Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

TORONTO -- A new study looking at how long the novel coronavirus can survive on surfaces found that it can remain infectious on some surfaces -- including bank notes -- for at least 28 days, provided the temperature is right.

Published this week in the Virology Journal, the new paper describes how researchers tested the virus on several surfaces, including cotton and bank notes, at numerous temperatures in order to measure the lifespan of the virus under these different circumstances.

They found that the virus dies significantly faster on surfaces in hotter temperatures, and can survive on several non-porous surfaces for up to four weeks -- much longer than previous studies have indicated.

Overwhelmingly, evidence has shown that the primary way COVID-19 is spread is through droplets and through sharing air with others, but that hasnt stopped the fear of surface transmission. Hand washing is still one of the most important prevention methods that health officials tout.

Previous studies have looked at how long SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, remains infectious on different surfaces, with some studies finding it to be a matter of hours, and others saying it could be days.

In this study, the surfaces researchers tested the virus on included Australian bank notes -- which, like Canadian bank notes, are polymer -- paper bank notes, glass, vinyl, stainless steel and cotton.

Researchers noted that they wanted to include money because it is an object that travels frequently between different people. Stainless steel, vinyl and glass are materials found in most public spaces, and cotton is often found in clothing and bedding.

When a virus gets onto a surface, it is often through a sneeze or through droplets expelled from the mouth. Researchers diluted SARS-CoV-2 in a defined organic matrix [] designed to mimic the composition of body secretions before placing it onto the materials to measure the longevity.

They noted in the paper that the concentration of the virus in each sample was high, it still represents a plausible amount of virus that may be deposited on a surface.

Samples of each material with the virus on it were placed into a humidified climate chamber so a set humidity of 50 per cent relative humidity could be maintained while the samples were tested at different temperatures and timeframes.

Samples were tested at 20, 30 and 40 degrees Celsius, and were inspected 1 hour, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 21 days and 28 days after the virus had first been introduced to the material.

Researchers found that at 20 degrees Celsius, the virus could survive for at least 28 days on every material except for cotton, the most porous of the materials tested.

SARS-CoV-2 couldnt be detected on cotton after 14 days had passed.

The majority of virus reduction on cotton occurred very soon after application of virus, suggesting an immediate absorption effect, the report said.

Does this mean every bank note in our wallets could infect us? According to Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, we shouldnt jump straight to alarm.

What we're seeing empirically, clinically, with contact tracing, is that COVID is not spreading heavily through touch, he said.

It is possible to contract the virus through surfaces, he said, but its not happening very often.

He said that earlier in the pandemic, when we had a looser understanding of the virus, there was a bigger fear of things like groceries or the mail in terms of surface transmission. But at this point, we have a greater understanding of how COVID-19 predominantly spreads.

It's shared airspace, Furness said. It's droplet and aerosols and shared air with poor ventilation and prolonged contact. That's how you get sick. That's the thing to be scared of, which is why I've been very, very worried about indoor dining. And it's not because you might touch contaminated cutlery. It's because you're in this room with a lot of other people and not wearing a mask and sharing air.

This study carried out its experiments at a lab at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, with the samples in complete darkness to negate any effects of UV light just one way that the conditions of the experiments differed from real life.

[This study] tells you what can happen under laboratory conditions, Furness said.

A bank note in your pocket or your wallet is rubbing up against other things, he explained, not sitting undisturbed to measure the longevity of a virus. If surfaces are exposed to sunlight as well, that can aid with a faster decay of any virus on the surface.

These studies are the first step, he said, and then researchers need to test in the real world. What is the real significance of this?

And those numbers are usually quite different.

The raw numbers of the study also dont paint the full picture. Although the virus was still detectable on most surfaces at the 28 day mark, it reduced in concentration much faster than that.

Viruses aren't alive, Furness said. They can't regenerate, they can't metabolize or protect themselves as soon as they leave your body. As soon as you exhale some virus, the virus starts to die.

The half-life of the virus (the time it takes for it to reduce by 50 per cent) on a paper bank note at 20 degrees Celsius was 2.74 days, showing the viral load decreases in concentration far faster than the 28 days would suggest. After 9.13 days, 90 per cent of the virus was gone.

On cotton, at 20 degrees Celsius, the half-life was 1.68 days, and it took 5.57 days for a 90 per cent reduction in the virus.

