Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

Anti-face mask protesters and coronavirus skeptics attend Anti-Covid Freedom March in Krakow, Poland ... [+] on October 10, 2020. Many participants did not cover their mouths and noses, and they did not maintain social distance. So-called freedom marches are ubiquitous right now, but solid information about COVID-19 and vaccines can help bring both the coronavirus and the misinformation pandemics to an end.

Over the past year, most of us have learned more about coronaviruses than we ever thought we'd need to know. Throughout 2020, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has swept across the globe, infecting over 78 million humans with Covid-19, reaching all seven continents, and killing close to 2 million of us so far. Meanwhile, scientists worldwide have raced to do the unthinkable: to develop and deploy a safe and effective vaccine against this new illness in record time. Unlike Russia and China, which released vaccines without conducting the necessary trials to prove their safety, our first accelerated, comprehensive vaccine trials reached completion in November.

At last, there's cause for celebration. The vaccines not only proved safe, but incredibly effective, as the infection rate was about 20 times lower in the vaccinated groups compared to the control groups, with no known cases of serious infections or fatalities among those who received the vaccines. But three people experienced severe allergic reactions to the vaccine, raising concerns among the general public. Should you get the vaccine? Whats the risk versus the reward of getting it? Heres what everyone, regardless of your level of vaccine skepticism is, should know.

A researcher holds a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine during a news conference at the National Primate Research ... [+] Center of Chulalongkorn University. Some mRNA vaccine candidates are in early stage of development, but 2 of them in particular, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, have already been demonstrated to be safe and effective, and are beginning to be rolled out to people worldwide. (Chaiwat Subprasom/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Although there are many different vaccines out there, most of the focus is now on two of them in particular: the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. These were the two vaccines that displayed the highest effectiveness so far, but theyre also completely new in a specific way: they work via a different technology than every other vaccination you've received over your life. Prior vaccines used a weakened or inactivated form of the virus, or just particular fragments of a virus: whats known as viral proteins. These vaccines behave as teaching tools for our bodies, giving us a template to fight the real infectious viruses when they come for us.

When the vaccines enter our body, either the viruses or the viral proteins get spotted by our immune system, which first recognize them as foreign and then work to destroy them. Although there are a variety of immune responses our body produces, the basic idea is that we learn how to effectively destroy these training dummies, so that when the real virus comes for us, theres no learning curve. We already know how to destroy them, and we do so in short order.

The major novelty here is that instead of actual viruses or virus components, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA vaccines. They work similarly, but have one unique aspect that sets them apart.

A temperature controlled fridge stores the Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine as Covid-19 vaccinations ... [+] take place at Haxby and Wiggington Surgery on December 22, 2020 in York, England. In many locations across the world, new refrigeration infrastructure will need to be set up in order to safely and effectively house and distribute these vaccines. (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

mRNA vaccines are based off of the virus's messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), which carries instructions for making viral proteins. When these instructions enter your body, your cells produce what it encodes: a specific portion of a protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus known as the "spike protein." Once the protein exists in your body, the vaccine works just like all other vaccines: it teaches your immune system how to fight the real infection. Your immune system recognizes this spike protein as "foreign" and produces B-cells which produce antibodies as well as T-cells that are specifically made to stop SARS-CoV-2.

The mRNA vaccine ends up teaching your body to produce these B-cells and T-cells, which in turn protect you from Covid-19. Injecting you directly with mRNA saves scientists the previously necessary steps of isolating and purifying large quantities of weakened/inactivated virus or viral proteins in the lab. Instead, your body simply makes the viral proteins directly, replacing a previously unavoidable, high-labor process with a rapid training montage. The extra practical difficulty is that the mRNA must be kept at very cold temperatures compared to the other vaccine methods. Once its administered, however, it offers the best protection against Covid-19 currently available.

Frontline workers and staff from the Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB), pose for a photographer ... [+] after they received a shot of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the SIHB, on December 21, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. (Karen Ducey/Getty Images).

But protection, or immunity, means something different from what we conventionally think. It doesn't necessarily mean, "I won't get infected, I won't be contagious, and I can't pass this infection onto others," which is what we typically associate with immunity. From the clinical trials conducted, we can confidently state that protection means, "I am approximately ~95% protected from getting a symptomatic Covid-19 infection and possibly as much as ~99%+ protected from a severe/deadly infection," as no deaths were observed in the vaccinated group in either drug's trial.

What hasnt been demonstrated, at least so far, is that these vaccines prevent you from getting infected entirely. We've shown that these vaccines provide neutralizing immunity, where the virus will no longer severely harm you, but not necessarily sterilizing immunity, where you cannot pass the virus onto others. Additionally, it isn't known how long your immunity will persist. This, very importantly, means that you still need to wear a mask, wash/sanitize your hands, and practice social distancing and to be rigorous about doing them all for now. Just because you are protected doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to protect others.

An unmasked individual doing something as simple as exhaling (top) can send droplet particles large ... [+] distances, with a high potential for spreading the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Wearing a mask (bottom) significantly reduces the distance that droplets travel, offering some measure of protection to others as well as, to a lesser extent, the wearer. Note that being too close to a masked individual will not prevent the spread of the virus; masks and distancing needs to occur in tandem.

