & Risk Communication, says there are pockets of vaccine hesitancy among conservatives who dont trust government and some progressives worried about safety. Nowak believes a public campaign is critical.
We should be undertaking that work today so when the vaccine is available, we can get the highest acceptance rate, he said.
Anti-vaccination activists have participated in rallies encouraging states to reopen in recent weeks. The activists say they are demonstrating for individual liberty and against vaccine requirements in some states. They organized a teleconference a few weeks ago, according to news accounts. Prominent activists include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the former U.S. attorney general who leads an environmental preservation organization. One Facebook group, Stop Mandatory Vaccination Now, has more than 140,000 followers.
Medical mandates are justified with the excuse of protecting others, Larry Cook, a leading anti-vaccination activist, wrote Monday in a post shared by anti-vaccination groups on Facebook. Dont make someone elses health status my problem.
In response to the anti-vaccination pages, several people have created pages encouraging vaccinations. Facebook and Twitter direct browsers searching for the anti-vaccination groups to the HHS site or vaccines.gov.
Ratzan, Immergluck and others say one issue is many people are reluctant to get shots because they dont understand how vaccines work in the human body. Another challenge is health experts sometimes dont operate from the same sheet of music in their messaging. As Parker noted, there were mixed messages about what masks work best. Initially, some experts said a mask wasnt necessary.
Polling shows vaccine supporters have work to do to convince some racial groups about the potential effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine.
A recent survey in New York, the epicenter of the disease, by a team that included Ratzan, found Hispanics were least likely to say they would get vaccinated (30%), followed by African Americans (50%); whites (71%) and Asians (73%). Health experts say some Hispanics are worried about what will be done with vaccine records. Many African Americans are leery, citing examples such as the Tuskegee Experiment, where the federal government oversaw research, starting in 1932, in which about 400 black men in the Alabama community with syphilis were deliberately left untreated for as long as 40 years so doctors could study the disease.
(I)f a new vaccine is going to free us to live more like the people we were before the pandemic, our data suggests we will need to provide them with the credible information and assurances they need to decide that the vaccine is right, for them, their families and their communities, Ratzans team wrote in an op-ed published Sunday in The Star-Ledger of Newark. We should be addressing this challenge now.
As the research work continues toward a vaccine, Immergluck stressed the importance of getting flu shots because of a potential spike in infections of both diseases this fall.
We are just going to tap out our medical and health care settings in so many ways if we cant try to minimize the impact of influenza on top of the (COVID-19) situation, she said.
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GEORGIAS VACCINE LAWS
Georgia requires children to get vaccines against certain diseases before attending various grades in school. The vaccines are designed to fight diseases such as the measles, meningitis, polio and rubella.
The state allows religious exemptions, but an affidavit is required and must be kept at the childs school or child care facility.
Source: Georgia Department of Public Health
Many restaurants and bars around the country reopened this past weekend, and they turned out to be very busy. Storyful
As the world surged pastthe 5 million-mark in confirmed coronavirus cases Thursday, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said he can't predict whether anotherround of lockdowns is coming as a possible second wave of the viruslooms.
Meanwhile, the U.S. pledged to spend up to $1.2 billion for an experimental COVID-19 vaccine being tested in England, and researchers said tens of thousands of American lives could have been saved if social distancing measures had been enacted only a week earlier.
On his visit to Ford in Michigan on Thursday, President Donald Trump did not wear a mask in front of photographers becausehe"didnt want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it" although Ford officials encouraged him to wear one.
The United Statesaccounts for 31%of the 5 million global coronavirus caseswith more than 1.5million confirmed, according to theJohns Hopkins University data dashboard.More than 329,000 people have died globally; the U.S. death toll is more than 94,700.
Our live blog is being updated throughout the day. Refresh for the latest news, and get updates in your inbox with The Daily Briefing. Scroll down for more details.
Here are some highlights to know Thursday:
As states reopen, were answering your questions:Can your kids and grandkids visit?It's not safe until community transmission has been eliminated in both areas and the groups getting together have no illness and have had no outside exposures for a week to two weeks.
What we're talking about:New CDC guidelines say the coronavirus "does not spread easily" via surfaces."I believe (that the guidelines) are trying to reduce fear and paranoia about methods of transmission," said Dr.Manisha Juthani, an infectious disease doctorat Yale. Here's what else you shouldknowabout the guidelines.
Leaving your coronavirus isolation?Think about these 3 thingsfirst to minimize the risk.
Staying Apart, Together: USA TODAY brings a newsletter about how to cope with these trying times straight to your inbox.
Ford executives encouraged PresidentDonald Trump to don a face maskduring his visit to one of its factories Thursday, but he said he chose not to wear it near photographers because he "didnt want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it."
Trump, who wasseen holding a navy blue maskwith the presidential seal but not wearing it, said he put it on earlier in the tour.Ford officials accompanying the president were seen wearing face masks, according to reporters traveling with the president.
