Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

LONDON Britain on Wednesday became the first country to give emergency authorization to the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, clearing the path for a cheap and easy-to-store shot that much of the world will rely on to help end the pandemic.

In a departure from prevailing strategies around the world, the British government also decided to begin giving as many people as possible a first vaccine dose rather than holding back supplies for quick second shots, greatly expanding the number of people who will be inoculated.

That decision put Britain at the vanguard of a far-reaching and uncertain experiment in speeding up vaccinations, one that some scientists say could alleviate the suffering wrought by a pandemic that has been killing hundreds of people each day in Britain and thousands more around the world.

The global effort to accelerate vaccinations, coming as a new, more contagious variant of the virus is spreading, gathered steam in many places on Wednesday.

China said clinical trial results showed high efficacy for one of its vaccine candidates, an announcement that hastened the global rollout of hundreds of millions of doses of Chinese vaccines but was short on crucial details. Russias Sputnik V vaccine, long criticized for being introduced prematurely, also began use this week in Argentina, Belarus, Hungary and Serbia, the first other countries to begin injecting it en masse. And Argentina quickly followed Britain in authorizing the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, with India expected to do the same soon.

Britains two moves on Wednesday authorizing an easy-to-make, easy-to-deliver vaccine, and delaying second vaccine doses offered one blueprint for how to ramp up inoculation campaigns that have so far been entangled in logistical and manufacturing problems there and in much of the West.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca shot is poised to become the worlds dominant form of inoculation. At $3 to $4 a dose, it is a fraction of the cost of some other vaccines. And it can be shipped and stored in normal refrigerators for six months, rather than in the ultracold freezers required by the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, making it easier to administer in poorer and harder-to-reach areas.

Delaying second vaccine doses, too, could double the number of people eligible for shots in the coming weeks and eventually lighten the toll of the virus not only in Britain but also in countries facing years of vaccine shortages, some scientists said. While any one person may be better off with the full two doses, they said, society as a whole benefits if more people are given the partial protection of a single dose for the time being.

Were talking about potentially vaccinating in the billions more people in a given year, versus the alternative, which is to go with two doses and let them sit in a freezer, said Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard who was one of the earliest proponents of delaying second doses. There may be a trade-off for each of those individuals, but at the population level, you may end up saving many more lives.

Still, other scientists believe that Britain overshot the available evidence, potentially leaving older people and health-care workers without the full protection of two vaccine doses amid dreadful wintertime surges. Britain did without the public meetings or voluminous briefings that have preceded American regulatory decisions. No trials have explicitly tested the long-term efficacy of a single shot.

And what limited evidence exists about the protection afforded by a single dose clashed with scientists fears that antibody responses would wane over time, potentially falling below a protective threshold.

What is the longevity of any protective immunity for one dose, versus two doses? said John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College. Wheres the data?

Britain will delay the second, booster doses not only of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine but also the Pfizer-BioNTech shot. That vaccine, in use in the country for several weeks, has been shown in clinical trials to have considerable efficacy after a single dose. Pfizer, though, cautioned on Wednesday that the single-dose efficacy data does not extend beyond when people receive their second shots, three weeks after the first. The company said that two doses are required to provide the maximum protection against the disease.

For Britain, where hospitals are overwhelmed by a deluge of cases of a new and more contagious coronavirus variant, the rollout of more vaccines offered a distant hope of a reprieve. Starting on Monday, the health service is preparing to vaccinate as many as two million people per week at makeshift sites in soccer stadiums and racecourses, though the first shipment will only include 530,000 doses.

With distribution of a coronavirus vaccine beginning in the U.S., here are answers to some questions you may be wondering about:

Instead of administering the two vaccine shots within a month as was originally planned, clinicians in Britain will wait as long as 12 weeks to give people second doses, the government said. Doctors were scrambling on Wednesday to push back hundreds of appointments for second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and fill them with first-time recipients.

Clinical trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had already subjected participants to delayed second doses. Most participants in the British trial were given the two doses at least nine weeks apart. British regulators said on Wednesday that the first dose had 73 percent efficacy in protecting against Covid-19 in the period between that shot taking effect and a second shot being administered. But scientists cautioned that those figures held for a subset of trial participants and had a limited underlying immunological rationale.

Scientists have also expressed concerns about the Oxford-AstraZeneca group not having enough data on older people to fully assess the vaccines efficacy in that group. Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said in an interview on Wednesday that more evidence in older people would emerge from an ongoing American trial that has nearly enrolled all 30,000 of its volunteers.

The United States and the European Union have indicated that they are unlikely to authorize the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine until at least February.