What about side effects? There will be very real side effects that arise from this vaccine. Pain at the injection site and fatigue have both been well-documented, and appear to be worse after the second shot in these two-shot series. The Pfizer vaccine, in particular, shows some evidence of causing serious effects in a subset of individuals susceptible to severe allergic reactions; a total of three allergic reactions have been documented so far. Even though these vaccines do not contain common vaccine allergens such as egg or gelatin, you should still speak with your physician about vaccine allergies if you have concerns.

Of course, when you consider the side effects from getting the vaccine versus the risks of what are happening in the non-vaccinated population that gets infected, the overall effectiveness of these vaccines is more than worth it. These vaccines both reduce the severity of coronavirus infections and appear to entirely eliminate the risk of sustaining long-term damage to your body from the virus. Over the coming months, heroic efforts will be made to immunize as many members of the population as possible, with the hopes of bringing the current pandemic to an end.

But just as we should be embracing this scientific advance and all the benefits it can confer upon our society, anti-vaccine advocates, known as anti-vaxxers, are waging a novel misinformation campaign designed to stoke fear about these new vaccines.

When people reject science in favor of whatever their preferred ideology is, they can come to absurd ... [+] and destructive conclusions. The fact that people aren't wearing masks, are advocating against testing, vaccines, and other public health interventions are an unconscionable act of science denial, harming all of civilized society.

Adhering to the standard denialist playbook, their claims are varied but predictable, all rooted in conspiratorial thinking. The evidence for vaccine harm simply isn't there, but anecdotes of I/my kid got sick within 24/48 hours of getting a vaccine are being widely shared across social media. These anecdotes may be true, but when public health specialists and disease ecologists study the question of how likely are you to get this sickness within 24/48 hours of getting a vaccine versus getting this sickness at any other time, the answer always comes back as neither more nor less likely. There is no evidence that vaccines are more harmful than not getting vaccines, except the vaccines give you immunity against preventable, sometimes deadly diseases.

Similarly, claims of "personal choice" and "bodily autonomy" always end where your personal choices cause harm to others; spreading a lethal illness to otherwise vulnerable people the very young, the immunocompromized, those who lack natural immunity, or those who cannot be vaccinated is tantamount to a potentially deadly assault. The vaccine shows equal safety and effectiveness across all races, genders, and adult ages; the mRNA never enters the cell's nucleus and cannot modify your DNA; there are no serious adverse effects observed in over 100,000 injections of mRNA vaccines. In addition, no steps were skipped in these speedy vaccine trials. In fact, they contained more than 5 times as many participants as a standard Phase 3 trial, surpassing the required benchmarks for all previously approved vaccines.

Although we presently have two novel and effective mRNA vaccines, others vaccines are in trials ... [+] right now, including Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), whose vaccine is currently being produced in large quantities in preparation for a phase 3 trial by the end of this month in the photograph shown here. (FRANCOIS LO PRESTI/AFP via Getty Images)

Many have expressed concern about the recent mutation that has been discovered in the UK among coronavirus patients. It should be concerning, but not for the reason that most of us think. Most of us, when we hear the virus has mutated, we worry that those already infected will no longer be immune, and that the vaccine weve developed may not protect us from the new strain. We call an organism that mutates to avoid any previous immunity an escape mutant, and this is the present nightmare scenario for public health professionals.

This worry is a possibility, but an unlikely one. The SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates regularly, according to the CDC, with a total of 23 independently identified mutations so far. Although they mention Ability to evade vaccine-induced immunity as a possible concern, they also note that There is no evidence that this is occurring, and most experts believe escape mutants are unlikely to emerge because of the nature of the virus. The antibodies that the vaccine helps create target multiple parts of the spike protein, and changing one part wont decrease your immunity. Its like when the police are looking for a suspect, theyre unlikely to be fooled by a disguise consisting solely of a ponytail and glasses.

Matching genetic sequences can be leveraged in wide variety of applications, from criminal forensics ... [+] to tracking the evolution of an infectious disease. The novel SARS-CoV-2 strain appears to gain about one new mutation every 2 weeks, with cumulative mutations posing a greater public health threat than any known one-off mutation. (Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)

What is concerning about the virus mutating is this: viruses mostly mutate via random chance, through a process known as genetic drift. Each individual mutation is unlikely to cause that worst-case scenario, just as any single lottery ticket is unlikely to win you the Powerball. If you give the virus enough chances to mutate, however, just like if you buy enough lottery tickets, the unlikely could become an inevitability. The things that give the virus more chances to mutate are the number of infected hosts, and the duration of time that the virus remains both in the population and in each host while theyre infectious or contagious.

The safest path forward for all of us is one where:

Every time someone goes out to a bar or restaurant, over to a friend or relatives house, or has any type of close, prolonged, or non-essential contact, they run an increased risk of not only contracting or spreading the virus themselves, but of being that unlucky lottery ticket who creates an escape mutant within their own body.

If each person in every household is allowed to visit one and only one person outside of their own ... [+] household, the connectivity of the network increases dramatically over the essential-only connected scenario. This illustrates very clearly why even just a few isolated gatherings can catastrophically spread the virus, infecting or exposing a large number of people in very short order.

As of today, there have been more than 18.5 million coronavirus cases in the United States, with more than 327,000 documented deaths resulting from those infections. Millions of additional people have sustained long-term damage to various organs, including their lungs, hearts, livers, kidneys, and more. Cardiovascular events among previously healthy individuals, like heart attacks and strokes, have been well-documented and connected to Covid-19 in humans. With an average of more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases each day in the United States, the infection rates are not only at an all-time high, but the death rate is as well, with nearly 3000 Americans dying on a daily basis right now.