The president has come under scrutiny in the past for largely ignoring recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends Americans wear masksin public during the coronavirus pandemic.Trump, who notes the CDC advice is not mandatory, has described the decision as a "personal choice."
John Fritze and Courtney Subramanian
An Amazon warehouse worker in North Randall, Ohio, died from COVID-19, bringing the total known deaths at the company to eight employees, officials confirmed Thursday to NBC News.
The female employee went to work the same day she was diagnosed on April 30 but the company wasn't informed until May 8, an Amazon spokesperson told NBC News. The employee passed away on May 18.
"We are saddened by the loss of an associate who had worked at our site in Randall, Ohio," Amazon spokesperson Lisa Levandowski told the outlet. "Her family and loved ones are in our thoughts, and we are supporting her fellow colleagues."
Federal regulators are investigating a Texas laboratory that a Florida hospital chain dropped last weekbecause of delayed and unreliable COVID-19 test results.
AdventHealth, which has45 hospitals in nine states, terminated its Florida contract with MicroGen DX due to concerns about the validity of some of the 60,000 tests MicroGenhad processed for the system becausethe lab left them at room temperature for days,according to an AdventHealth statement. The specimensshouldbe refrigerated at 2 to 7 degrees Celsius(about 32 degrees Fahrenheit) and then put in freezers at -70 degrees Celsius after three days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
MicroGen promotes shipping COVID-19samples through FedEx on its website.
The company is also selling a saliva-only test that can be administered in a "hospital, clinic, drive-thru clinic or at-home," inall 50 states without an Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, said MicroGen spokeswoman Ashley Moore.
MicroGen CEO Rick Martin said he doesn't believe the company needs one.Martin said he was unaware of "any inquiries into our lab," but added that after the AdventHealth announcement it started working with the American College of Pathologists on its testing requirements, "which we are confident we will continue to meet."
At least 32workers at the Amazon campus in the city of Kenosha in Wisconsinhave contractedcoronavirus in the past two months, according to messages sent to employees and shared with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Amazon officials have not fully cooperated with public health workers trying to track cases, inform workers who might be at risk or offer testing and other safety measures, said Jen Freiheit, health officer for Kenosha County.
Were at the point now that since were not getting that, were going to look into what other measures we can take for Amazon, because we are not getting as far with compliance as we would like, Freiheit said.
If Amazon officials do not cooperate with health officials, Freiheit said she would consider attempting to shut down the Kenosha facilities, located in Wisconsin, south of Milwaukee and north of Chicago.Amazon has not provided an official total number of cases at its Kenosha facilities to county health officialsand declined to provide thenumber to the Journal Sentinel.
Rory Linnane,Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Universal Orlando asked state and local officials in Florida on Thursday to allow the theme park to reopen as soon as June 1, with precautions due to thecoronavirus. The economic recovery task force in Orange County unanimously approved Universal's plan. The plan must also be approved by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
If approved, Universal Orlando could be oneof the biggest theme parks in the country to reopen. Universal,Walt Disney Worldand SeaWorld in Florida have been closed since mid-Marchbecause of the global pandemic. A reopened Universal will look very different for visitors and employees, according to a presentation made to the local economic recovery task force Thursday by company officials.
Upon arrival, valet parking will not be available, and cars will park one or two spaces apart. Visitors and employeeswill receive temperature checks andwill be required to wear face coverings. Universal will provide disposable face masks for visitors who don't bring their own.
Curtis Tate
The U.S. is betting more than $1 billion on a vaccine that does not exist. The American government has pledged to pay as much as $1.2 billion to get early access to 300 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine being developed and tested in England.The vaccine is being developed by theUniversity of Oxfords Jenner Instituteand licensed to British drugmaker AstraZeneca.
The vaccine is in early clinical trials andbeing tested for safety, whether it produces antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and whether it protects the immunized from becoming infected with the virus. The first tests began in England on April 23. The vaccine could bedelivered as early as Octoberbut would still have to go through the completion of clinical trials before it can be administered.
The contract is a major milestone in Operation Warp Speeds work toward a safe, effective, widely available vaccine by 2021, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a news release.
Elizabeth Weise
Had states across the country begun issuing stay-at-home orders just one week before they did, nearly 36,000 people would not have died and more than 700,000 positive virus cases would have been avoided, new research from Columbia University shows.
Social distancing for two weeks before when most people began staying at home could have prevented 54,000 deathsand 960,000 cases, the researchers found. Both figures are more than 57% of the current U.S. numbers in those categories.
Many states told residents to stay home in mid-March, but research indicates that by then the virus had already reached community spread in some places, like New York City. The researchers found that at least 17,500 deaths in the New York metropolitan area alone could have been prevented had social distancing measures been enacted a week earlier.
"That small moment in time, catching it in that growth phase, is incredibly critical in reducing the number of deaths," Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist who led the research at Columbia University, told the New York Times.