Five to nine days is still a long time for a virus to remain infectious on a surface, although its still unknown at what point the viral load would be too small to actually make a person ill.

Researchers said in the paper that the extended half-life in this study compared to others could be down to the controlled conditions that they created for the experiment.

While this study does not mean we should panic about surface transmission, which remains one of the rarer ways to transmit the virus, it does provide insight into how temperature interacts with the virus survivability.

Researchers did not measure any of the virus samples at less than 20 degrees Celsius, but they observed how much the rate of virus decline sped up when the temperature increased from 30 to 40 degrees Celsius. Extrapolating backwards from that, they posit that if the temperature dropped significantly from 20 degrees Celsius, the lifespan of the virus on various surfaces could increase.

This data could therefore provide a reasonable explanation for the outbreaks of COVID-19 surrounding meat processing and cold storage facilities, they theorize.

Furness said the temperature is a huge factor when it comes to a virus survivability.

In the winter, in freezing temperatures, COVID will last [longer] on surfaces, he said.

So if you're going to a playground in the winter, it can be quite worrisome. I wonder whether we're going to see that COVID does spread more by touch in the winter. I can't say that it does, but it's entirely possible that it will.

He said the concept of temperature is something that hasnt been emphasized enough as Canada begins to tackle its second wave.

It's not just the numbers are going up, he said. Numbers are going up, while temperatures are going down.

The best thing to do?

We should continue to wash our hands and be vigilant, Furness said. In fact, during COVID, I would say the best outcome of washing your hands is actually so you dont get any other colds that would make you afraid that maybe you have COVID.

More:

Coronavirus can remain infectious on bank notes, other surfaces for weeks: study - CTV News

As COVID-19 spread this spring, speeding tickets dropped in Champaign-Urbana and across the state.

According to data requested by The News-Gazette, the Champaign, Urbana and University of Illinois police departments issued 161 speeding tickets in February. Two months later, they handed out just two.

Similar drops were seen by Rantoul and Illinois State Police and it wasnt because drivers suddenly stopped speeding altogether.

Instead, police officials attributed the downward trend to fewer vehicles being on the road, particularly during the statewide stay-at-home order and on campus when students left.

Another factor: temporary policies to reduce the spread of COVID- 19 by stopping fewer people for minor infractions. Thats what happened with Champaign polices Strategic Traffic Enforcement Program, department spokesman Tom Yelich acknowledged.

While we were in the early stages of understanding COVID-19 and its impact, we did reduce enforcement for minor traffic violations in the interest of public health and for the well-being of our own officers while proper protocol adjustments were being made in response to the pandemic, he said.

Minor traffic accidents also werent investigated unless there was an injury or a tow truck was needed, he said.

Urbana police Chief Bryant Seraphin also attributed the decline in speeding tickets to the pandemic.

In March, we really restricted traffic stops, he said. Any way to minimize the amount of contact we were having with citizens and we made a variety of other changes, as well, whether its taking reports over the phone or referring people to the website for some low-level issues.

In Rantoul, 188 speeding tickets were issued from March 1 to Oct. 1. Thats down from 293 during the same period last year, Chief Tony Brown said.

Initially, we had really asked the officers to look at limiting exposure and contact with people, and that included traffic stops, Brown said.

He said speeding tickets are not a significant part of Rantouls budget.

At the UI, police spokesman Pat Wade said there werent any policy changes responsible for the reduction in speeding tickets, but they still decreased once students left town.

UI police typically hand out about 20 speeding tickets a month. Their early pandemic totals: nine in March, one in April, two in May, four in June, 14 in July and five in August.

With students and staff going remote, we were basically in summer mode, as far as the campus population, beginning in March, Wade said. Even now, were not fully back to the traffic we would normally see.

Officers are still out there doing the same traffic enforcement, but there just are not as many cars on the road speeding. Not on campus, anyway.

Illinois State Police saw a similar drop in tickets, both in local District 10 and statewide.

From March 16 to May 6 last year, 13,885 speeding tickets were issued across the state, 451 of them in District 10. During the same period this year, 1,396 were issued statewide, including 60 in District 10.

During the governors shelter-in-place order, there are far fewer cars on the road, Trooper Mindy Carroll said in May. When there is less traffic, there may be a temptation to exceed the posted speed limit. The Illinois State Police is asking the motoring public to fight this temptation. Slow down and pay attention to the road so first responders do not have to respond to a traffic crash or stop you for speeding.