And yet, the combination of the vaccine and our capacity to engage in socially responsible behavior can stop this disease in its tracks. Frontline healthcare workers are leading the way, receiving record numbers of vaccinations with extraordinarily low numbers of adverse effects. Many of us, when we ask ourselves what we should be doing with our bodies, look to what the most informed and educated are themselves doing with theirs. In this case, the answer is getting vaccinated immediately, demonstrating that this a case where doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers are practicing exactly what they preach.

Ebenezer Mienza, a healthcare worker at the NIH Clinical Center, gestures after receiving his first ... [+] dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on December 22, 2020. Seated in the foreground is Dr. Anthony Fauci, who also received the vaccine, along with Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, who is not pictured. (Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images)

It's important to be honest about the limitations of what we know. We don't know how long the immunity conferred by a vaccine will last. We don't know whether there are long-term effects arising from these vaccines or not, or what they might be if they do arise. However, based on what weve learned so far, any long-term effects from the vaccine will likely be significantly less in severity and fewer in number than the long-term effects of infection. We don't know how these vaccines fare in pregnant women or whether they work for children and adolescents. And we don't know how the upcoming Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which only requires one shot as opposed to the two required by Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccines, will perform in comparison.

What we do know, however, is how bad Covid-19 is, and how destructive its long-term effects can be on your body, even in people who only experience mild infections. Refusing a vaccine when you're perfectly capable of receiving it recklessly endangers not only yourself, but quite possibly all the others you come into contact with. Your rights to your own bodily choices, in all cases, end where those choices have demonstrably harmful effects on others. There is no clearer example of deliberate harm than being willing to directly infect others with a preventable disease. Theres nothing wrong with being appropriately skeptical, but its also morally imperative that we stand up for science. Our unfounded fears of the unknown provide no justification for risking the lives of others.

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What Every Vaccine Skeptic Should Know About The New Coronavirus Vaccines - Forbes

Tennessee to get 90,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses a week, will accelerate shots  Tennessean

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Tennessee to get 90,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses a week, will accelerate shots - Tennessean

"I'm very, very concerned," says Dr. Ranit Mishori, senior medical advisor for Physicians for Human Rights. "If we are as a country to achieve herd immunity, that means non-citizens who live among us have to be immunized."

But Mishori and other advocates and experts who recently spoke with CNN said a big obstacle is standing in the way of that goal: fear.

Here are some of the key issues they're already seeing come up.

She's started hearing concerns from her patients

Dr. Kathleen Page says she's seen this fear play out time and time again during the pandemic. Sometimes, she says, undocumented patients are extremely ill with Covid-19, but still scared to go to the hospital because they're afraid they could end up in the hands of immigration authorities.

And when it comes to the vaccine, Page says she's started hearing similar concerns from some of her patients.

"I've heard from people who say, 'You know what, I'm not sure about this vaccine. I'm not sure whether to trust it, I don't trust this administration,'" says Page, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

But already in some corners of the immigrant communities that have been disproportionately devastated by the pandemic, Page says, vaccine conspiracy theories are taking hold. She says it's not hard to understand why skepticism and mistrust of the government are prevalent in undocumented communities -- and why some immigrants fear that data collected when vaccines are given could later be used by immigration authorities.

"It doesn't take a lot," she says, "to convince someone who has seen things like families separated at the border, kids separated from their parents, to think, 'Well, this government Is not looking out for me, and why should I trust them?'"

Page says she tells her patients she'll be taking the vaccine, and she hopes they'll do the same.

But she says the concerns she already sees bubbling up are a clear sign that community leaders must be involved in the vaccine rollout.

"We need to get enough people to really trust the system and get access and get vaccinated so we can make a difference," she says. "Otherwise this group of people will continue to be suffering disproportionately."

Asked by CNN whether -- and how -- vaccines would be made available to undocumented immigrants as part of the federal government's distribution efforts, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a statement saying it was "not involved with this policy decision" and is working to make sure every American has access to the vaccine. State and local governments will ultimately decide on how vaccines are distributed, HHS said.

"Operation Warp Speed will deliver vaccines to administration sites requested by jurisdictions, enabling and executing their plans, as they best know their populations and areas," the statement said, referring to the federal vaccination effort.

Worries about cost could also get in the way

"We've paid for the vaccines, we paid for the shipping costs, and the administration costs ... will be covered by healthcare payers, private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and our program to cover Covid-19 expenses for the uninsured," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said earlier this month.

That prompted a letter from a New York lawmaker, expressing concern.

"Covid-19 does not discriminate, and neither should we as access to a vaccine grows closer," Gianaris, the state Senate deputy majority leader, said in a statement released with the letter last month.

Asked this week by CNN to explain Bourla's comments, Pfizer referred questions on the matter to the government, saying the CEO had been referring to government statements on the topic.

Concerns about costs often keep undocumented immigrants from seeking medical care, Page says. And those same fears could also make the undocumented community more wary of a vaccine, she says, if clear messages aren't sent from community leaders.

And fear isn't the only factor advocates are worried about

While combating fear around the vaccine is a top concern for advocates and medical professionals who work with immigrant communities, it's not the only thing on their minds.