Starting in June, couples getting married in Ohio will be able to invite up to 300 guests to the reception without running afoul of public health regulations.
Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said Thursday the modification to current restrictions, part of Gov. Mike DeWine's loosening of measures to combat the coronavirus, will be effective June 1. There was no word on whether the bride and groom would be allowed to get close enough to kiss, but Husted said cateringand banquet facilities would have to set tables at least six feet apart.
Wedding receptions have been limited to no more than 10 people as Ohio banned large gatherings starting in mid-March.
Florida is no longer suppressing information in the table of COVID-19 deaths compiled by the state's medical examiners, according to Dr. Stephen J. Nelson, the chairman of the state's medical examiners commission.
Statemedical examiners are tasked with investigating and certifying COVID-19 deaths, including cause-of-death determinations. A COVID-19 positive test result is a requirement for reporting any death as due to the coronavirus.
FLORIDA TODAY, part of the USA TODAY Network, first reported that cause of death and descriptive entries of the medical examiners database were suppressed from public record in April. The Tampa Bay Times earlier in April reported that the count of the deaths by medical examiners diverged from the Department of Health's death count, at times by as much as 10%.
The timing of the reversal comes as the state faces scrutiny over data as it reopens.
Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon
CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield told the Financial Times that he "can't guarantee" whether or not a second round of stay-at-home orders is coming for the United States in the winter as the new coronavirus may see a second wave that coincides with cold weather and a flu season.
"I can't guarantee; that's kind of getting into the opinion mode. We have to be data driven,'' Redfield told the newspaper. "What I can say is that we are committed to using the time that we have now to get this nation as overprepared as possible."
Redfield said the spread of the virus in the southern hemisphere gives him concern about a second wave at the end of 2020 in the northern hemisphere.
About 2.4 million Americans filed initial unemployment claims last week, the Labor Department said Thursday, as the health and economic crisis sparked by the coronavirus ruptures a growing number of industries.
In just nine weeks, nearly 39million have sought jobless benefits that represent the nations most reliable gauge of layoffs.
The latest claims tally was down from the 3 million who filed claims the week before, and the record 6.9 million who sought assistance in late March. Initial applications for unemployment insurance have now steadily declined seven weeks in a row.
Charisse Jones
The federal government expects a busy hurricane season for the Atlantic Basin, with six to 10 hurricanes forming, forecasters said Thursday.The announcement comes against the backdrop of the coronavirus, which will almost certainly impact evacuations and shelter from approaching storms.
Overall, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said 13 to 19 named storms will develop. This number includes tropical storms, which contain wind speeds of 39 mph or higher. Of the predicted six to 10 hurricanes, three to six could be major, packing wind speeds of 111 mph or higher.
Doyle Rice
One of the longest-serving White House employees ever died last week from COVID-19, his granddaughter toldWTTG in Washington, D.C.WilsonRoosevelt Jerman, 91, started working at the White House as a cleaner in 1957, during the Eisenhower administration, granddaughter Jamila Garrett told the TV station.
First lady Jackie Kennedy promotedJerman to become a butler, said Garrett, adding that heworked for 11 presidents and their families.
In a statement to NBC News, former President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush called Jerman "a lovely man. He was the first person we saw in the morning when we left the residence and the last person we saw each night when we returned."
Speaking at a virtual graduation ceremony for medical students, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said new doctors' contributions will be needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
"This challenge is exactly what you trained for, and a successful response requires the training that you have received," Fauci said. "Now more than ever, we need your talent, your energy, your resolve and your character."
Making a mask?Here's where you can buy the material to DIY
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Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer who is serving a three-year sentence, was released from a New York federal prison Thursday to serve the remainder of his term at home amid coronavirus fears.
Cohen, who had been held at a prison camp in Otisville, New York, was to be released on furlough pending a formal placement in home confinement, said a person familiar with the matterwho is not authorized to comment publicly.
More than two dozen inmates and officers have been infected with the virus at the prison facility.
Kevin Johnson and Kristine Phillips
Having trouble unlocking your iPhone with Face ID while wearing a face mask?Apples latest iPhone software update, iOS 13.5, released Wednesday, will make it easier to unlock the phone.
After installing the update, users will no longer have to wait for Face ID to fail several times before being prompted to enter apasscode. After Face ID fails for the first time, users can swipe up from the bottom of the screen and enter a passcode to unlock the phone or approve an Apple Pay transaction. Users can also swipe up from the bottom of the iPhone screen right away.
Jessica Guynn
Ohio and West Virginia will reopen restaurants for indoor seating on Thursday, one day after Connecticut took its initial reopening steps and Delaware reopened retail businesses by appointment only.
More changes are coming Friday: Alaska will resume life as it was"prior to the virus," with a full reopening of the economy without restrictions; Iowa will reopen movie theaters, museums and zoos; and Kentucky will allow restaurants to operateat 33% capacity indoors with unlimited outdoor seating. Find the latest news in your state.