When given in two full-strength doses, the regimen authorized by Britain, AstraZenecas vaccine showed 62 percent efficacy in clinical trials considerably lower than the roughly 95 percent efficacy achieved by Pfizer and Modernas shots. No one who received the vaccine in the clinical trials developed severe Covid-19 or was hospitalized.

British regulators said that the vaccines efficacy appeared to rise to 80 percent in a smaller group of volunteers who were given the two doses roughly three months, rather than a single month, apart, a result that has not been published but that nevertheless emboldened the regulators to authorize a longer gap between doses.

Professor Pollard said that the longer interval provoked higher levels of antibodies in participants. And that finding, he said, may help solve a puzzle that has hung over the Oxford-AstraZeneca group: why the vaccine had a 90 percent efficacy in volunteers who were given a half-strength, rather than full-strength, initial dose. Those volunteers happened to get their two doses further apart, making it likely that the higher efficacy was a result of the elongated gap between doses, and not the size of the initial dose, as originally believed.

Menelas Pangalos, the executive in charge of much of AstraZenecas research and development, said in an interview on Wednesday that the company would now work to refine the interval between doses, focusing on a possible sweet spot of 8 to 12 weeks. But scientists said that any such efforts required considerably more data.

And analysts cautioned that Britains health service may struggle to persuade people to take a vaccine that appears less effective than other available shots, but that nevertheless could hasten the end of the pandemic.

Much of the world is looking to AstraZeneca in part because it has set more ambitious manufacturing targets than other Western vaccine makers. It has said that it expects to make up to three billion doses next year a haul that, at two doses per person, would be enough to inoculate nearly one in five people worldwide. The company has pledged to make the vaccine available at cost around the world until at least July 2021, and in poorer countries into perpetuity.

This is very good news for the world, Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said of British regulators go-ahead. It makes a global approach to a global pandemic much easier.

For Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who has faced withering criticism for his handling of the pandemic, the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca could bring some relief. The government on Wednesday put more than three-quarters of England in a virtual lockdown, and delayed the reopening of secondary schools in January.

Since authorizing Pfizers vaccine on Dec. 2, Britain has used it to vaccinate 617,000 people. But the country has struggled to administer it beyond hospitals and doctors offices, leaving some of its highest-priority recipients, like nursing home residents, still vulnerable.

See more here:

U.K. Authorizes Covid-19 Vaccine From Oxford and AstraZeneca - The New York Times

Along with doctors, nurses, and technicians, the order also applies to a swath of direct and indirect health-care providers including pharmacists, students, EMTs, and clinical workers at schools and detention facilities. Those workers are being asked to identify a place to obtain the vaccine if its not being provided through an employer.

Continued here:

After seeing patients and taking risks all year, Pa.s private doctors have been left out of the vaccination p - The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Westmoreland County finishes year with 19000 covid-19 cases, 423 deaths - TribLIVE

A waning 2020 delivered a final kick on the way out Thursday with the county health department announcing 62 additional COVID-19 deaths, a new single-day record arriving on New Years Eve.

And there was an extra reason for concern. The county public health lab, working with local researchers, confirmed three more cases of the United Kingdom coronavirus strain Thursday, bringing the total to four, including the initial case involving a man in his 30s announced Wednesday.

Officials said none of the four are related and had no contact with each other before testing positive.

The three additional cases confirmed Thursday were all men. Case investigators have interviewed two of the three who reported no recent travel outside the country. Two of the three new cases were in their 40s and the third was in his 50s. The third case for whom travel information was not available had not yet been interviewed.

They live in La Mesa, Otay Mesa, Mission Beach and the Rancho Bernardo-Carmel Mountain area.

The county public health lab was still awaiting the results of genetic testing to confirm whether a close contact of Wednesdays first UK strain subject, who was said to have been experiencing symptoms of coronavirus infection, also has the UK strain.

Dr. Eric McDonald, medical director of the countys epidemiology department, said Thursday evening that the subject, a woman also in her 30s who is the spouse of Wednesdays UK case, has been admitted to a hospital after testing positive for coronavirus. Genetic testing being performed by Scripps Research will be necessary to confirm that the UK strain was involved, but that seems very likely at this point.

I would be shocked if it doesnt come back with whole-genome sequencing that confirms it, McDonald said.

He said the three additional UK cases confirmed through genetic testing Thursday were actually tested between Dec. 20 and Dec. 22. Helix, a local company that the county contracts with for testing, looked through its records after the first case appeared and discovered the results as having the telltale s drop signature that marked Wednesdays case.

Having cases from different parts of the county that did not know each other, he said, shows that this strain, which is thought to spread more easily than other variants, has been among us for some time.