"This is a crisis. .... This is one of these times in history where we need to be protecting our workers that are feeding us all across this nation, and we need to meet them where they're at to provide service and information and get them the help they need, because it's life and death," says Noe Paramo, a legislative advocate for the foundation.

That, Diringer and Paramo say, means taking steps now to conduct outreach and plan for things like mobile clinics and flexible hours to make sure the largely immigrant workforce living in remote, rural areas has access to vaccines.

Mishori of Physicians for Human Rights says another major issue deserves attention now: making sure ICE detainees get vaccinated as quickly as possible.

ICE says the agency is working with its federal and contract facilities to make sure detainees receive the vaccine.

"ICE will follow the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and other relevant federal government guidance regarding vaccine prioritization to ensure detainees receive their vaccinations as quickly as possible," the agency said in a statement to CNN.

But exactly when -- and how -- that will happen remains unclear.

It took time for officials to realize the extent of health inequities playing out during the pandemic and take steps to combat them, and Mishori says she worries a similar situation will unfold with the vaccine.

"We've had honestly years of health-care system marginalization of these communities. I don't see how it's not going to be a story that repeats itself," she says. "But I hope it's not. I hope we can stop it."

Mishori says that's why she and other advocates are speaking out now -- before it's too late.

CNN's Samira Said, Nadia Kounang, Michael Nedelman and Maggie Fox contributed to this report.

Link:

Fear could stop the coronavirus vaccine from reaching some of the people who need it most - CNN

Experts warn of scammers trying to capitalize on the rollout of coronavirus vaccines.

PORTLAND, Oregon Law enforcement officials are warning of scammers trying to take advantage of people with the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The FBI issued a press release warning of online advertisements selling fake doses or trying to charge you money with false promises to get a vaccine sooner.

There are several real-world examples of this already. Law enforcement officials in Europe shared a bogus adfor a fake Pfizer vaccine they found online. It cost .06882 Bitcoin or about $1,300.

The FDA sent a warning letter to a Seattle man and owner of North Coast Biologics in Seattle for advertising "unapproved and misbranded" products related to COVID-19 after he claimed he had the vaccine and has given the shot to a dozen people.

In fact, the FDA has sent warning letters to 152 companies about fraudulent coronavirus disease products in 2019.

And experts believe it's only going to get worse with people desperate to get the vaccine.

"Law enforcement is warning that you could see tons of these ads and that people could end up getting hurt from this," said Kerry Tomlinson, a cybersecurity and tech journalist with Archer News Network.

Tomlinson said there are three things that can happen if you fall for one of these ads:

1. It's a fake ad and your money is stolen.

2. The "vaccine" you thought you were buying is fake and doesn't hurt you but it doesn't work.

3. You buy something that could make you sick or even kill you.

Bottom line, if you see the COVID-19 vaccine for sale online, it's fake.

Do you have something you want Cristin to investigate? Email her at CallCristin@kgw.com

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Beware of scams advertising fake COVID-19 vaccines, early access - KGW.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Americans on Wednesday faced the prospect of a government shutdown during a pandemic as outgoing President Donald Trump, angry at his fellow Republicans in Congress, demanded dramatic changes to a $2.3 trillion government funding and coronavirus aid package.

The package, which includes $892 billion for relief from the coronavirus crisis, passed both chambers of Congress on Monday after months of negotiations between Republicans and Democrats.

It also pays for government operations through September 2021, so if Trump blocks it large parts of the U.S. government will start to shut down next week for lack of funds.

Trump, in a video posted to social media on Tuesday evening, surprised some of his closest officials by demanding lawmakers change the bill to include $2,000 payments to each American, more than triple the $600 per person provided.

A source familiar with the situation said aides thought they had talked Trump out of the $2,000 demand last week. The video surprised even Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who took part in the talks and backed the $600 figure.

Trump was irked when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Congresss top Republican, last week acknowledged Democrat Joe Bidens defeat of Trump in the November election, another source said. Biden is due to take office on Jan. 20.

Trump did not explicitly say he would veto the measure, apparently holding out hope Congress would modify a complex package that took months to negotiate. The White House had said on Sunday that Trump would sign it into law.

Because Congress is due to adjourn at the end of the year, the bill will be automatically vetoed after 10 days if Trump takes no action, in what is known as a pocket veto.

Trump also demanded the bill be stripped of foreign aid, which is included in every annual federal spending bill - and was requested by his own administration last year. He objected to other government activities funded by the 5,500-page bill, such as fish breeding and funding for the Smithsonian museums.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate passed the bill by wide, bipartisan margins, and could return to Washington to override a veto if necessary.

Some congressional Democrats - who had viewed the relief package as too small a response to a crisis that has killed more than 320,000 Americans and thrown millions of people out of work - welcomed Trumps move.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House could vote to raise those payments on Thursday if House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy agreed to do so.

Mr. President, sign the bill to keep government open! Urge McConnell and McCarthy to agree with the Democratic unanimous consent request for $2,000 direct payments! This can be done by noon on Christmas Eve! she responded to Trump on Twitter.

McConnell and McCarthys offices did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trumps demands put his fellow Republicans in an awkward position. Many of them opposed the $2,000 payments that Trump is now demanding as too expensive, and they would have to either defy their partys leader or change their position on those payments.

Lets get this into law, and we can have an ongoing discussion about whether there should be additional direct payments or not, Republican Senator Pat Toomey said on Fox News.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump participates in a pre-game coin toss ahead of the annual Army-Navy collegiate football game at Michie Stadium, in West Point, New York, U.S., December 12, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

Current federal funding is due to expire on Monday if Trump does not sign the bill into law. He is scheduled to leave for Florida on Wednesday afternoon for the Christmas holiday.