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The CDC has always warned that "it may be possible" to become infected with the coronavirus by touching contaminated surfaces or objects. It just"does not spread easily" in that manner, the agency now says, norby animal-to-human contact, or vice versa.
"COVID-19 is a new disease and we are still learning about how it spreads," theCDC said in updating its guidelines."It may be possible for COVID-19 to spread in other ways, but these are not thought to be the main ways the virus spreads."
The CDC still warns that the main way the virus is spread is through person-to-person contact, even among those who are not showing any symptoms.
Savannah Behrmann
As families struggle in the new pandemic economy, here's what you need to know about loans, providers and how to get the best deal. USA TODAY
Contributing: The Associated Press
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A researcher works on the diagnosis of suspected COVID-19 cases in Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, on March 26, 2020. Douglas Magno /AFP via Getty Images hide caption
A researcher works on the diagnosis of suspected COVID-19 cases in Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, on March 26, 2020.
These days, it seems any morsel of good news about a coronavirus vaccine sends hopes and markets soaring.
The reality is, developing and producing a vaccine is an incredibly complicated process one that is heavily reliant on global cooperation, says Prashant Yadav, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.
Yadav says cooperation is necessary for a number of reasons. For one, "just protecting U.S. population won't be sufficient for us to resume global travel and trade," he says.
Then there's the matter of simple logistics. Assuming U.S. researchers are able to discover a vaccine, the spare parts, components and ingredients that would go into manufacturing it all come from a global supply chain.
Cooperation is also a way for the U.S. to hedge its own risks "in terms of who has the most efficacious vaccine first," says Yadav. "It may well be that it's not a U.S. vaccine, so global cooperation will help on all of those three fronts."
Yadav, who has been working around the world to improve health care supply chains, spoke with All Things Considered on Wednesday about the race for a vaccine. Here are highlights from the conversation.
How is the U.S. doing on the vaccine effort?
So, first thing, I think we have some of the top scientists for vaccine development and for vaccine manufacturing and looking at all of these novel platforms here in the U.S. ... Somewhere along the way we backtracked on global collaboration, which may hurt us in some ways. And then I think there's also efforts being put in place one notable one is a public/private partnership that Health and Human Services announced a week or so ago to make new technology for syringes and vaccine containers, which will relieve the global supply chain of some of the pressures in glass vials.
So some things are moving well, especially when it comes to things that manufacturing scientists and clinical scientists control. Things which are about making sure that our global diplomacy is working, things that are about making sure that we work with this in a multilateral coordinated manner, those are where I think we see some deficiencies.
Is it possible that multiple countries who are working on this will announce successful vaccines around the same time?
Yeah, so I think what constitutes successful vaccine is somewhat unclear and fuzzy, right? I mean, we may not have a successful vaccine in the sense that it is ready to be used at widespread population level for prevention in a country, but we may have earlier vaccines which are more of our smaller population groups, controlling outbreaks or applicable only in specific age groups, and so on. So I think what is most likely going to happen is that we would have a number of vaccines with slightly varying efficacy profile characteristics around the same time, and then it will be a question of which vaccine does the global convergence circle around or do countries and health systems start paying attention to one or two as compared to just everyone scrambling to get the one vaccine. And that will determine whether the manufacturing capacity can be more distributed or will it be all towards one vaccine.
A medical scientist runs a clinical test at the UW Medicine immunology lab in Seattle to look for antibodies against a virus strain that causes COVID-19. (Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
Most Americans are optimistic that medical advances to treat or prevent the coronavirus are on the horizon, and around seven-in-ten say they would get a vaccine for COVID-19 if it were available, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 29-May 5.
Americans expectations for the year ahead include an effective treatment or cure for COVID-19, as well as a vaccine to prevent the disease: 83% and 73% of U.S. adults, respectively, say these developments will definitely or probably occur. At the same time, 83% of adults expect another coronavirus outbreak within the year, and 69% expect the focus on the coronavirus to delay progress on other disease treatments.
This analysis about Americans attitudes toward a potential coronavirus vaccine, clinical trials and experimental treatments is based on a survey of 10,957 U.S. adults conducted from April 29 to May 5, 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Centers American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATPs methodology.
Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.
Around seven-in-ten adults (72%) say they would definitely (42%) or probably (30%) get a coronavirus vaccine if one were available, while about a quarter (27%) say they would not. The survey comes amid concerns that activists and others who are hesitant to get vaccinated for other diseases might not get inoculated against the coronavirus.
Majorities across demographic groups say they would get vaccinated for the coronavirus, but there are some differences by race and ethnicity, partisanship, religion and other factors.
Black Americans are less likely than white and Hispanic Americans to say they would get a vaccine. A little over half of black adults (54%) say they would, while 44% say they would not. By comparison, 74% of both Hispanic and white adults say they would get a vaccine if one were available. (In a Pew Research Center survey in 2019, black adults were also less inclined than white adults to see strong preventive benefits of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.)