This didnt just spread to that many different parts of the county among people who dont know each other in the past two weeks, McDonald said. The dispersal of these cases geographically tells you that it has probably been in the county for a longer period of time.

With 99 deaths announced in just the past two days, December is by far the deadliest month of the pandemic. According to county records, 488 deaths have been recorded in December, more than twice the previous monthly record of 197 tallied in July.

The most recent deaths announced Thursday range in age from 45 to 100 with three in their 40s. As is always the case, the deaths announced on any given day did not all occur the day before the announcement. It can take days or weeks for death certificates and causes of death to be finalized before they are reported to the public.

Taking the latest group into account, records show that a total of 28 deaths occurred on Dec. 22, tying Dec. 18 for the deadliest day of the pandemic.

McDonald said he reviews each and every death certificate before the county releases new numbers. Seeing so many in December, he said, has been particularly harrowing.

Every one of those is a person and has a family, McDonald said. What this means is that there are more and more San Diego families that are coming to grips with the fact that this is a real and deadly pandemic.

Deaths are what epidemiologists call a lagging indicator, generally occurring weeks or months after infections take hold. As such, a spike in deaths does not, in and of itself, say all that much about how a pathogen such as the novel coronavirus is spreading in a community. The number of new positive cases coming in daily provides a more immediate sense of the current pace of infection.

The final COVID-19 report of 2020 lists 3,083 new cases, once again jumping over the 3,000 mark after three straight days below that mark. The result could signal the arrival of a new wave of cases connected to Christmas celebrations, given that the average incubation period for the virus the amount of time spent in the body before symptoms generally begin to appear is about 6 days, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pressure continues to mount on local hospitals with 1,580 total COVID-19 patients in beds across the county Wednesday. COVID-positive patients occupied 35 percent of the 4,504 total beds in use. Intensive care admissions held steady at 621 with 386 having a COVID-19 diagnosis and 235 without.

Original post:

San Diego County ends 2020 with largest single-day COVID-19 death total of the year - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Jonas Salk, the scientist who developed the first effective polio vaccine, when asked Who owns this patent?, replied, Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun? In a world where private companies reap the fruits of developing vaccines, many now view this attitude as quaint. But quite apart from the philosophical case, there are compelling practical reasons to adopt Salks attitude, and treat all vaccine formulas that have proved effective against COVID-19, like the sun, as a global public good.

The easiest way to make vaccines truly available to all is to freely license every effective vaccine formula so that generic producers can manufacture the vaccine anywhere. This approach would overcome the short-run limits on production, which come from intellectual-property restrictions that constrain production to specific firms. Doing away with this barrier would ensure that the vaccines are produced and sold by many actors in a competitive marketplace, and made available to the public at the least cost.

The economic benefit of widespread access to vaccines, tests and treatments that can help to overcome the pandemic is potentially enormous, and dwarfs the cost of what is needed to compensate pharmaceutical companies for research and development, or for giving up monopoly privileges. The losses to the global economy from the pandemic are in the trillions but the expenses incurred for research and development have been in mere billions. Firms can be handsomely compensated for their innovative technology and, thereafter, it can be made available freely to all potential manufacturers, some of whom may well be more efficient producers.

Why then do we not pursue this approach? A central reason is that it is widely believed, especially by policy makers in rich countries, that intellectual property rights must be respected to provide adequate incentives for firms to engage in research and development. This supposed justification doesnt sustain scrutiny.

Many existing public-interest vaccine policies, such as those that provide advance purchasing commitments to assure firms that there will be a market for their products, do not question the conventional wisdom that temporary monopolies are necessary to compensate firms for the sizable fixed costs of drug development. But if incentives could be provided for drug development directly, state-enforced temporary monopolies wouldnt be necessary as a reward.

The COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech offers an interesting example. The technology was developed by BioNTech, and Pfizers role has been in administering clinical trials, seeking regulatory approvals and producing the vaccine. Pfizer, instrumental in bringing the innovative vaccine to the stage where it received emergency approval, is now poised to become the sole manufacturer.

But what if incentives and supports for innovation and manufacturing had been separated? If public incentives had been available on a sufficient scale to support and reward BioNTechs research and development, then a temporary monopoly would not have been needed. (Substantial public money was in fact given to BioNTech, and to other companies, without any apparent demand for concession of intellectual property rights.) Clinical trials could also have been separately administered by public or private organizations with relevant expertise (and indeed the trials would have likely benefited from increased credibility). The resulting technology could then have been made available to generic producers and thereby to a global public.

This is a world that could exist, but does not. Several vaccines have now come to an advanced stage of development on the expectation of sizable profit. But it is not too late to share knowledge about the vaccine to anyone interested in producing them. A consortium of governments can act in the global public interest to do just that.

