Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

GAITHERSBURG, Md. (WJZ) Gaithersburg-based company Novavax is working on a potential COVID-19 vaccine, and now, its agreeing to supply the shot to Europe.

Novavax will work with Spanish health officials to produce the vaccine for all of Europe.

CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:

The vaccine is currently in Phase 2 of clinical trials, but is expected to move to Phase 3 in the coming weeks.

For the latest information on coronavirus go to theMaryland Health Departments websiteor call 211. You can find all of WJZs coverage oncoronavirus in Maryland here.

See the rest here:

Gaithersburg-Based Novavax Agrees To Supply COVID-19 Vaccine To Europe - CBS Baltimore

This study, published last Thursday in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, found a statistically significant uptick in clinic and hospital visits by patients who reported respiratory illnesses as early as the week of December 22.

The researchers noticed this trend by looking through nearly 10 million medical records from the UCLA Health system, including three hospitals and 180 clinics.

Elmore and her colleagues noticed the spike in respiratory cases by searching the field in medical records that lists why someone came to the clinic and searched for the symptom "cough." They looked at the records for the month of December 2019 through February 2020 and compared their findings to records from the five prior years.

"With the outpatients, I found a 50% increase in the percentage of patients coming in complaining of a cough. It came out to over 1,000 extra patients above the average of what we would typically see," Elmore said.

The number of patient visits to the ER for respiratory complaints, as well as the number of people hospitalized with acute respiratory failure between December 2019 and February 2020, showed a similar increase compared to records from the past five years. The uptick in cases started in the final week of December.

"Some of these cases could have been due to the flu, some could be for other reasons, but to see these kinds of higher numbers even in the outpatient setting is notable," Elmore said.

While scientists may never know for sure if these excess patients were early Covid-19 cases, Elmore doesn't think it's out of the question.

"Our world is so interconnected. There are about 500 flights from China a month to LAX, so you could easily have one or two cases from that travel and it could get into the community," Elmore said.

Elmore hopes this research shows that real time data collected on diseases like this could potentially help public health experts identify and track emerging outbreaks much earlier and potentially slow or stop the spread of disease.

"Based on what we know of a few other studies and now this one, I think definitely this could be something," Hoyen said. "It's certainly something that needs to be considered."

Hoyen said the bigger takeaway from this study for her was that it points to the possibility that data like this could augment some of the disease surveillance the CDC is already doing for diseases like flu.

"Is there a way to mine the data in other ways that may have picked up on some of the other symptoms that people were presenting with, so we had a better understanding of disease sooner?" Hoyen asked. "Then maybe instead of a month into it, like when we were seeing a lot of patients complaining of loss of taste and smell, if we had analyzed the data beforehand, we may have picked up those kinds of symptoms much sooner."

"We know from the SARS-CoV-2 genetic data that the pandemic started in late November / early December in China so there's absolutely no way the virus could have been spreading widely in December 2019. From the same genetic data we know that widespread transmission didn't start in the United States until (around) February 2020," Andersen said in an email.

"The paper is picking up spurious signals and the hospitalizations are more likely from flu or other respiratory diseases," Andersen wrote. "Again, the genomic data clearly shows that there was no widespread transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States in December of last year - there may have been a few sporadic cases, but that's it and certainly not something that would have been seen in 'excess hospitalizations.'"

"If we had more precise genetic phylogenetic data of the spread of the virus, I think that could be very interesting, but in the absence of that, you can do a lot of work by inferring some preexisting patterns from these types of analyses," said Marrazzo, the director of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama School of Medicine at Birmingham. "Primary care data like this is useful and we really need to pay attention to it."

"When you compare these numbers to previous years, there's no good explanation in my mind why all of the sudden you would see that dramatic increase in the records, except for Covid," Marrazzo said. "Just the strength of the numbers of information, when you include the outpatient, it shows a pattern."