Republicans and white evangelical Protestants are also somewhat less inclined to get a coronavirus vaccine. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 65% say they would definitely or probably do so, while 34% say they would not. Among white evangelical Protestants, 62% say they would get a coronavirus vaccine and 37% say they would not.
The path to new treatments can be a long and uncertain one. The Food and Drug Administration requires new treatments to go through a process of test runs known as clinical trials to establish that they are safe and effective in treating people with a specific disease.
In the new survey, about two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) say the process of clinical trials is very important, even if it will lengthen the time it takes to develop new treatments. Around three-in-ten (31%) say the clinical trial process is somewhat important, and just 5% say it is not too or not at all important.
Democrats place more importance on clinical trials than Republicans. Around three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic leaners (74%) call this process very important, compared with 54% of Republicans and GOP leaners.
The new survey also asked Americans to consider the overall risks and benefits of access to experimental treatments before the completion of clinical trials. (This process is already happening for some patients with the coronavirus.) Around six-in-ten Americans (59%) say the benefits of allowing more people to access experimental drugs outweigh the risks, while 40% say the risks outweigh the benefits.
Republicans are more likely to say the benefits outweigh the risks (69% vs. 29%), but Democrats are about evenly divided (50% vs. 48%). Black adults are more likely than white and Hispanic adults to say the risks of experimental treatments outweigh the benefits: A 57% majority of black adults say this.
Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology.
Experts are hopeful that a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus will become available sooner rather than later.
Will there be a coronavirus vaccine? Will US company Moderna lead the way? Experts are hopeful that we'll see a coronavirus vaccine sooner rather than later, but there's no cure yet for the virus that causes COVID-19 and vaccines often take years to develop, approve, make anddistribute globally. There is heightened activity, however, and a strong desire in the medical community to fast-track the process.
In fact, as states and countries slowlyemerge from lockdown measuresmeant tocurb the spreadof the coronavirus,doctors and scientists around the globeare racing to develop vaccines tobring an end to the pandemic, which has already claimedover 320,000 lives worldwide. Even though hardly four months have passed since acluster of unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan, Chinafirst alerted the world to a new disease now known as COVID-19,at least half a dozen vaccine development projectsarealready reporting encouraging progress, with many more in development.
Keep track of the coronavirus pandemic.
One more note before we get underway. This article is updated frequently as new information comes to light, and is intended to be a general overview, not a source of medical advice. If you're seeking more information about coronavirus testing,here's how to find a testing sitenear you. Here'show to know if you qualify for a testandwhy there aren't any coronavirus at-home test kitsyet.
Read more:What it will take for life to return to normal after lockdown ends
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Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotech company, is making headlines for its coronavirus vaccine development -- both positive and negative. On Monday, reports that Moderna's first trials showed promise for immunity caused Moderna's stock to soar. On Tuesday, scientists cast doubt on the company's data, causing the same stocks to falter.
Moderna is the beneficiary of the USFood and Drug Administration's program to fast-track a vaccine. Thefast-track processexpedites approval by allowing select labs to submit their review process by phases, rather than submitting all sections of the application at once, which is the usual way. The company ranPhase 1 clinical trialsand reportedpreliminary data that it says supports the moveto a larger Phase 2 trial. You can learn more about its vaccine candidate,mRNA-1273, here.
Another vaccine is under development atOxford Universityin the UK. Scientists there say their vaccinecould be ready by the fall of 2020. Oxford is working with pharmaceutical giantAstraZeneca, which beganPhase 1 human trials in April.
Scientists say in a paper thatresults from Oxford's trialson mice and rhesus monkeys aremixed, however, speculating that humans who eventually take the vaccinemight still be able to spreadthe virus. You can read more about this effort, calledChAdOx1 nCoV-19, at AstraZeneca's website.
We won't know for a long time, butDr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, suggests that it might takeseveral different vaccinesmade and distributed by different labs in order to effectively eradicate COVID-19 from the planet. Fauci co-authored apaper about vaccines published May 11 in the journal Science.
A vaccine is a medical treatment that protects you against a disease like the coronavirus or smallpox. For a deeper dive into how vaccines work, check outthis in-depth coronavirus treatment explainer by CNET's Science Editor Jackson Ryan. The short and sweet of it is that a vaccine tricks your body into thinking it's already had the disease, so your body's natural defense -- the immune system --builds antibodies against it. Then, if you were to become infected, your body would call upon the antibodies to fight the virus before you feel sick.
Vaccines typically take about10 to 15 years to develop. That's in part because any new medical treatment needs to be thoroughly tested for safety before it can be distributed to millions or billions of people. Themumps vaccine took four years, which is widely considered the fastest vaccine approval in the history of infectious disease.
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Most health experts predict that the virus won't stop spreading until 60% to 70% of the world'spopulation is immune, and they say the only way to reach that level of immunity without amonumental death toll is through vaccines. Such is the opinion ofCarl T. Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington andNatalie Dean, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida, in a joint editorialpublished in the New York Times.