Many countries already possess laws which permit governments to impose compulsory licensing on companies, or are in the process of creating them. International trade law also provides for exceptions to intellectual property rights protections in the case of public health emergencies. Governments can therefore use actual or potential legal provisions to force vaccine firms to the table to negotiate a price for giving up their existing intellectual property.

This brings us to the economic objections to making a vaccine formula that has already been developed freely available for anyone to produce. First, it could be argued that any steps taken to free such intellectual property will have adverse implications for future research and development. Second, such a shift could be described as unfair, since considerable effort and expense have already been undertaken by firms, under expectations of reward through the patent system.

Both of these objections are, however, easily dealt with through a single measure: compensation for the firms for their past research and development effort in return for placing their technology in the public domain. There are a number of possible ways of determining the appropriate level of compensation. One waya cost-based approachwould pay for the actual expenditure on research and development, and provide a substantial additional premium, to recognize the risks taken and to provide a signal that future research and development activity for other pharmaceuticals will also be rewarded at a level adequate to induce desired efforts. The seconda profit-based approachwould pay for the foregone value to firms of their temporary monopoly rights. Although it is not straightforward to estimate this value, it is possible to infer it from proxy information such as the prior stock price impact of vaccine announcements.

Which of these approaches should be used by governments that want to free COVID-19 vaccines? Both. A global commission informed by all affected interests could determine the amount to be provided to individual firms. The commission would adopt a reasonable compromise between cost-based and profit-based approaches, and ensure that compensation is set at a level sufficient to reassure private firms that their future efforts, especially in any subsequent pandemic, will also be rewarded adequately if necessary at a rate sufficient to compensate fully for lost profits to encourage research and development. This approach recognizes the importance of incentives for private firms but also does not impede the prospect that public initiatives could play a larger role in any future response.

Freeing the formula for a vaccine would be worth it, even if a firm were rewarded far more than the costs incurred to develop its vaccine. Consider the example of Pfizer. If governments paid the company $40 billion in compensation for lost profitsbased on an estimated two billion people who might have been sold the vaccine by the company, at a price of $24 per person, with an estimated 80 percent profit rate applied to the resulting revenue (Pfizers total revenue in 2019 was a bit more than $50 billion, and its gross profit was more than $40 billion)the deal would still create an enormous net benefit. The International Monetary Fund forecasts a three percent difference in world GDPamounting to around $2.5 trillion, based on a world nominal GDP of more than $80 trillionbetween a baseline and more favorable global handling of the pandemic. The IMFs more favorable scenario does not assume a vaccine but simply better containment of the disease. Widespread access to a vaccine would therefore presumably enlarge the positive impact associated with the more favorable scenario, with the economic gain over time likely to be a very large multiple of the cost of compensating pharmaceutical companies for making a vaccine formula freely available.

Using data from the World Bank we calculate that the 29 countries with the lowest annual incomes (less than $1,050 in 2017) would incur costs totaling more than their entire current public health expenditure on all purposes if they were to vaccinate even two thirds of their population at the actual delivery price that has been reportedly agreed by at least one developing country for what is expected to be the cheapest vaccine available. Even if these low-income countries receive some discounted or free vaccines, other lower middle income countries (whose total government expenditure on all aspects of health is on average less than twice this vaccine cost per person) are sure also to experience difficulties. The WHOs COVAX facility, which many low-and-middle income countries are relying on, initially only assures doses for twenty percent of their populations. Short of steep discounts or massive increases in development assistance, the vaccines developed by major actors may not be easily affordable in many countries, at least in the short run, and because of advance contracts signed by developed countries, may not be accessible at any price.

Despite the importance of costs, it is of still greater significance that supplies of the best available vaccines will not increase as rapidly as they would if licenses to produce them were freely provided to all producers. If vaccine formulae were to be made freely available to all potential producers, how quickly could they scale up production? It is clear that separating production from drug development can relax the constraints that come from having a limited number of production sites tied to specific firms. Broader pools of capital can be drawn upon, local knowledge concerning distribution networks can be employed, and more experimentation can be undertaken with quicker and cheaper production processes. Although some of the vaccines recently developed employ pioneering technology (e.g. using mRNA delivery systems) there is no reason that there cannot be adequate oversight by the World Health Organization and by governments to ensure that high standards of production quality and safety are fulfilled.