Neither the CDC nor the WHO responded to CNN's request for perspective on the research or on the official time line of the pandemic.

Marrazzo said she and infectious disease colleagues across the country have been discussing how often they were seeing patients with what we now know as Covid-19 symptoms earlier than the official timeline. Because of the sharp restrictions the CDC placed on testing early in the pandemic, it was difficult to confirm if respiratory cases they were seeing were caused by coronavirus.

"I have no doubt that we all missed cases in the early part of the pandemic," Marrazzo said. "This study offers a really interesting window into what might actually have been happening."

Original post:

Study hints Covid-19 may have been in the US as early as December - CNN

People who wear eyeglasses may be at lower risk for catching COVID-19 than those who don't wear glasses, early research from China suggests.

The study researchers analyzed information from 276 patients at a hospital in China's Hubei province and found that only about 6% said they wore glasses for more than 8 hours a day, all of whom had myopia, or nearsightedness. That's much lower than the estimated rate of myopia in Hubei from previous research, which was 31.5%.

The new study, published Wednesday (Sept. 16) in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology, "is provocative and raises the possibility that use of eye protection by the general public might offer some degree of protection from COVID-19," Dr. Lisa Maragakis, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study.

However, Maragakis cautions that it's much too early to recommend that everyone don eyeglasses, goggles or face shields in public, in addition to already wearing face masks, to protect against COVID-19. The new study has a number of limitations for starters, the study was relatively small and included patients at a single hospital. Importantly, the study found only an association and cannot prove a "cause-effect" relationship between wearing glasses and being protected from COVID-19, Maragakis said.

Maragakis called for more studies to confirm the findings and to determine "whether there is any incremental benefit to wearing eyeglasses or other forms of eye protection in public settings, in addition to wearing a mask and physical distancing, to reduce the risk of acquiring [COVID-19]."

Related: 14 coronavirus myths busted by science

Although it's recommended that health care workers wear face shields or goggles, along with face masks, to lower the risk of catching COVID-19, public health guidelines generally don't promote the use of eye protection for the public; they instead stress the importance of masks, physical distancing and hand washing. (The CDC does not recommend face shields as a substitute for face masks.)

The study authors, from Suizhou Zengdu Hospital in Suizhou, China, decided to look into the link between eyeglasses and COVID-19 prevention after they noticed that few patients with COVID-19 at their hospital wore glasses.

They enrolled the 276 patients in their study between Jan. 27 and March 13, 2020. All participants were asked if they wore eyeglasses, how long they wore glasses during the day and why they needed glasses.

Overall, 30 participants, or about 11%, said they wore glasses, but only 16 participants, or 5.8%, wore glasses for more than 8 hours a day and that was for myopia. (The other 14 participants wore reading glasses.)

To compare this with the general population, the researcher drew on a study conducted in 1985 among students in Hubei province, which showed that about one-third had myopia, nearly all of whom wore glasses.

However, Maragakis noted that this comparison group is a limitation of the study because the research took place "decades earlier" and wasn't specific to Suizhou.

But in general, myopia is a common condition, estimated to affect 27% of the world's population in 2010, with the highest prevalence in East Asia, according to the World Health Organization.

None of the participants in the study wore contact lenses, so whether wearing contact lenses affects the risk of COVID-19 still needs to be studied, the authors said.

The researchers did not examine why glasses may reduce the risk of COVID-19, but they hypothesize that wearing glasses discourages people from touching their eyes, which would reduce the chances that people transfer virus from their hands to their eyes. It's known that eye cells have receptors that allow SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to enter the body; and the virus has been detected in the eyes of COVID-19 patients.

Maragakis added that eyeglasses may also "serve as a partial barrier that reduces the inoculum [amount] of virus in a manner similar to what has been observed for cloth masks."

"These findings suggest that the eye may be an important infection route for COVID-19,

and more attention should be paid to preventive measures such as frequent hand washing and avoiding touching the eyes," the study authors concluded.