There are currentlyover 100 vaccines reportedly under development, withseven reportedly already in clinical trialsearlier this month. That means there aremore scientists working harder and faster on finding a vaccinethan ever before in the history of pandemics. But even if one or more of the vaccines now in the works turns out to be effective,the FDA approval processtypically takes a year or longer.
This April, the White House began organizing "Operation Warp Speed," according to Bloomberg, a sort of coronavirus vaccine task force that has identified14 vaccine projectsthat it will focus on fast-tracking. The "Warp Speed" project itself,which the White House acknowledged during an April press briefing, has a stated goal of readying300 million doses of vaccineto be available by January 2021. That's a bit faster than the12- to 18-month estimated timeline proposed by Fauci, the NIAID director.
As of this writing there areover 100 vaccines under development in countries around the world, including the US, UK, Germany, Japan and China. Twelve are either already in clinical trials or starting in the next few months.
Scientists from around the world are working toward developing a vaccine. So far 12 projects have either started or will soon start clinical trials.
Statistically, only about 6% of vaccine candidates ever make it through to market, according to a Reuters special report, and not just because they don't work. There's a whole litany of problems that could cancel even a promising candidate.
Take, for example, what happened when scientists tried to develop a vaccine for SARS --it backfired and actually made people more susceptible to the disease. The same thing happened with avaccine for Dengue fever. To make matters worse, coronaviruses are a large class of viruses andso far there are no vaccines for any of them.
However, this particular coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has some unique traits that may help researchers working on a vaccine. For example, some viruses, like the flu, mutate quickly and often, which is why there's a new flu vaccine every year. Early evidencesuggests that the coronavirus doesn't appear to do that. Althoughsome researchers have hypothesized that a more contagious strain has recently developed, others aren't so sure. Either way, it's thought that the virus has not yet mutated significantly enough to disrupt vaccine development, nor is it expected to, though it's too soon to say for certain, and there are still many unknowns about the virus' behavior.
Rules and regulations vary by country, but, generally speaking, most industrialized nations have similar protocols for approving a vaccine. The following path is how vaccines are approved in the US under the FDA:
Until there's a vaccine, expect safety precautions like face masks and social distancing to be a part of everyday life.
The longer we go without a vaccine, the more likely focus will shift toward treatments, such as theexperimental antiviral drug remdesivir, which has reportedly shown promising results. With effective therapeutic treatments, many viruses that used to be fatal are no longer death sentences. Patients with HIV, for example, now can expect to enjoythe same life expectancyas non-HIV-positive individuals, thanks to tremendous advances in treatment.
Without a coronavirus vaccine, the road back to normal may be harder and longer, but not necessarily impossible.Coronavirus testing, includingantibody testing, andcontact-tracingefforts would probably need to intensify.
Lockdown measures are alreadylifting slowly, althoughdepending on people's behavioral practicesand a potential resurgence of infections, cities and states may bring back certain quarantine measures, including requiringface masksandsocial distancing. Eventually, the global population may reach the 60% to 70% rate required forherd immunityto protect those who aren't immune.
Even as some states move to ease the lockdowns that have cost tens of millions of jobs and tipped the economy into recession, a safe return to normal life without a widely available Covid-19 vaccine is looking more difficult.
In South Korea and Germany, countries that were among the most effective at controlling initial outbreaks of Covid-19, rollbacks of lockdowns have been stymied by new flare-ups. As long as the virus lurks in peoples throats and on elevator panels, doorknobs, and subway-car poles, it is hard to see how...
With a little luck and a lot of science, the world might in the not-too-distant future get vaccines against Covid-19. But those vaccines wont necessarily prevent all or even most infections.
In the public imagination, vaccines are often seen effectively as cure-alls, like inoculations against measles.
Rather than those vaccines, however, the Covid-19 vaccines in development may be more like those that protect against influenza reducing the risk of contracting the disease, and of experiencing severe symptoms should infection occur, a number of experts told STAT.
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We all recognize that flu vaccine, in a year when its efficacious, you have what, 50% protection? And in a year when its poor you have 30% or less than that and still we use that, said Marie-Paule Kieny, who is chairing a committee advising the French government on vaccines to prevent Covid-19.
Ideally, vaccines would prevent infection entirely, inducing whats known as sterilizing immunity. But early work on some of the vaccine candidates suggests they may not stop infection in the upper respiratory tract and they may not stop an infected person from spreading virus by coughing or speaking.
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A recently released study in which macaques were vaccinated with one vaccine candidate this one being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca showed the primates were protected from Covid-induced pneumonia. But the macaques still had high levels of virus replicating in their upper airways. (The paper was a pre-print, meaning it hasnt yet been peer-reviewed and published in a journal.)