The enforcement of intellectual property rights acts as an obstacle to using existing or potential capacity within the global pharmaceutical manufacturing sector to ramp up supplies of the vaccine. It is not at all obvious why the sophisticated generic manufacturers present in many countries, who are already responsible for a large portion of world drug supplies, would not be equal to the task, even if it requires some increase in their capabilities. As the volume of vaccines that need to be manufactured in a short time is unprecedentedly large, it is clear that individual firms will not have the capacity to meet the current demand, and consequently, many of them have already announced that delivery will take time. Enabling a larger number of firms to participate in producing the vaccine can provide not only additional physical capacity but also management capacity needed to oversee production and distribution of vaccines across the globe.

It is vitaland not too lateto pursue a public alternative to private monopolies so as to ensure adequate production, efficient distribution and accessible pricing of a vaccine for COVID-19. This is essential not just to offer the world the fastest pathway out of the health, social and economic crisis caused by the current pandemic, but to offer it the best means out of future pandemics too.

View original post here:

It's Time to Use Eminent Domain on the Coronavirus Vaccines - Foreign Policy

Most of the DOC's 400 vaccines will go to staff members working alongside COVID-positive adults in custody.

SALEM, Ore. The Oregon Department of Corrections received 400 COVID-19 vaccinations Monday, and is hoping to vaccinate a "small number" of adults in custody in the coming days.

According to a press release from the DOC, the first round of vaccines will mostly be distributed to medical providers, transport employees and staff members working on COVID-19 units. The rest, a "small number," according to the release, will be given to adults in custody whose work assignments involve COVID-19-positive units.

According to DOC staff, all inmates will eventually be offered the vaccine. It will not be mandatory, and the DOC is set to receive another round of vaccines next week.

There are more than 13,000 inmates across the state's 14 institutions. Twenty-one inmates have died of COVID-19 since March, and there have been more than 2,200 positive cases among adults in custody in Oregon.

Additionally, 560 staff members have tested positive as well.

Oregon prisons have been the sites of some of the state's largest workplace outbreaks during the pandemic, as social distancing and COVID protocols proved to be extremely difficult to follow.

During the summer, Gov. Brown commuted the sentences of nearly 60 inmates.

The governor announced a similar plan for early release in December 2020, and according to OPB reports, this included 130 inmates with six months or fewer left on their sentences.

According to the governor's office, those getting early release couldn't be serving a sentence for a person-involved crime, have to have a record of good conduct for 12 months and must have housing plans upon their release.

As of Dec. 17, 2020, 247 adults in custody have been released early.

Link:

'Small number' of Oregon inmates getting COVID-19 vaccine - KGW.com

The speed at which we've learned about coronavirus is unprecedented and scientists say we already know a remarkable amount.

But one year on, with more than 81 million reported infections and 1.7 million deaths around the world, there's still a lot we don't know about Covid-19.

Those unknowns range from the basics -- such as how the virus started -- to the more complicated questions, including how will this pandemic end?

"We have learned a tremendous amount, but in terms of understanding anything in any real detail, we've got miles and miles to go," said Maureen Ferran, an associate professor of biology at Rochester Institute of Technology. "This is going to keep virologists and public health officials busy for decades."

Where coronavirus originated from

As governments raced to find a vaccine for the virus, one of the most basic questions fell off the public's radar: what is the origin of the virus?

But while Peter Collignon, a professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, says it's quite likely that the virus was circulating in the US and parts of Europe before the first cases in those countries were diagnosed, there's nothing conclusive to show that the virus originated outside of China. The World Health Organization, which is investigating the origin of the virus, will look into whether Covid-19 could have been circulating in China before the first cases were identified in December.

Despite the plethora of conspiracy theories, there are a few things that most scientists agree on. Covid-19 is a coronavirus, a type of virus that is responsible for everything from the common cold, to SARS. It's zoonotic, meaning it originally came from an animal. Some studies point to bats as the likely vectors, which are known to carry coronaviruses. And most scientists still think the virus transferred to humans in China, as that is where the first cases were identified.

Why it affects some people more than others

When Covid-19 was first identified, it was seen as a respiratory illness. But as the months have gone on, a range of symptoms and complications of the disease have become apparent.

A letter published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine in November described a case where two 60-year-old identical twin brothers were both infected with Covid-19 had very different outcomes. One twin was released from hospital after two weeks without any complications, the other was transferred to intensive care and required a ventilator.

"We all have slightly different genetics," Collignon said. "Often for reasons we don't fully understand, some people cope with infections better than others."

"What is it about age that makes you so much more susceptible to having disease?" Collignon questioned. "We've got the data and we know it's true ... but I don't think we've got all the answers for that."

How coronavirus is spread

Scientists say the key way the virus is spreading is though droplets which are sent into the air when someone coughs or sneezes. These droplets fall to the ground after one or two meters, and masks can help prevent their spread.