Lest anyone be tempted to drive fast, police say theyre no longer limiting enforcement of speeding.

From March 16 to Oct. 8, state police issued 2,218 tickets in District 10, just two fewer than a year ago.

As weve learned about the virus and have officers with masks, we have started to re-initiate some of these efforts, Seraphin said. He said the city regularly gets complaints about speeding, so we started pushing out some of our selective traffic control.

Source: Champaign Police Department, Urbana Police Department, University of Illinois Police Department

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Coronavirus response | Among casualties of COVID-19: Speeding tickets - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

The Bioshield Act, along with the laws that later modified it, was not intended as a carte blanche. For instance, an E.U.A. can only be granted during a declared public health or national security emergency, and is supposed to be used only for products that have no adequate, approved or available alternatives. But the F.D.A. was granted wide discretion to decide whether a product ought to be made available to the public. By law, the agency can grant E.U.A.s to products that may be effective, whose known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks. It is up to the agency, however, to determine what those criteria mean.

It was deliberately a quite flexible kind of standard, said Dr. Jesse Goodman, the director of the Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship at Georgetown, and the F.D.A.s chief scientist from 2009 to 2014. E.U.A.s are intended to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis; the F.D.A. might tolerate more risk for a drug designed to treat a disease with a high mortality rate, such as Ebola, than for a vaccine that would be given to healthy people to stop a disease like Covid-19, Mr. Goodman said.

But, he added, E.U.A.s were not meant as a substitute for traditional approvals: The intent originally was that ultimately you should be collecting data and moving these products toward approval, even after the emergency authorization was granted.

However, it can be difficult to fully enroll a product in clinical trials after it has received an E.U.A., Dr. Goodman said, because clinical trials typically impose more stringent requirements on patients than an E.U.A. would. Now we have tens of thousands of people getting convalescent plasma a Covid-19 treatment that was granted an E.U.A. in August and we still dont know whether it works, he said.

Another potential hazard of emergency authorization became apparent not long after the Bioshield Act was signed into law, when the F.D.A. granted its first E.U.A., at the request of the Defense Department, for the use of an anthrax vaccine, in 2005. That authorization suggested to some people, including Chris Shays, then a Republican congressman from Connecticut, that the E.U.A. process provided an avenue for political interference. The apparent urgency appears to be the product of preventable legal and regulatory failures, Mr. Shays wrote in a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, rather than any validated external threat.

The actions of the Trump administration during the Covid pandemic have renewed these concerns. In May, Rick Bright, the former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, alleged in a whistle-blower complaint that he had arranged an E.U.A. request for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as a compromise position to head off pressure by administration officials to make the drugs available under a less-restrictive protocol known as expanded access.

In late September, Mr. Trump said that he was considering blocking the F.D.A.s vaccine E.U.A. guidelines, which made it unlikely that a vaccine would be authorized before the presidential election, because he saw them as a political move more than anything else. And Mr. Trumps insistence, in the video he posted on Wednesday, that weve got to get an E.U.A. for the Regeneron antibodies signed now was an extraordinary intervention into a process that is usually left to career scientists at the F.D.A. (A few hours after Mr. Trump tweeted the video, Regeneron announced that it had officially applied for an E.U.A., although the company had previously suggested its intention to seek one.)

Read more from the original source:

Can Trump Really Speed Approval of Covid Treatments? - The New York Times

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 10:00 a.m., October 9,2020, there have been 617,045 total confirmatorylaboratory results received for COVID-19, with 17,707 totalcases and 376 deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the deaths of a 74-yearold female from Kanawha County, a 64-year old male from Cabell County, a 70-yearold female from Logan County, a 65-year old male from Wayne County, a 68-yearold female from Jackson County, and a 61-year old female from Fayette County. Wecontinue to grieve the loss of more West Virginians today, said Bill J.Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. Our deepest sympathies are expressed to theirfamilies.