A funding lapse would furlough millions of federal workers and shut down wide swaths of the U.S. government at a time when it is rushing to distribute two coronavirus vaccines and contend with a massive hack that officials ascribe to Russia, but which Moscow denies.

Trump has also threatened to veto a $740 billion defense-policy bill, which has passed every year since 1961.

Trump dislikes that bill because it would strip the names of generals who served the pro-slavery Confederacy from military bases and does not repeal liability protections - unrelated to defense - for social media companies, such as Twitter and Facebook, that Trump considers unfriendly to conservatives like himself.

The House plans to return on Dec. 28 if Trump vetoes the defense-policy bill. That is the same day government funding is due to expire.

In Georgia, where control of the U.S. Senate hangs on a pair of Jan. 5 runoff elections, Democrats pressed incumbent Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to say whether they agreed with Trump that the $600 payments were too low. Neither campaign responded to a request for comment.

Trump sparked a record 35-day government shutdown two years ago when he rejected a federal spending bill over what he said was insufficient funding for building a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Reporting by Andy Sullivan and Steve Holland, additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell

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U.S. faces risk of government shutdown as Trump balks at COVID-19 relief deal - Reuters

Varon was the first at his hospital to get the vaccine in an effort to assure staff and the largely minority community he serves that the vaccine is safe.

Varon said those working in the Covid unit will get the vaccine first followed by staff assigned to the emergency room.

"We owe these folks an awful lot," Biden said, thanking those involved in the vaccine's development and distribution and frontline health care workers.

Biden said the Trump administration deserved "some credit" for Operation Warp Speed, the federal government's vaccine program, and their role in making coronavirus vaccinations possible.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Francis Collins, and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will be vaccinated against Covid-19 on Tuesday.

Most Americans will have to wait months before getting their inoculations.

In the meantime, new infections, hospitalizations and deaths keep soaring, prompting health experts to urge the public to stay home this Christmas week.

Now travelers risk getting infected with a variant of coronavirus that might be even more contagious.

'These viruses mutate all the time'

A variant of the virus is spreading rapidly in the UK, prompting dozens of travel bans and raising concerns about what this means for the world.

England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty warned Saturday that the variant "can spread more quickly" and was responsible for 60% of new infections in London.

On Monday, an epidemiologist from the World Health Organization explained why the variant might be infecting more people.

"We are hearing that it could spread up to 70% faster, but what that means is there are scientists in the UK that are evaluating the surveillance data, the genomic sequencing data, and looking at the spread in parts of England and across England," said Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for Covid-19 for the WHO.

"What they're seeing is that the reproduction number -- so this is the number of individuals that an infected person transmits to -- has increased from 1.1 to 1.5 ... I just want to put into context this up to 70% increase."

Van Kerkhove said scientists are trying to determine "how much of that is associated with the variant itself, as well as behavioral differences in individual that this variant has infected. So they're still working through that right now."

The increase is happening even as interventions are in place across England, she said.

"It does mean that we have to work a little bit harder about preventing the spread," she said. "But, what we do know is that the interventions that work about preventing the spread for this variant also work for the viruses that are circulating around."

Those interventions include physical distancing and wearing masks. "These viruses mutate all the time," Van Kerkhove said.

Operation Warp Speed chief science adviser Moncef Slaoui said while there's "clear evidence that there is more of it in the population," so far "there is no hard evidence that this virus (variant) is actually more transmissible."

There's also no evidence so far to suggest the new variant is more lethal, or that current vaccines wouldn't work against it, Whitty said.

But a virus that spreads more easily could result in more infections, which in turn might lead to more hospitalizations and deaths.

Backward tracing using genetic evidence suggests the new UK variant emerged in September and then circulated at very low levels in the population until mid-November, according to Public Health England.

As of Monday morning, there are no plans to enact a US travel ban against the UK, US Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brett Giroir said.

British Airways, Delta Airlines and Virgin Atlantic have agreed to require a Covid-19 test before allowing passengers to board planes traveling from the UK to New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo told CNN.

Gounder said a travel ban might not do much good now. "We have seen this virus circulating within the UK for at least a few months now," Gounder said. "Because this virus has been circulating for some period of time in the UK already, the cat's out of the bag. It has spread elsewhere, including the United States."

Travel bans can also backfire, Gounder said.

"As we saw when there were efforts to ban travel from China before, people rushed to travel. So the likelihood (is) that that could backfire -- that people will actually travel more, all of a sudden, in advance of impending bans."

Will the vaccines work against the new variant?

Both the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine have shown efficacy rates of around 95% in clinical trials. But many are questioning whether the vaccines would work on variants of the virus -- like one that is spreading in the UK.

"Up to now, I don't think there has been a single variant that would be resistant to the vaccine," Slaoui sad. "We can't exclude it, but it's not there now."

He said the novel coronavirus may be prone to variance. But critical aspects of the virus, such as the spike protein involved in a vaccine, are very specific to the novel coronavirus and unlikely to mutate much.

Giroir also said he thinks the current vaccines will work against the variant.

"Remember, our vaccines develop antibodies against multiple parts of that spike protein -- not just one that's the mutated one," he said.

Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are examining the variant and expect to know in the next few days whether vaccines might not work against it.