But some scientists argue that the virus is also being spread by aerosols -- much smaller particles that can stay suspended in the air for hours and travel long distances. That would be a problem, says Collignon -- cloth masks can't protect against aerosol transmission.

There are other questions, too. According to Ferran, it's unclear what dose of coronavirus is needed for someone to get infected. Children may be more likely to be asymptomatic, but there are still no definitive answers on how much children are involved in spreading the virus.

All of these questions are important as they have implications for what policy approaches governments take. If children are involved in spreading the virus, then it makes sense to shut schools -- and conversely, if they aren't involved in spreading the virus, then shutting schools could be having a large impact with limited pay off.

How long someone is immune

That seemed to confirm what some people were afraid of -- that it was possible to get infected twice.

The good news, according to Collignon, is that while some people can get infected twice, "it's such a rare event that you get put in a medical journal." Around 99% of people infected with the virus don't seem to get infected again for at least six months after they are infected, Collignon said.

The big question, then, is how long does natural immunity from the virus last? Scientists can't answer that yet as the virus hasn't been with us for long enough.

The same is true for the vaccine -- we don't know how long the immunity for that lasts either.

Scientists assumed that the vaccine would provide some form of immunity for a number of years, said Collignon. "But the bottom line is, we don't know yet."

At the moment, the coronavirus vaccines look like they are more effective than the influenza vaccine, which needs to be administered every year.

Scientists are optimistic about the vaccine and think the chance of long-term side effects is unlikely. As Jonathan Stoye, from the Francis Crick Institute in London, puts it: "I think the risk is much greater from the virus than the vaccine."

But that doesn't mean there aren't still questions about the vaccine beyond how long immunity lasts. We don't know whether the virus will mutate, in a way that will render a vaccine ineffective. The longer we take to vaccinate large swaths of the population, the more opportunity it has to mutate, said Ferran. And some of the new vaccines employ mRNA technology, which has never been used widely before -- raising questions about whether the immunity from those vaccines will last for the same length of time as traditional vaccines.

When the pandemic will be over

All of these questions have implications for the big question: when will this all end?

Many around the world are pinning their hopes on the vaccine, but even that isn't a quick fix. It will likely take years to vaccinate the majority of the world's population -- something that would be necessary to stop the spread -- and polls show that some people may not be willing to be vaccinated. Even if people do, the vaccine isn't a silver bullet.

"I think the vaccines are the way to go. But people seem to have a view of it will give me 100% protection -- no vaccine does that," Collignon. And even if someone is vaccinated, scientists don't yet know whether it's possible that they could get the virus and spread it, even if they don't get sick themselves.

It's likely that even once there is widespread vaccination, we might still have to live with the virus. After all, only one virus in human history has been declared eradicated by a vaccine -- small pox.

There are other issues that could influence how long coronavirus is with us, such as whether the virus mutates or develops a new strain. It's possible that the virus could become less deadly or infectious -- but it's also possible that the virus could become more virulent. That possibility has been highlighted by the UK's recently announcement that it has identified a new strain of coronavirus that appears to be 70% more infectious than the old strain.

In the meantime, we are going to need to rely on a range of other measures. Stoye, from the Francis Crick Institute, said that would likely mean taking a range of different protections in combination. "You can't say -- we will do this one thing, and you'll prevent the virus spreading."

And that's where all the questions about how the virus spreads and how different people are affected comes in. Those are important not just for dealing with the current outbreak -- but for future outbreaks.

The problem, says Collignon, is that not enough money is spent on answering the basics.

"We spend billions of dollars on vaccines and drugs, but you can't get funding to do research on basics like how effective is this mask versus that mask," he said, adding that was partly because answers to those questions didn't make the problem go away -- they just decreased the risk.

Stoye said he was concerned that we still hadn't found the right way to deal with the pandemic.

"That's what worries me about when we talk about future epidemics -- will we have learned from this one enough to prevent another one?"

Read the original:

Coronavirus has been with us for a year. Here's what we still don't know - CNN

By Cristobella Durrette December 28, 2020

The UH Student Health Center signed up to serve as a distribution site for the COVID-19 vaccine and if approved, it could begin receiving, storing and administering doses next year.

The Student Health Center began the process to register with the Texas Department of State Health Services in November, but has not been provided with a timeline for approval. Their efforts intend to mitigate viral spread, as on-campus coronavirus cases continue to climb.

The Student Health Center wants to be able to provide the vaccine to students who voluntarily choose to be immunized as soon as available and allowed, said interim executive director of the UH Student Health Center Cheryl Person.

It is important for us to stay on the forefront of COVID-19 mitigation and provide resources to our students with regard to testing or vaccination.

However, it may be months before the vaccine becomes available to the campus community.