CASESPER COUNTY: Barbour(130), Berkeley (1,187), Boone (267), Braxton (16), Brooke (128), Cabell (978),Calhoun (29), Clay (48), Doddridge (40), Fayette (678), Gilmer (50), Grant(169), Greenbrier (142), Hampshire (115), Hancock (165), Hardy (98), Harrison(498), Jackson (311), Jefferson (470), Kanawha (3,054), Lewis (47), Lincoln(195), Logan (688), Marion (318), Marshall (196), Mason (154), McDowell (96),Mercer (450), Mineral (181), Mingo (427), Monongalia (2,135), Monroe (166),Morgan (73), Nicholas (136), Ohio (408), Pendleton (55), Pleasants (20),Pocahontas (60), Preston (168), Putnam (675), Raleigh (596), Randolph (303),Ritchie (18), Roane (65), Summers (62), Taylor (151), Tucker (44), Tyler (20),Upshur (168), Wayne (428), Webster (9), Wetzel (67), Wirt (19), Wood (401),Wyoming (135).

Please note that delaysmay be experienced with the reporting of information from the local healthdepartment to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the local healthdepartment level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain county may notbe a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual in questionmay have crossed the state border to be tested.

Please visit the dashboard located at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.

Free COVID-19 testing locations are available today in Mingo, Nicholas, Taylor, and Wood counties, and Saturday in Wood County:

Mingo County, October 9, 10:00AM 2:00 PM, Delbarton Volunteer Fire Department, County Highway 65/12, Delbarton,WV

Nicholas County, October9, 1:00 PM 4 PM, Nazarene Camp, 6461 Webster Road, Summersville, WV

Taylor County, October 9,12:00 PM 2:00 PM, First Baptist Church of Grafton, 2034 Webster Pike (US Rt.119 South), Grafton, WV

Wood County, October 9:10:00 AM 6:00 PM, South Parkersburg Baptist Church, 1655 Blizzard Drive, Parkersburg,WV

Wood County, October 10:9:00 AM 4:00 PM, South Parkersburg Baptist Church, 1655 Blizzard Drive, Parkersburg,WV

Testing is available to everyone,including asymptomatic individuals. For upcoming testing locations, pleasevisit https://dhhr.wv.gov/COVID-19/pages/testing.aspx.

Read the rest here:

COVID-19 Daily Update 10-9-2020 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Outdoor dining in Bonn, Germany. Indoor dining is riskier than outdoor meals, experts say. Outdoor air can disrupt viral particles that have been expelled. Andreas Rentz/Getty Images hide caption

Outdoor dining in Bonn, Germany. Indoor dining is riskier than outdoor meals, experts say. Outdoor air can disrupt viral particles that have been expelled.

Each week, we answer "frequently asked questions" about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions."

How long do you need to be exposed to someone with COVID-19 before you are at risk for being infected?

The question was brought to the forefront this week after the White House announced it would only perform contact tracing for people who had spent more than 15 minutes within 6 feet of President Trump, who tested positive for the coronavirus on Oct. 1. That "15-minute rule" is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guideline for defining a close contact of an infected person.

But experts say the risk of infection is a lot more nuanced than that guidance might imply.

The 15-minute rule does not necessarily put you at zero risk if your exposure to an infected person was of a shorter duration. "It doesn't mean that you're getting off scot-free, nor does the '6-foot rule,' " says Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease specialist at Boston University School of Medicine.

"There is no magic number when it comes to distance or duration," says Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist and contact-tracing expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The coronavirus spreads when an infected person releases infectious particles while talking, coughing, singing, sneezing or even just breathing. Some of these particles are released as droplets, which generally fall to the ground within a few feet of the person who exhaled them. That's where the 6-foot guideline comes from though it's just a guideline, not a shield of impenetrability.

A person can also expel infectious droplets in smaller particles that linger in the air for minutes or even hours and travel farther than 6 feet in a room, Barocas notes. In a poorly ventilated, enclosed space, these smaller particles can build up over time. If you're in a crowded room with lots of unmasked people talking, "whether you're [in contact for] 15 minutes or within 6 feet, it may not actually be that important anymore because there's so much virus in the air," Barocas says.

Gurley says in some jurisdictions, contact tracers also look for so-called proximate contacts people who were in an enclosed room with an infected person at greater than 6 feet from the infected person though they aren't considered close contacts under CDC guidance.

So where did that 15-minute part of the guideline come from? Gurley says it's based on earlier data from China on who was being infected and how infections occurred. "Even when they found lots and lots of very casual, quick contacts, that's not where they saw evidence of transmission," she says.