Still, in addition to further studies to confirm the findings, researchers also need to consider possible unintended consequences of a general recommendation to wear eye protection in public. People who aren't accustomed to wearing glasses or goggles might actually touch their face more often when removing, replacing or adjusting the eyewear, Maragakis said.

Originally published on Live Science.

Follow this link:

Could wearing glasses lower the risk of COVID-19? - Live Science

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reportsas of 10:00 a.m., September 16, 2020, there have been 493,568 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 13,196 total cases and 290 deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the deaths of an80-year old female from Wood County, a 79-year old female from Boone County, a96-year old female from Kanawha County, a 70-year old female from KanawhaCounty, an 83-year old male from Kanawha County, a 94-year old male fromKanawha County, a 73-year old female from Mason County, an 89-year old femalefrom Mingo County, an 88-year old female from Mason County, and an 84-year oldfemale from Logan County. Todays reporting of ten West Virginians is a painful reminder of the continuingthreat of COVID-19, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. We extendour sympathy to the families impacted by these deaths.

CASESPER COUNTY: Barbour(39), Berkeley (911), Boone (185), Braxton (10), Brooke (105), Cabell (677),Calhoun (22), Clay (32), Doddridge (17), Fayette (492), Gilmer (19), Grant(150), Greenbrier (116), Hampshire (97), Hancock (139), Hardy (75), Harrison(324), Jackson (235), Jefferson (410), Kanawha (2,083), Lewis (38), Lincoln(145), Logan (555), Marion (246), Marshall (145), Mason (129), McDowell (79),Mercer (384), Mineral (154), Mingo (324), Monongalia (1,768), Monroe (144),Morgan (45), Nicholas (75), Ohio (340), Pendleton (48), Pleasants (15),Pocahontas (58), Preston (143), Putnam (441), Raleigh (449), Randolph (231),Ritchie (10), Roane (42), Summers (31), Taylor (115), Tucker (16), Tyler (15),Upshur (60), Wayne (325), Webster (7), Wetzel (47), Wirt (9), Wood (342),Wyoming (83).

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the localhealth department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain countymay not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual inquestion may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Morgan County in this report.

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

CORRECTION: Please note that thedeath reported yesterday, September 15, 2020, of a 66-year old female from MercerCounty should have been listed as Raleigh County.

Read the original here:

COVID-19 Daily Update 9-16-2020 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

WASHINGTON The federal government outlined a sweeping plan Wednesday to make vaccines for COVID-19 available for free to all Americans, assuming a safe and effective shot is established and widely accepted though polls show skepticism remains across America.

In a report to Congress and an accompanying playbook for states and localities, federal health agencies and the Defense Department sketched out complex plans for a vaccination campaign to begin gradually in January or even later this year, eventually ramping up to reach any American who wants a shot. The Pentagon is involved with the distribution of vaccines, but civilian health workers would be the ones giving shots.

The campaign is much larger in scope and complexity than seasonal influenza or other previous outbreak-related vaccination responses, says the playbook for states from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although President Donald Trump asserted Tuesday in an ABC News town hall that a vaccine could be three to four weeks away, officials made it clear to reporters on a call Wednesday that widespread availability would take months.

Among the highlights of the plan:

For most vaccines, people will need two doses, 21 to 28 days apart. Double-dose vaccines will have to come from the same drugmaker. There could be several vaccines from different manufacturers approved and available.

Vaccination of the U.S. population wont be a sprint but a marathon. Initially there may be a limited supply of vaccines, and the focus will be on protecting health workers, other essential employees, and people in vulnerable groups. Early in (the) COVID-19 vaccination program there may be a limited supply of vaccine and vaccine efforts may focus on those critical to the response, providing direct care and maintaining societal functions, as well as those at highest risk for developing severe illness, CDC Director Robert Redfield said . A second and third phase would expand vaccination to the entire population.