The first shipments of the vaccine in the state, which arrived at four different healthcare facilities on Monday, will be distributed among first-tier priority personnel including frontline healthcare workers, long-term care facility staff and emergency responders.

The states level-based distribution system does not stipulate when colleges and universities approved to serve as vaccine distributors will begin receiving doses.

Harrington expects an increase in the number of vaccine distribution sites, which could include the University, as more doses are allotted to qualifying providers across the state.

Increased allotments are expected in January and the following months, so we expect distribution sites to expand as the vaccine is rolled out to more and more people in the coming months, Harrington said.

Management information systems senior Joel Phillips would get the vaccine if it becomes available on campus. He feels its a great way to improve student safety and slow viral spread.

I think that having a place on campus to allow those living on campus to get vaccinated is a good idea, Phillips said. I feel very safe on campus right now, but we are all at somewhat higher risk than someone able to live at home and not have to use public spaces like the dining hall.

Management information systems and supply chain management junior Alysia Sombillo also plans to get vaccinated, but closer to her off-campus home.

She also thinks that the vaccine will be important to minimizing the spread of COVID-19 but worries about people being wary of the vaccine.

I think UH being a (COVID-19) vaccine distributor could mitigate the spread of (COVID-19) among community members, but there might be skepticism to the vaccine and students might not want to take it, Sombillo said.

For more of The Cougars coronavirus coverage, click here.

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Tags: coronavirus, coronavirus vaccine, COVID-19, UH Student Health Center, vaccine distribution

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UH signs up to be COVID-19 vaccine distribution site - The Cougar - The Daily Cougar

WEST SIDE Some West Siders are looking at the first coronavirus vaccines with ambivalence.

They are relieved vaccines are coming for the deadly disease that has ravaged their communities. But they are wary of potential side effects and are mindful of the legacy of medical systems abusing and neglecting communities of color.

And West Siders wonder if health leaders will use vaccines as an excuse to ignore the reasons the pandemic disproportionately affected their communities in the first place.

We been through so much. How you gonna tell me you have a vaccine thats going to help me, but you wont even let me have access to food? You wont let me have access to decent housing a good job, a good education, said Tamara Draper of Garfield Park.

It will be months before coronavirus vaccines become available to the general public. Vaccinations began Dec. 15 in Chicago, with the first dose given to Dr. Marina Del Rios at Loretto Hospital in Austin on the West Side.

City and West Side leaders have been working on strategies to ensure residents have accurate information about vaccines and opportunities to share their misgivings with medical leaders.

But as Black and Latino residents continue to suffer disparities in health care, it will take more than symbolism of a Latina doctor being vaccinated to build trust.

I am aware of how they use Black people as guinea pigs a continuation of misuse and abuse of our people. But I am hopeful, Austin resident Tina Augustus said. I know this disease is ravaging our community. So if I want my community to be healthy, I will have to consider the shot.

Many are still mindful of the inhumane and government-led Tuskegee experiments that were conducted over 40 years.

The study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Public Health Service from 1932-1972, examined the effects of untreated syphilis in hundreds of poor Black sharecroppers with the disease.

Researchers let the disease go untreated in study participants despite having access to a cure and didnt provide them free health care, as theyd been promised. Participants went blind, mentally deteriorated and died, as did some of their wives and children, who also contracted the disease.

Today, Black people are still facing disparities in health care: Black Chicagoans have lower life expectancies than white residents, dying an average of 8.8 years earlier, and the maternal death rate for Black women in Chicago is more than 2.5 times higher than their white counterparts.

Majority Black neighborhoods are also less likely to have access to affordable medical care and nutritious food, which contributes to chronic health problems. And Black communities frequently grapple with hospitals that serve their communities being closed.

Its not just something that happened 60 years ago. All of this stuff is still happening right now, said LaDarius Curtis, director of community engagement and community health with West Side United, whose work has long focused on root causes of health care inequities. Therefore, people in the present are still going to have the same level, if not more, [of] distrust than people in the past.

The pandemic has only exacerbated the issues that have resulted in worse outcomes for Black and Latino Chicagoans. Vaccines for coronavirus dont fix that, Draper said.

We still dont have any grocery stores, Draper said. One of the reasons our area has been hit so hard is if we want anything we have to leave our community. We have to be exposed to more people.

Vanessa Stokes, of Austin, is frustrated the city is rolling out vaccines without resolving those core issues. The pandemic was the perfect time for people to join together to create new systems because the current system has failed Black communities, Stokes said.

With some people now being vaccinated, the feeling of urgency over the public health crisis might evaporate along with any impetus for creating meaningful change on the issues that facilitated the economic and medical devastation of the pandemic, Stokes said.