Instead, she says, infections were occurring when people had "meaningful" amounts of close contact such as traveling, dining or living together that had a higher probability of resulting in transmission. She says the 15-minute guideline is a way to help contact tracers quantify which types of interactions were long enough to be meaningful in this context.

But again, it's just a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. "We don't have strong evidence for exactly what the right distance or the right duration is, or else we'd use that," Gurley says.

And lots of variables can affect the risk of infection from close interactions, experts say.

"Certainly, if you're in very close contact with somebody who's shedding a lot of virus, and you happen to get a droplet on your hand and then wipe your nose, that could take far less than 15 minutes" to infect you, says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

How you interacted also matters a great deal, Barocas says. For example, was the infected person coughing? Was the person wearing a mask, which can help contain a lot of the infectious particles someone might be breathing out? Were you indoors or outdoors, where airflow would quickly disperse any infectious particles the person might have exhaled? How infectious was the person at the time of interaction? (Studies have shown that people with the coronavirus are most infectious just before and in the first few days after they start to show symptoms.) If an infected person were to cough on you while walking past, that would constitute a high-risk interaction even if it was brief, he says.

"All of those [factors] go into what I would think of as a combined likelihood or combined probability" of getting infected, Barocas says.

Conversely, not every type of lengthy interaction is equally risky, he says. Talking outdoors on the beach on a windy day for longer than 15 minutes with someone who is asymptomatic at the time is going to be less of a risk, he says.

While indoor settings are generally higher risk than outdoor ones, the context is key, Rasmussen says. An indoor bar where people are drinking, which requires unmasking, and possibly shouting to be heard over loud music (thus emitting more particles as they talk) is going to be riskier than a trip to a hair salon where everyone is masked and only a limited number of clients are in the room at the same time.

"I finally got my first pandemic haircut a couple of weeks ago," Rasmussen notes. "And I was there for two hours." But she wouldn't dine indoors, she says, because you can't eat while wearing a mask.

Rasmussen says because so many variables can influence the risk of transmission, it's important to focus on doing all the things we know can reduce our risk of infection wearing a mask, washing your hands, keeping your distance, trying to keep interactions outdoors as much as possible, avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces. You might not always be able to do all of these things all of the time, she says but the more of them you can do at once, the more you'll reduce your risk of infection.

Excerpt from:

How Long Do You Need To Be Exposed To A COVID-19 Patient To Be At Risk? : Goats and Soda - NPR

Imperfect storm: is interleukin-33 the Achilles heel of COVID-19?  The Lancet

Excerpt from:

Imperfect storm: is interleukin-33 the Achilles heel of COVID-19? - The Lancet

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 10:00 a.m., October 8,2020, there have been 609,111 total confirmatorylaboratory results received for COVID-19, with 17,325 totalcases and 370 deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the death of a 78-yearold male from Kanawha County. As many of us have growntired of COVID-19, it is more important than ever to stay vigilant in our preventionefforts, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. Our sympathies are extendedto this gentlemans family.

CASESPER COUNTY: Barbour(118), Berkeley (1,161), Boone (263), Braxton (15), Brooke (125), Cabell (941),Calhoun (29), Clay (44), Doddridge (39), Fayette (670), Gilmer (50), Grant(165), Greenbrier (139), Hampshire (112), Hancock (160), Hardy (95), Harrison(486), Jackson (306), Jefferson (467), Kanawha (2,994), Lewis (43), Lincoln(193), Logan (679), Marion (312), Marshall (188), Mason (152), McDowell (96),Mercer (445), Mineral (180), Mingo (419), Monongalia (2,124), Monroe (157),Morgan (68), Nicholas (129), Ohio (396), Pendleton (54), Pleasants (20),Pocahontas (60), Preston (165), Putnam (658), Raleigh (581), Randolph (284),Ritchie (16), Roane (61), Summers (61), Taylor (151), Tucker (42), Tyler (18),Upshur (150), Wayne (425), Webster (9), Wetzel (67), Wirt (15), Wood (396),Wyoming (132).

Please note that delaysmay be experienced with the reporting of information from the local healthdepartment to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the local healthdepartment level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain county may notbe a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual in questionmay have crossed the state border to be tested. Such is the case of Braxton and Tucker counties in thisreport.

Please visit the dashboard located at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.