The vaccine itself will be free of charge, thanks to billions of dollars in taxpayer funding approved by Congress and allocated by the Trump administration. The goal is that patients wont be separately charged for administration of their shots, and officials say they are working to ensure thats the case for all Medicare recipients and uninsured people as well those covered by insurance at their jobs.

States and local communities will need to devise precise plans for receiving and locally distributing vaccines, some of which will require special handling such as refrigeration or freezing. States and cities have a month to submit plans.

A massive information technology effort will be needed to track who is getting which vaccines and when, and the key challenge involves getting multiple public and private databases to link with each other.

Some of the broad components of the federal plan have already been discussed, but Wednesdays reports attempt to put the key details into a comprehensive framework. Distribution is under the umbrella of Operation Warp Speed, a White House-backed initiative to have vaccines ready to ship in 24 hours from when a version is given emergency use approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Several formulations are undergoing final trials.

But the whole enterprise is facing public skepticism. Only about half of Americans said theyd get vaccinated in an Associated Press poll taken in May. Of those who said they wouldnt get vaccinated, the overwhelming majority said they were worried about safety. To effectively protect the nation from the coronavirus, experts say 70% to 90% of Americans must either be vaccinated or have their own immunity from fighting off COVID-19.

Since the poll, questions have only mounted about whether the government is trying to rush treatments and vaccines to help President Donald Trumps reelection chances.

Before the Republican National Convention in August, the FDA granted authorization for treatment of COVID-19 patients with plasma from people who have recovered, even though some government scientists were not convinced the clinical evidence was sufficiently strong. And last week it was reported that Michael Caputo, a Health and Human Services Department political appointee, tried to gain editorial control over a weekly scientific report from the CDC.

As public confidence in core health agencies has taken a beating, Trump administration officials have been forced to play defense.

We are working closely with our state and local public health partners to ensure that Americans can receive the vaccine as soon as possible and vaccinate with confidence, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement Wednesday. Americans should know that the vaccine development process is being driven completely by science and the data.

That could be a tough sell. In the AP poll, 1 in 5 Americans said they would not get a coronavirus vaccine, and 31% said they were unsure.

Uncertainty is also an issue for the hundreds of federal health care and military officials working on the vaccination program. For example, such basics as the effectiveness of the eventual vaccines are still unknown. The FDA has set a threshold of 50% effectiveness for approving a COVID-19 vaccine.

Were dealing in a world of great uncertainty, said Paul Mango, a top HHS official working on the vaccine plan.

Previous

Next

See the original post here:

U.S. outlines sweeping plan to provide free COVID-19 vaccines, but it would take months - The Bethel Citizen

Humanoid robot "Prepper"in Germany in April, 2020. Agence France-Presse/Getty Image

The recent pullback for stocks, or as Goldman Sachs refers to it, that warp speed correction on the road to 3,600, (their S&P 500 target), looks to be on pause for Monday, as deal news and vaccine optimism fires up markets.

While we are nowhere near out of the woods with COVID-19, there is growing chatter on Wall Street about life after the virus and how to invest. Christopher Smart, chief global strategist and head of the Barings Investment Institute, tells his clients they need to answer three questions before proceeding:

Is COVID-19 over? (Yes). Will next year be normal (Yes), and Whats the best way to play the next cycle? Navigate secular trends that the pandemic has speeded up technology that will reshape business, rising concern for climate change, and new patterns of living, says Smart.

Echoing those sentiments, our call of the day from AB Bernstein lays out where investors should position themselves over the next three to five years.

We think that long-run equity sector positioning has to be assessed across several dimensions, some of which are linked to the macro policy outlook and some to how demands of investors will change post COVID, says a team of strategists led by Inigo Fraser Jenkins.

Bernstein says sector performance will be shaped by the following: real rates staying low or negative for a long time; strategic policy shifts on tax, buybacks and labor bargaining power; valuation spreads that are extreme levels and changing demands of investors as they face post-pandemic challenges; and growing interest in ESG investing (Environmental, Social and Governance).