But most Americans can't get vaccinated for months.

"So I think what we really need to be doing is focusing on the things we know will prevent spread of this new variant -- which is the same thing that works against spread of the coronavirus in general," Gounder said.

"That is masks, social distancing. If you're going to be around other people, do it outdoors. And with the holidays coming up, this is really not the time to be traveling."

No more ICU capacity

Health officials Monday reported the nation reached an all-time high of 115,351 current patients.

In Los Angeles County, an estimated one in every 64 residents is infected with coronavirus and "actively infecting others," county health services director Christina Ghaly said Monday.

The county's hospitals are full. About half of all intensive care unit patients are suffering from Covid-19 and about a third of regular hospital beds are filled with coronavirus patients, Ghaly said.

ICU capacity in Southern California and in the San Joaquin Valley remains at zero, with just 2.1% of ICU beds available statewide.

"It's heartbreaking, really, to see where we're at," Ghaly said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story and headline incorrectly described Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brett Giroir's comments on vaccine distribution. Health officials are working to have enough doses for 20 million people distributed by the first week of January. He did not promise that 20 million people would be inoculated by that time.

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The Moderna vaccine is now in some Americans' arms as Covid-19 cases in the US pass 18 million - CNN

"A nurse practitioner wrote on a little piece of paper that she got the vaccine for my dad," said his daughter, Andrea Araujo.

"She wrote, 'For my boss and my friend who died weeks before getting the vaccine. #ForDrAraujo.' It was sad but also really nice."

Araujo Preza was 51 when he died on November 30 in the same intensive care unit where he served as critical care medical director at HCA Houston Healthcare in Tomball, Texas.

More than 240,000 health care workers have been infected with coronavirus and nearly 900 have died, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For their families -- and those of the more than 300,000 Americans who have died of Covid-19 -- the long-awaited vaccine is a source of hope in a year of despair. But it comes too late.

A 'bittersweet' moment

"I hope this is the first step in helping other people not go through what my family has gone through," Andrea Araujo said. "I hope we're headed in the right direction."

Hope is hard work in a country that has surpassed its own hospitalization record for more than a dozen consecutive days.

"As I was walking to go get my vaccine, I actually had just heard that my 27th patient died, so it was very emotional," she said.

'The burden of fear had been lifted'

Lindsay, an ICU nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, got the shot from Dr. Michelle Chester, the corporate director of employee health services at Northwell Health.

"Everyday since March that I entered work has ... gotten darker and darker," Lindsay said Friday night on the CNN Town Hall "The Color of Covid -- The Vaccines."

"I have seen the effects of it. And I don't want to see you end up in one of our ICU beds or enter our hospitals."

She added, "I have been saying to my colleagues, in my 26 and a half years of nursing, I have never felt so afraid. After the shot ... I applauded. I felt like the burden of fear had been lifted off my shoulders."

"We have to acknowledge that this ... mistrust comes from a historical place," Adams, who is Black, told CNN. "But we also have to explain to people that we put protections in place to make sure this could never happen again.

"When you look at Covid-19, the fact that you are three to five times more likely to end up in a hospital and/or die if you're African American, Hispanic, or Native American, those are wrongs that are going on right now."

No reservations about getting the vaccine

Araujo Preza was born in El Salvador and came to the US in 1994 to continue his medical education. He studied at Staten Island University Hospital in New York and Tulane University in New Orleans. In 2001, he moved to the Houston area, where he worked as a pulmonologist for nearly two decades.

In April, during the height of the pandemic's first wave, he slept in the hospital for nearly a month to be on call, according to his daughter. When he fell ill in October, he downplayed his condition so not to worry his family.

Araujo Preza was admitted to the ICU in early November, and remained there about a week and a half. He had barely been out of the hospital 48 hours before he was readmitted. When his condition worsened he was transferred to Houston Methodist Hospital and later placed on a ventilator. He never returned home.

"For my whole life he always worked really hard and was very dedicated to his patients and his practice," Andrea Araujo said. "And more this year than ever before he exemplified that."

She has no reservations about receiving the vaccine, she said.

"I'm not a health professional but I know that my dad wanted to get the vaccine," Araujo said. "And so that gives me confidence. Whenever I have the opportunity to get it, I will."

"There's a great opportunity in front of us," the 29-year-old engineer said. "We can't change what's already happened and, moving forward, I definitely want health care workers with 29-year-old sons to not have to have the interview we're doing now."

Since her death, Yap-Banago's family always fixes a small plate for her at dinner. They often turn the TV to her favorite station -- The Hallmark Channel, which she would watch as she drifted off to sleep.

"Mom would be excited and relieved for sure, to know that there is a vaccine developed to help us, to help front line workers fight this terrible enemy," Banago said.

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Covid-19 vaccine is a source of hope for health care workers. But it comes too late for hundreds of them - CNN

SINGAPORE Existing vaccines for Covid-19 will be effective in fighting off infection from new strains of the coronavirus, multiple experts told CNBC on Monday.

The comments came after the U.K. on Saturday said it identified a new mutation of the virus that can spread more quickly than previous variants.

Countries including Italy, Germany, Canada and Israel have barred flights from the U.K. following reports of the new strain.

Vin Gupta, an affiliate assistant professor from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said he's confident that the current vaccines will protect against different strains of Covid.