Vincent Munster, who leads the team that conducted that study, said a vaccine that could mitigate the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic would still be a significant contribution in a world struggling to co-exist with a dangerous new virus.
If we push the disease from pneumonia to a common cold, then I think thats a huge step forward, said Munster, chief of the virus ecology unit at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Mont.
The rush to develop vaccines means that ideal solutions may be out of reach in the immediate term; Munster said he anticipates seeing second-generation vaccines that could be more protective. Other scientists, though, are cautious about how much the world can expect from vaccines against this pathogen.
Michael Mina, an infectious diseases epidemiologist at Harvards T.H. Chan School of Public Health, thinks achieving sterilizing immunity with a vaccine will not be possible for Covid-19. Experience with human coronaviruses and with multiple pathogens that cause colds shows immunity that develops after infection with respiratory tract infections is not lifelong. In some cases, the duration is measured in months, not years.
If [infection with] natural coronaviruses doesnt do it, I dont think that we should necessarily expect or have the anticipation that well be able to get there with the vaccine, said Mina, who is also associate medical director of clinical microbiology at Bostons Brigham and Womens Hospital.
Munster agreed trying to develop vaccines that confer sterilizing immunity would be a heavy lift with this coronavirus. I think we really need to focus on what are the fastest achievable true public health goals of the vaccine, which is protecting the vulnerable people against pneumonia and protecting health care workers as well, he said.
Earlier this week Moderna, the Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech, said eight people in a Phase 1 trial of its Covid-19 vaccine developed neutralizing antibodies to the virus.
Neutralizing antibodies should protect against severe Covid-19 disease, Kanta Subbarao, a vaccine expert who is director of the World Health Organizations influenza collaborating center in Melbourne, Australia, recently wrote ina commentary in the journal Cell Host and Microbe.
But Subbarao told STAT she wouldnt be surprised if neutralizing antibodies dont protect against infection in the upper airways. Like Munster, she doesnt think thats reason not to pursue these vaccines.
Converting this infection to a upper respiratory illness would be, I think, quite a lot better than where we are today, said Subbarao, who worked on vaccines for SARS, a closely related coronavirus that caused an international outbreak in 2003.
Subbarao said setting public expectations of what these vaccines will be able to achieve is critical.
It would not be helpful if the type of perception that exists about flu vaccines that they dont work very well sets in with Covid-19 vaccines. People dont credit flu vaccines for what they prevent; they deride flu shots for not protecting them on the occasions when they contract influenza, even though they have been vaccinated.
We cant leave all that messaging until we know how good the vaccines are, Subbarao said. I think that will be the messaging, that were not going to prevent all infection. Were going to prevent disease.
The fact that the macaques that Munsters group vaccinated and then infected had virus in their upper airways was viewed withdismay by some. But Munster noted the animals were infected with large doses of virus; whether the same will be true in people remains to be seen.
Some experts hope that even if the vaccines dont prevent infection in the upper airways, they may reduce the amount of virus a vaccinated person generates and emits.
Hopefully it would diminish although we dont know this the levels of replication on the mucosal surfaces, said Mark Feinberg, CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which is working to develop an orally administered Covid-19 vaccine. That route of administration may improve the vaccines capacity to protect the mucus membranes of the upper airways.
Mina sees a potential upside to Covid-19 vaccines that dont stop infection and transmission, saying low-level circulation of the virus could act as a natural booster to keep peoples immunity levels high.
Then you dont necessarily have to keep going and getting a vaccine every year, for example. You could rely on some level of natural exposure as long as all the people who are at particular risk have been given the opportunity to be vaccinated as well, he said.
But theres the rub, warned Sarah Fortune, chair of the department of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvards School of Public Health.
Its a little bit sobering to see that, while we may get protection against disease [and] protect people from getting sick, we may not get nearly as effective protection against transmission, Fortune said during a briefing Thursday for reporters. Which means that to protect the population, were going to have to be vaccinating many, many more people, because we cant rely on getting to a lot of people and having the epidemic die out through herd effects.
Andrew Joseph contributed reporting.
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Instruction
In a resolution adopted on Thursday, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) declared profound solidarity with the countries and people affected by the disease and resolved to pursue coordinated and decisive actions, to contain, mitigate and defeat the pandemic through reinforced regional and global cooperation.
[The Commission] reiterates the importance of multilateralism and international cooperation, and encourages action by all members to promote measures that may reinforce global solidarity in responding to the outbreak of COVID-19, read the resolution, which was tabled by the Chair and co-sponsored by several of the Commission member States.
International and regional cooperation was also highlighted as a means to strengthen the resilience of the regions countries, with regard to the socioeconomic effects of pandemics and other related crises.
Recovering from COVID-19 provides an opportunity to build back better in the region, added the text, including by building more equal, inclusive and sustainable institutions, economies and societies that respect human rights and are more resilient in the face of any future pandemic, and other related crises faced by the region, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The importance of the 2030 Agenda to realize a better future was also underscored by the UN Secretary-General at the opening of the Commissions seventy-sixth session.