Free COVID-19 testing locations are available today in Boone, Cabell, Doddridge, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Marion, Summers,Taylor, and Upshur counties:

Boone County, October 8,1:00 PM 6:00 PM, Boone County Health Department, 213 Kenmore Drive, Danville,WV

Cabell County, October 8,9:00 AM 2:00 PM, Cabell County Health Department, 703 Seventh Avenue,Huntington, WV

Doddridge County, October 8, 12:00 PM 6:00 PM,Doddridge County Park, 1252 Snowbird Road, West Union, WV

Jackson County, October8, 2:00 PM 6:00 PM, ElderCare Parking Lot, 107 Miller Drive, Ripley, WV

Kanawha County, October8, 11:00 AM 6:00 PM, Schoenbaum Center, 1701 Fifth Avenue, Charleston, WV(flu shots offered)

Lincoln County, October8, 9:00 AM 2:00 PM, Lincoln County Health Department, 8008 Court Avenue,Hamlin, WV

Marion County, October 8,12:00 PM 3:00 PM, Marion County Health Department, 300 Second Street,Fairmont, WV

Summers County, October8, 1:00 PM 5:30 PM, Hinton Freight Depot, 506 Commercial Street, Hinton, WV

Taylor County, October 8,12:00 PM 2:00 PM, First Baptist Church of Grafton, 2034 Webster Pike (US Rt.119 South), Grafton, WV

Upshur County, October 8, 12:00 PM 6:00 PM,Buckhannon-Upshur High School, 270 BU Drive, Buckhannon, WV

Testing is available to everyone,including asymptomatic individuals. For upcoming testing locations, pleasevisit https://dhhr.wv.gov/COVID-19/pages/testing.aspx.

Read more here:

COVID-19 Daily Update 10-8-2020 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

BOSTON (CBS) Researchers at Brigham and Womens Hospital said Thursday that the trial for Modernas coronavirus vaccine is going well so far.

The Brigham is one of 90 sites helping Moderna follow more than 28,000 volunteers receiving the vaccine across the country. There are several hundred participants in Boston.

One of those volunteers, Anthony Shivers, said hes taking part because of the virus impact on minority communities.

I participated, Im ok. I dont know as far as if I contracted coronavirus how the vaccine will work. But, I just want to be a part of the solution, Shivers told reporters Thursday. And I simply say we just have to pull together, and particularly my community the Black community, the Hispanic community really have to embrace this, really get involved, because were the ones that are disproportionately being affected.

The two-dose vaccine is currently in phase three of the trial and aims to have 30,000 participants soon.

It has moved forward incredibly rapidly with both the scientific development, the [Food and Drug Administration[ reviews engagement, the IOBs, the community engagement have all been incredibly robust and quick. In terms of the issues of study conduct, the vaccines are being given, theyre generally well-received, said Dr. Lindsey Baden, an infectious diseases specialist at Brigham and Womens Hospital and co-principal investigator of phase three of the study.

The issue of side effects, when you have 20, 30-thousand people involved in a study, theres a certain amount of background health noise. And all of that is being monitored incredibly closely and there are multiple layers of safety review, including all the way up to the [Data and Safety Monitoring Board] that I mentioned, and no patterns of concerns have been identified.

The health of the participants will be monitored for two years.

Last week, Modernas CEO Stephane Bancel said its vaccine wont be available to the general public until next spring.

Read more from the original source:

Brigham And Womens Coronavirus Vaccine Volunteer Wants To Be Part Of The Solution - CBS Boston

LISBON Columbiana County has added an additional death to the numbers of those who have died in connection to the coronavirus this year.

The County Health Department reported on Friday the death of a 77-year-old woman, who was not the resident of a long-term care facility. However, like the other three deaths added this week, Public Information Officer Laura Fauss said all were older and with underlying health conditions. There have been 86 deaths, including 23 members of the general community.

The county remains level two, orange on the Ohio Public Health Advisory map, meeting three of the seven indicators. Cases have been rising across the state and a larger number of counties moved into orange and red this week. Ohio had a new one-day high of 1,840 positive COVID-19 cases on Friday.

Columbiana Countys indicators were for having more than 50 cases per 100,000 residents over the last two weeks. Columbiana County has had 30 new cases since Friday, Oct. 2, bringing the countys total to 2,013. Additionally, the county was flagged for having more than 50 percent of the new cases not in a congregate setting, such of a long-term care facility or the FCI-Elkton prison. Finally, Columbiana County met the standard for having an increase in the number of people visiting a healthcare provider with COVID-like symptoms.