"There is a strong belief here that the vaccine, as it exists today will have effectiveness in warding off infection from this new strain in England, in addition to the old strain that we've been contending with for months now," said Gupta.

That's because at the genetic level, the new strain is likely to be "very similar" to prior strains, he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Monday.

The effectiveness of these vaccines in producing antibodies that can really attack and kill Covid-19 is extraordinary

Vin Gupta

Affiliate assistant professor

He added that the vaccines elicit a "really strong response in the body in terms of producing antibodies."

Vaccines produced byPfizer-BioNTechand Moderna have reported efficacy rates of more than 90%. The U.K. was the first country in the world to authorize and roll out the vaccine developed by American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for emergency use. The U.S. and Canada are among a handful of countries that have also approved the usage of the vaccine for emergencies.

"The effectiveness of these vaccines in producing antibodies that can really attack and kill Covid-19 is extraordinary," he said. "I don't expect these minor changes at the genetic level to affect the vaccines' performance in the near term."

A member of the public walks past new artwork created by street artist The Rebel Bear in Edinburgh city centre which features a doctor administering a vaccine injection into a coronavirus-shaped balloon.

Jane Barlow | PA Images | Getty Images

However, future versions of the vaccine may need to take new virus strains into account, the same way flu vaccines are updated, Gupta said.

"I do think that this might impact our future facing work, but it's not going to impact the near term," he said. "It will not impact the current vaccines' effectiveness in ending the pandemic."

Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has been tapped by President-electJoe Biden to be the next U.S. Surgeon General, made similar comments on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

"There's no reason to believe that the vaccines that have been developed will not be effective against [the new U.K. strain] as well," he said, adding that there's no evidence of the new variant being more deadly.

"The bottom line is if you are at home and you are hearing this news, it does not change what we do in terms of precautions as individuals that can reduce the spread of this virus," said Murthy, who was also previously surgeon general during the Obama administration. "It turns out that masking, keeping physical distance and washing our hands these are still the pillars of preventing Covid transmission."

These sentiments were echoed Monday by Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London.

"I am concerned, because since the beginning of this, we've seen mutations occur all over the world, many thousands of them, but this one has more mutations than any variant we've seen before," Altmann told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe," adding that the 17 mutations "seem to account for the uncontrollability that we've seen in London and the southeast in recent months."

However, Altmann suggested that owing to the variety of neutralizing antibodies induced by the main vaccine frontrunners, it is unlikely that the new strain will be resistant to inoculation.

Andrew Freedman, a researcher in infectious diseases at Cardiff University, told CNBC's "Street Signs Europe" on Monday that the new strain would most likely be covered by the current vaccines' capabilities.

"It's quite likely, given that the vaccine provides immunity to different regions of the spike protein, not just the one where the mutations are, it is quite likely that the vaccine will work against this thing," he said.

"But of course, there could be further mutations that might in the future render the vaccines less effective."

CNBC's Ryan Browne contributed to this report.

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Experts expect vaccines to protect against the UK's fast-spreading Covid strain - CNBC

Some groups had suggested the coronavirus vaccines were made using cells from aborted fetuses. The cells are actually engineered and grown in labs from tissue acquired many decades ago, and are not made directly from aborted fetuses.

The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said in a note approved by Pope Francis on Monday that receiving the shot was morally permitted.

"It is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process," the note said.

The statement was issued and signed by the head of the Congregation in response to several requests for guidelines regarding the use of the vaccine.

There have been some disagreements within the clergy regarding the ethics of taking a Covid-19 vaccine because it had used tissue retrieved from two abortions that took place in the last century.

The abortion connection, which had prompted a number of Bishops to voice their opposition to the vaccine, has now been rejected by the Vatican and by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops had already issued a statement earlier in the month stating that the use of Covid-19 vaccines is morally justified.

"Given the urgency of this crisis, the lack of available alternative vaccines, and the fact that the connection between an abortion that occurred decades ago and receiving a vaccine produced today is remote, inoculation with the new COVID-19 vaccines in these circumstances can be morally justified".

The statement adds that receiving the vaccines do not indicate a cooperation with abortion, and that is not to be considered as an endorsement in any way.

"The licit use of such vaccines does not and should not in any way imply that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted foetuses".

The Vatican's statement is aimed at addressing the moral questions surrounding the vaccine and does not aim to judge the safety or effectiveness.

The statement also called on the governments, pharmaceutical companies, and international organisations to pay extra attention to the equitable distribution of the vaccine to the poorer countries.

"There is also a moral imperative for the pharmaceutical industry, governments and international organizations to ensure that vaccines, which are effective and safe from a medical point of view, as well as ethically acceptable, are also accessible to the poorest countries in a manner that is not costly for them," it said.

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Vatican OKs getting Covid-19 vaccines that used cell lines from aborted fetuses - CNN

But it is aiming to lift itself out of the crisis in the coming months with a massive vaccination drive -- covering in its first phase almost as many people as the entire US population.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has identified 300 million people to receive the first doses of the vaccines. The priority group is made up of 30 million health care workers, policemen, soldiers and volunteers, and 270 million vulnerable people -- mostly citizens above the age of 50 and 10 million others with serious comorbidities.

The producers of three leading coronavirus vaccine candidates have applied for emergency use authorization, and all of them require two doses to provide sufficient immunity. That adds up to a total of 600 million shots, and Modi's government wants to complete the whole process by August.