As for where to invest, here are the teams top ideas:

The markets

Wall Street stocks COMP, +1.87% SPX, +1.27% DJIA, +1.18% are higher NQ00, +1.99% European equities SXXP, +0.14% are mixed, while Asian stocks finished in the green.

The buzz

Amazon.com AMZN, -0.42% plans to hire 100,000 U.S. and Canadian workers, with starting wages at $15 an hour and $1,000 sign-on bonuses in some cities.

Microsoft MSFT, +0.67% said on Sunday that its bid for TikTok had been turned down, with no explanation why. And after reports that Oracle ORCL, +4.31% would become a trusted tech partner for TikTok parent ByteDance, a Chinese state-affiliated news source said that sale wont be happening. Microsoft shares are down 0.5% and Oracle shares are up 8%.

Nvidia NVDA, +5.81% shares are climbing after Japan technology conglomerate SoftBank 9984, +8.95% announced a $40 billion cash-and-stock deal to sell microprocessor designer Arm Holdings to the chip maker.

Nikola issued a detailed rebuttal over what it terms was a false and misleading report that called the electric-truck maker as a fraud. Shares are down another 3% after plunging last week.

Albert Bourla, the chief executive of Pfizer PFE, +2.60%, said on Sundaythat the drugmaker should know if its COVID-19 vaccine candidate will work by the end of October and if approved, it could be distributed in the U.S. by the end of the year. Pfizeris joining with German drugmaker BioNTech BNTX, +3.60% on that drug.

The University of Oxford said on Saturday it would resume a trial for the coronavirus vaccine candidate it is developing with AstraZeneca AZN, +0.52% AZN, -0.34%. That comes days after the study was halted following a U.K. patient falling ill.

Japan governments longtime top spokesman Yoshihide Suga was tapped for the prime minister post.

The chart

Random reads

The storm-battered Gulf Coast is about to get another hurricane.

London teenager faces $12,850 fine over a house party.

Ultimate Airbnb listing for Fresh Prince fans? Actor Will Smiths former TV mansion.

Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, butsign up hereto get it delivered once to your email box. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern.

Read the original post:

When the pandemic ends, these are the places you want to invest - MarketWatch

WARSAW, N.Y. (WIVB) Wyoming County has discovered two new cases of COVID-19.

These new cases bring the countys total since the pandemic started to 123. 115 people have recovered, while five others died.

So far, more than 14,000 tests in the county have turned out negative.

More information on COVID-19 in Wyoming County can be found here.

Evan Anstey is a digital content producer who has been part of the News 4 team since 2015. See more of his work here.

More here:

2 new cases of COVID-19 found in Wyoming County - WIVB.com - News 4

On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported a record number of new confirmed coronavirus infections across the globe.

BBC writes that the global health organization reported 307,930 new cases worldwide over a 24-hour timespan. Notably, the largest increases were seen in the United States and Brazil two countries leading the world in the volume of COVID-19 cases, reportingmore than 6.5 million and 4.3 million cases, respectively.

Our country is in a historic fight against the Coronavirus. Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

In between the U.S. and Brazil is India, the second country with the most COVID-19 infections. The country reportedly sawmore than 2 million cases occur in August, the highest monthly infection count reported since the pandemic began.

MORE FROM CHANGING AMERICA

MAJORITY OF AMERICANS FEAR POLITICAL PRESSURE WILL RUSH CORONAVIRUS VACCINE

HALF OF US HOUSEHOLDS IN THE FOUR LARGEST CITIES STRUGGLE TO PAY BILLS AMID PANDEMIC

FAUCI SAYS US HIT HARD BY CORONAVIRUS BECAUSE IT NEVER REALLY SHUT DOWN

HERD IMMUNITY EXPLAINED

Along with the U.S. and Brazil, India reported some of the highest recently confirmed cases on Sunday.