Thats the American way, she said. I really dont think COVID is going to change anything. Theyre going to say, Oh, its too much work, Im not going to do all that.'

The citys vaccination campaign will be done through an equity lens, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has said.

Just as with its coronavirus data, the city will track vaccination data by peoples race and ethnicity, age and home ZIP code. Officials will use that data when deciding where to set up vaccination sites.

In the first 12 days of vaccinations, a large concentration of health care workers living in the whitest, wealthiest neighborhoods on the North Side were vaccinated, according to city data and a Sun-Times analysis.

Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said she is confident the distribution will improve as more vaccine is available both within hospitals, but, importantly, when we move beyond hospitals.

Outreach to target skeptics will include pairing with trusted messengers like health care workers who can explain the vaccine and spread accurate information, Arwady has said.

At Loretto Hospital, more than 110 hospital workers have been vaccinated. Many have been talking to patients, answering questions about the vaccine and sharing their own experiences, said Afya Khan, an infectious control practitioner at Loretto.

Hospital staffers have also had proactive conversations related to vaccines and consultations with residents at Lorettos free community testing center, which has tested more than 20,000 residents for coronavirus, Khan said. In the future, the hospital plans to share fact sheets about the vaccine to further address mistrust.

West Side United has a dedicated Vaccine Corps working to unpack generations of disillusionment and provide information about the vaccine.

Were not here to tell people to take the vaccine. Were here to debunk [misinformation] so folks can make a wise decision on their own if the vaccine is worth taking for them, Curtis said.

The pandemics toll on the West Side has been a test of faith, Draper said. She has lost three family members to coronavirus, so the vaccine feels like a light at the end of a tunnel. She has mixed feelings about the vaccine, so she plans to watch and see whether people experience side effects before deciding if shell get one.

Augustus said shes not sure if shell get the vaccine when its offered to her. Despite past transgressions, she said she has more faith in todays public health officials because of the Black-led work being done to erase racist health disparities. The lead researcher responsible for developing the Moderna vaccine, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, is a Black woman.

Peoples eyes and ears are open to the injustice that has happened for so many years, Augustus said. Were taking [a] seat in all these different places in this country with our voice. An African American woman played a part in saving humanity.

When considering the vaccine, Augustus said she will keep in mind the West African adinkra symbol of the sankofa: a bird with its feet planted in the ground, its body facing forward, but its head looking backward. The bird symbolizes the need for Black people to remember the past and heed the wisdom of their ancestors while stepping into the future.

I strongly believe in the sankofa bird, looking back as were moving forward. We definitely cannot forget. Thats how people are taking advantage of. Because when you forget, you dont hold peoples feet to the fire, Augustus said.

Pascal Sabino is aReportforAmericacorps member covering Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park for Block Club Chicago.

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Some West Siders Skeptical Of Coronavirus Vaccines, But City Hopes To Earn Their Trust With An Equitable Distribution Plan - Block Club Chicago

Two hundred fifty first responders in Louisville will get the vaccine by Wednesday.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. Health care workers and those in long-term care facilities were the first in Louisville to get the COVID vaccine.

Now another group is in line to get the vaccine: first responders.

Medical first responders have been on the frontlines of this pandemic, transporting patients to the hospital. Monday they were able to get the first dose of the Moderna vaccine.

EMS workers have always put themselves in danger to help people, but COVID-19 has brought about some different concerns.

It's been a new kind of danger that weve been in, Buechel Fire & EMS Captain Cody Weiss said. We have to worry about what we may get at work and take home to our families.

Weiss was one of 71 medical first responders who got the first dose of the Moderna vaccine Monday. By Wednesday, 250 vaccines will go to these workers.

This drive-thru is in partnership with UofL Health, but the Louisville Metro Public Health Department will also be launching a drive-thru vaccination site in January at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

These first responders are in the 1A tier of vaccinations.

The allocation goals for vaccine distribution are to help keep society running basically, LMPHD Associate Medical Director Dr. Sarahbeth Hartlage said. In particular if you think about first responders, theyre kind of a link between long-term care and hospitals. So an EMT might be called into a nursing home to pick up a patient and take them to the hospital.

After getting the vaccine these first responders waited to make sure they didnt have a reaction, then were cleared by UofL Health staff. More first responders will be vaccinated as more doses become available.

It went well, Weiss said Its [as] pain free as any other shot or vaccine. Its nice to know theres an end in sight.

Louisville Metro Public Health wants to stress these vaccines are by appointment only. If you are eligible, your employer will contact you directly.

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Medical first responders get COVID-19 vaccine in drive-thru format - WHAS11.com