Health Commissioner Wes Vins said in the last category that does not mean the patient has COVID-19. Instead in Columbiana County he said less than 3 percent of those tested positive for the virus.

However, the rise in cases is concerning according to Vins and Fauss. Vins said some of the increase can be traced to weddings, funerals and casual social gatherings. He is concerned that with the holiday season and people moving indoors with colder weather, there will be even more of an increase in cases if people become complacent about social distancing, masks, avoiding gatherings and hand washing.

Finally, Fauss said there is concerns people are getting pandemic fatigue becoming more desperate to get life back to normal they are starting to take more risks and ignore guidelines.

While Vins said when a coronavirus vaccine becomes ready in the upcoming months there are determinations being made about who will receive it first, such as health care workers and then those who are immune compromised, those in congregate living and critical workforce. Vins said it will all depend on timing and the availability of the vaccine.

Besides using the tools to prevent the spread of the virus with social distancing, masks and hand washing, Vins said he urges everyone to get their flu shot now. These are the ways to avoid becoming ill and possibly needing to be quarantined.

The health department also would like to urge people to remember that the disease trackers are members of the community, calling from the two local cities or the county. They will ask about your health condition, talk about quarantining protocols and talk to someone about people they may have come in contact with and a way to reach them so they can learn they should be watching for symptoms and self-isolating. However, the caller will not ask someone for any information like a Social Security number. If someone does, the caller is a scam.

Additionally, Vins said if someone is concerned they or their child might be a close contact with someone they have heard may have coronavirus, the concerned person can contact the health department themselves instead of waiting for a call from a contact tracer.

Vins said fortunately most of the people in Columbiana County seem to understand that the disease tracker and the health department are trying to help them protect the people in their lives.

While numbers are starting to rise throughout the state, at this point Vins said local schools, sports teams and fans are still going a great job protecting those involved in these events. There have been a few schools with cases as expected and Beaver Local was the only school to list a new case this week. However, Vins noted the majority of children checked due to suspected symptoms or illness continue to be diagnosed with something else instead of COVID-19.

At this point, it is believed 1,879 of the 2,013 people contracting COVID-19 in Columbiana County have recovered.

djohnson@mojonews.com

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Ohio has its highest one-day total of COVID-19 cases - The Review

The trouble with Trump is that, as he told Bob Woodward, I bring rage out. Its hard to see this picture of him posing maskless on the White House balcony after winning against Covid without the red mist coming down.

To anyone with a sense of history, the echo of Mussolini on the balcony of Romes Palazzo Venezia is unmistakable. But many of his core voters may know as little history as he does and, besides, this is the White House, with American flags flanking him still for many a stage of democracy, not dictatorship. Perhaps the real shock of the pose is its delusion. There is no crowd hes performing for himself and the camera.

Trump imagines it is important for him to show himself, like a medieval monarch recovered miraculously from plague. In this breathless patients manic act of narcissistic theatre he is literally the most important man on earth, the republics first divinely chosen emperor. If Trump falls it will be because people see the gulf between his dream and Americas reality.

In this photograph, President Trumps doctors and nurses assemble like a crack military squad perhaps on instinct since several are army or navy medics.

This surely reflects the unique vision of Trump, turning a medical crisis into a kickass action movie of the kind you cant see in a Cineworld near you. These tough guys were selected to fight the coronavirus hand to hand, by dead of night, after tracking the tiny enemy to its foreign lair. They probably all have easily remembered character quirks like chewing a cigar butt, driving crazily or, in the case of those hidden at the back, being a woman or non-white.

On the other hand these medics may have been arrayed not so much like commandos as contestants in the sweeping opening episode of a reality TV show. Such are the almost indecipherable layers of unreality that seem to surround Trump. There is a kind of grotesque genius in summoning up wacky images like this around you, as if Salvador Dal were the commander in chief. The neat arrangement resembles a game of human chess on a surrealist piazza.

This image may be one of our last chances to enjoy the hyperlucid fantastical world of a presidency in which doctors are warriors and everyone can beat Covid if they too just throw a grenade of expensive drugs in its foxhole.

Excerpt from:

A critic's view: the delusion of Trump's Covid-19 victory photo - The Guardian