Worldwide, Johns Hopkins data indicates there are roughly 29millionconfirmed cases of the coronavirus.

Prior to Sundays spike in global COVID-19 infections, the previous record for a single-day increase in the coronavirus occurred on Sept. 6, when the WHO saw 306,857 positive infections.

The latest data to emerge from theWHO showcases a steady incline in newly confirmed cases worldwide, with the United States's new case count still trending upward, albeit at slower rates than seen over the summer months.

Deaths in the U.S. have largely plateaued, with the current record high having occurred on April 17, wheremore than 6,000 Americans died due to the virus.

In total,more than 194,000 Americans have lost their lives during the pandemic.

MORE FROM CHANGING AMERICA

FAUCI PUSHES BACK AGAINST MINIMIZING OF CORONAVIRUS DEATH TOLL

WHEN IS THE COVID VACCINE COMING? HERES WHERE THE BEST CANDIDATES ARE RIGHT NOW.

THE PROBLEM WITH HOLDING UP SWEDEN AS AN EXAMPLE FOR CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE

FAUCI: WHY THE PUBLIC WASNT TOLD TO WEAR MASKS WHEN THE PANDEMIC BEGAN

Read this article:

WHO reports record-breaking one-day increase in coronavirus cases on Sunday | TheHill - The Hill

Coronavirus: 10 figures that sum up the stunning scope of COVID-19 shutdowns  The Mercury News

Read more from the original source:

Coronavirus: 10 figures that sum up the stunning scope of COVID-19 shutdowns - The Mercury News

Since June 2020, DKI Jakarta has implemented the transitional phases of the implementation of Large-Scale Social RestrictionsPembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar THE PSBB) by easing the restrictions put in place under the PSBB and allowing certain activities to resume in order to maintain the productive socio-economic activities.

However, the Governor of DKI Jakarta decides to discontinue the transitional phases of the PSBB and re-impose the stricter PSBB. This decision is taken in order to reduce the spread of the Corona Virus Disease (Covid-19) as the infection cases in DKI Jakarta continue to surge. Under the Governor Decree No. 959 of 2020 dated September 11, 2020 on the Entry into Force of Large-Scale Social Restrictions in the Management of the Corona Virus Disease (Covid-19) in the DKI Jakarta Province,the stricter PSBB measures are effective as of September 14, 2020 until September 27, 2020 and may be further extended if necessary.

Unlike the transitional PSBB, the Governor of DKI Jakarta sets out the restrictions of the PSBB in DKI Jakarta the Governor Regulation No. 88 of 2020 regarding Amendments of Regulation No. 33 of 2020 on Implementation of Large-Scale Social Restrictions in the Management of the Corona Virus Disease (Covid-19) in the DKI Jakarta Province (the Regulation).

In addition, the implementation of the PSBB under the Regulation refers to Governor of DKI Jakarta Regulation No. 79 of 2020 dated August 19, 2020 on the Implementation of Discipline and law Enforcement of Health Protocols as Endeavor of Prevention and Control of Covid-19 (the Protocols).

We set out below the key provisions of the amendments on the implementation of the PSBB based on the Regulation.

All non-essential businesses are required to temporarily limit their activities at the workplaces. This limitation is conducted by implementing mechanism to work from home for the employees. If the work from home mechanism cannot be conducted, the businesses shall limit the number of people who are at workplaces at any time to be not more than 25% (twenty five percent) of the total number of the people at workplaces.

The Regulation stipulates certain essential businesses which are exempted from the PSBB, as follows:

The exempted businesses above are still subject to the Protocols (which are briefly discussed below).

In general, the non-essential businesses shall implement the following measures in conducting the activities at workplaces:

Both essential and non-essential businesses shall comply with the Protocols, including the following:

The rest is here:

DKI Jakarta Re-Imposes Stricted PSBB After Record Of COVID-19 Infections Rise In Cases; Health Protocols In Workplaces - Lexology