That's an incredibly ambitious undertaking, especially for a developing country with poor rural infrastructure and an inadequate public health system that is already buckling under tremendous pressure from the coronavirus.

But India also has its own advantages. As a global hub for vaccine manufacturing, its mass production lines can churn out coronavirus vaccines -- developed either by Western pharmaceutical companies or domestically -- faster and cheaper than most other countries.

"Every single Indian who needs to be vaccinated will be vaccinated," Indian Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said at a news conference on December 8.

Which coronavirus vaccines will be rolled out first?

Of the three Covid-19 vaccine candidates pending approval from Indian regulators, two are being manufactured locally in India.

One of them is Covishield, a vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and produced by the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker.

The other is India's first homegrown coronavirus vaccine, Covaxin, developed jointly by Bharat Biotech and the government-run Indian Council of Medical Research.

Pfizer India has also applied for emergency use authorization for the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, Dr VK Paul, head of the national expert group on Covid-19 vaccination, confirmed to CNN.

Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, said his company is currently producing 50 to 60 million doses of Covishield per month, and production will be scaled up to 100 million doses a month after January or February.

But Poonawalla has made it clear that his company will focus on immunizing India first before sending the vaccines overseas.

According to Serum Institute of India, Covishield could be sold to the Indian government for about $3 for two doses, and later $6 to $8 on the private market. That is likely much cheaper than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is sold to the US government for $19.5 for a single does -- although Pfizer India has not announced the price for India.

Covishield has another advantage -- it only needs to be stored at standard refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit). Pfizer's vaccine, on the other hand, requires an ultra-cold storage temperature of -75C (-103F) -- infrastructure that India lacks, and must be used within five days once refrigerated at higher temperatures.

What preparations are underway in India?

"We do have the advantage of having run a very large universal immunization program across this country," said professor K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. "To some extent our health system is fairly well geared up."

But vaccinating 55 million people in a year is still a far cry from the target of 300 million in just eight months.

The country currently has 239,000 vaccinators under the Universal Immunization Program, but fewer than 65% of them will be deployed to administer coronavirus vaccines, to avoid too much disruption to the routine vaccinations, according to Bhushan, the health secretary.

He said the central government is in collaboration with states to arrange additional vaccinators, but did not reveal how many more staff will be added.

"To get adequate work force of people to administer the injections, monitor the side effects, and then ensure that people come back for the second injection as well -- I think that is going to be the challenge that we have to meet," Reddy said.

According to the government's guidelines released Monday, 100 to 200 people will be vaccinated per session per day and monitored for half an hour after receiving the shots to examine any adverse effects, reported CNN affiliate News 18.

A digital platform, the Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system, will be rolled out to track enlisted participants and the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines.

The government is also ramping up its stocks of cold chain storage equipment such as walk-in coolers and freezers, deep freezers and ice-lined refrigerators. At present, the country has more than 80,000 pieces of cold chain equipment at about 29,000 locations, which can store enough Covid-19 vaccines for the first 30 million frontline workers, Bhushan said.

"All necessary resources of vaccination have been delivered to the states," he added.

Manufacturers are also racing against time to increase syringe supplies. Rajiv Nath, managing director of Hindustan Syringes and Medical Devices, said the company was producing 560 million pieces of syringe per annum as of June.

"Currently we are making around 700 million pieces per annum capacity and we plan to increase the production rate to a billion pieces per annum capacity by the second quarter of next year," he said.

Drawing from the electoral machinery

India's decades-long Universal Immunization Program has traditionally focused on children -- and to a lesser extent women. Its coronavirus vaccine drive, however, will focus on adults, and faces challenges in terms of both the sheer number of shots and gathering people to receive them, Reddy said.

And that's where India's electoral machinery for mobilizing the country's huge adult population can come in handy, he said.

"We do have a well-oiled machinery, which conducts this in phases in different parts of the country," Reddy said "That is a very orderly process, which proceeds extremely smoothly, even in the remotest corners of the country. So in terms of adult mobilization, it is a fairly well tested process."

"The same process of identification and lineup can easily be replicated here (for the vaccine drive). Of course, the administration of the vaccine itself will have to be done by people who are trained for that," Reddy said.

And Reddy believes training new vaccinators won't be a difficult task.

"It is only a question of training people to administer intramuscular injections with safety and monitor for side effects," he said. "We can actually recruit people with a science background, preferably science graduates ... who can be trained easily and brought into the process as vaccinators under supervision."

Vaccinating 1.3 billion people?

As the world's second most populous country, India's strategy is to vaccinate "a critical mass of people and break that virus transmission," so that it doesn't have to vaccinate the entire population of 1.3 billion, according to Balram Bhargava, director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research.

Health Secretary Bhushan also said at a news conference last month that "the government has never spoken about vaccinating the entire country."

Reddy, from the Public Health Foundation of India, said after the first phase of 300 million people are vaccinated, experts can better assess how much of a threat the virus remains and then decide on how many more people will need to be inoculated.

"This is an evolving epidemic. And our response will have to be adaptive even in terms of deciding how many and how soon we'll be vaccinated." Reddy said.

"It is possible that conditions may change, and by that time the virus may not be as much of a threat as it is at the moment ... But over a period of time, I believe about 60% to 70% of the population would need to be immunized," he said.

CNN's Rhea Mogul, Swati Gupta and Manveena Suri contributed to this story.

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India plans to vaccinate 300 million people against Covid-19. That's almost the size of the US population - CNN