I am strongly convinced that we have an opportunity to build back better on the foundations of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development said Secretary-General Antnio Guterres in a video message.
That means forging common solutions to the climate crisis, economic and social inequalities, new forms of violence, and rapid changes in technology and demography. We can rescue our planet and build a better world for all. Let us work together to do just that.
The hope of a better future was echoed by leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region.
Prayut Chan-o-cha, the Prime Minister of Thailand; Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh; Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, the Prime Minister of Fiji; and Kausea Natano, the Prime Minister of Tuvalu delivered video messages from their capitals.
In their messages the leaders cautioned about the complexities and growing threats of COVID-19 on sustainable development. They, however, also expressed their optimism that recovery will provide the opportunity to strengthen resilience and build a more equal, inclusive and sustainable Asia-Pacific region.
ESCAP/Suwat Chancharoensuk
Executive Secretary Armida Alisjahbana addresses the 76th session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Bangkok.
As a result of the pandemic, countries have witnessed dramatic falls in economic growth and jobs, only to be followed by low demand, constrained trade and reduced mobility.
Against this background, Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, the Executive Secretary of ESCAP, highlighted three key areas to help balance pandemic containment measures against those for socio-economic recovery: protecting and investing in people and enhancing resilience; supporting sustainable and inclusive economic recovery; and restoring supply chains and supporting small and medium enterprises.
These challenging times calls upon us, as citizens of the region, to extend our hands to the most vulnerable. Upholding our collective strengths, rekindling our values and reinvigorating the spirit of compassion unite us as we chart new pathways, she said.
ESCAP/Suwat Chancharoensuk
Staff of the control desk monitor proceedings at the 76th session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Bangkok.
In its more than seven decade history, this was the first time the Commissions membership convened virtually, via video-conference, with only the ESCAPs incoming Chair, Md. Nazmul Quaunine, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh; the Executive Secretary of ESCAP; and a handful of secretariat officials in the bodys primary chamber - ESCAP Hall - at the UN Conference Centre in Bangkok.
The outgoing Chair, Damdin Tsogtbaatar the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, opened the session remotely from Ulaanbaatar, and all participants, numbering about 260 from 54 of the Commissions 62 members and associate members, connected remotely.
For its annual session, the Commission usually meets over five days, hosting several special and side events as well as exhibitions, drawing over a thousand participants, including civil society organizations representatives and university students.
Established in 1947, ESCAP is the largest of the UNs five regional commissions both in terms of geographic coverage and population served its membership spanning from the Pacific island nation of Kiribati in the east, to Turkey in the west, and Russia in the north, to New Zealand in the south.
Cole Hurley, Special to The News-Press Published 6:01 a.m. ET May 22, 2020
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Before I get into the meat and beans of this whole topic, I think it is only fair to give you a little back story on what makes me tick.
I love a good laugh, I truly believe having a good sense of humor will get you through the hardest parts of your life. This sense of humor needed in your toolbox of life must include a large range of humor, including irony.
I bring up the topic of irony because that is truly the only way to describe the situation we are in right now as a senior class. We have spent every single day for the past 12 years wishing school would be over. Twelve years of early mornings and late nights can make any scholar wish for school to come to a close. After all this time our dreams have finally come true.
Cole Hurley(Photo: Special to The News-Press)
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Here is where the irony comes in:now that it is a reality, all we want is to go back.I can confidently say I speak for easily 75% of our country's seniors when I say we would do anything to go back. Luckily we have a full toolbox, so when irony punches us in the face we are able to roll with it and be grateful for the years we did have.
Now to the main course as promised, I think saying the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped my senior year is an understatement. This event has not reshaped but completely blown up my senior year. It is unfortunate to think that when I and my thousand upon thousand ofsenior peers around the world think back to their big senior year, they will not think of graduation, prom, or a senior trip. Rather they will think of a time of world wide fear and uncertainty.
We have grown up watching movies, reading books, and listening to our parents' stories of graduation and the big senior year.It is hard to look at this situation any other way than an absolute robbery. I mean that's what this is.We have been promised certain things (prom and graduation) our entire lives and at the very last second they were taken away. As humans we often look to assign the blame for our heartache to someone,but with the pandemic being at fault there is not a person we can point a finger at. With everything being taken away and no one to blame this is one of the most frustrating times in our lives. With that being said, I have complete confidence that we will make it through. That is due to the newest addition to our toolbox.
At the start of 2020 a large fear among my friends and classmates was the fear of World War III. Obviously, nothing divides countries and populations like a World War. So a couple of months ago our world was divided to a point that hasn't been seen in generations. Now just a few months later, war is the last thing on anyone's mind. This pandemic has not made me think about my place in the world but it has made me think about the world and its problems. If war was put on hold it means it's not essential. With that being said, maybe we use this time to decide what's important for our planet. To continue to be divided or to put our differences aside and change our children's future.
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