Category: Corona Virus

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India recorded 56,211 new cases of coronavirus, a slight dip from the countrys record-breaking tallies over the last three days, data from the health ministry showed on Tuesday.

The countrys tally dipped below the 60,000 mark after three days, a Reuters tally showed, with its richest state, Maharashtra, accounting for more than 31,000 of the 56,211 cases reported in the last 24 hours.

Deaths in the last 24 hours stood at 271, and 162,114 have died so far in the pandemic, the health ministry said.

Authorities in Maharashtra were considering whether to impose stricter curbs starting Thursday to contain the rapid spread of the virus, but opposition parties and industrialists have opposed a lockdown.

The people a lockdown hurts most are the poor, migrant workers & small businesses. The original lockdowns were essentially to buy time to build up hospital/health infrastructure. Lets focus on resurrecting that & on avoiding mortality, industrialist Anand Mahindra, who heads Mahindra, Indias autos-to-technology conglomerate, said on Twitter on Monday.

Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru and Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai. Editing by Gerry Doyle

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India records 56,211 new cases of the coronavirus - Reuters

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Read more about coronavirus updates from around the world, get the latest news on stimulus checks and additional stimulus moves and see more stories trending online today.

Stimulus Payments for Many Low-Income Americans Are Still Being Processed. Heres Why (NY Times)

Fourth stimulus check: Will Biden and Congress give you another payment? (Yahoo)

Payment deferrals were a lifeline for millions during Covid. What happens when those end? (NBC)

Biden economic plan to focus 1st on infrastructure this week (AP)

Opening statements are set to begin in Derek Chauvins trial for the death of George Floyd (CNN)

Biden expresses confidence that rational gun control can pass evenly-divided Senate (CBS News)

Birx recalls very difficult call with Trump, says hundreds of thousands of Covid deaths were preventable (NBC)

Fauci warns against potential new COVID-19 surge as cases remain high (Face the Nation)

Vaccination Pace Increases But So Does Rate Of New COVID-19 Cases (NPR)

Europe looks to contain spiraling Covid crisis, but its Happy Monday in the UK (CNBC)

ICU cases creep toward new peak in French virus surge (AP)

Amid backlash, Comic-Con organizers defend Thanksgiving weekend convention scheduling (USA Today)

WHO report says animals likely source of COVID (AP)

Thousands attend rock concert in Barcelona after audience tested for Covid-19 (Yahoo)

Ever Given, container ship stuck in Suez Canal, partially refloated (Fox News)

Patch your iPhone and iPad: Apple security update stamps out active exploit (TechRadar)

Richest Czech Man Among 5 Killed in Alaska Helicopter Crash (US News & World Report)

Nashville flooding turns deadly after severe storms tear across South (UPI)

Andre Drummond signs with Lakers 2 days after Cavaliers bought him out (cleveland.com)

Black Adam Release Date Confirmed (IGN)

Argument between man and woman sparked shootout that injured 7 inside Cleveland motorcycle club, officials say

Hundreds attend Stop Asian Hate rally held in Cleveland

Lorain man last seen in early February found dead in Lake Erie; companion still missing

Brunswick native, Heidelberg University football player dies in ATV crash, school announces

Ohio reports 1,019 new coronavirus cases: Sunday update

Critics want Cleveland to replace zoning code allowing controversial, oversized townhouses, slot houses

Cleveland Clinic opens COVID-19 vaccination site on Brecksville Rd.

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Coronavirus news, stimulus updates & more: Whats trending today - cleveland.com

Coronavirus vaccines are rolling out across the world. So why are CSU scientists still working to develop new ones?  Fort Morgan Times

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Coronavirus vaccines are rolling out across the world. So why are CSU scientists still working to develop new ones? - Fort Morgan Times

WASHINGTON President Joe Biden announced Monday that the vast majority of American adults will be eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the coming weeks as officials work to boost the number of pharmacies where shots are available.

>> Read more trending news

In a statement released by the White House, officials said 90% of adult Americans will be eligible for vaccination by April 19. Further, officials said 90% of U.S. adults will be able to find a vaccination site within five miles of their homes by that same time.

Were going to do this by going from having 17,000 pharmacies giving out vaccination shots to nearly 40,000 pharmacies, Biden said Monday at a news conference. Im pleased to announce that at least 90% of all adults in this country will be eligible to be vaccinated by April the 19th, just three weeks from now, because we have the vaccines.

The president said the remaining 10% of American adults will be eligible for vaccination no later than May 1. In the meantime, he urged Americans to continue social distancing, wearing masks and washing their hands.

The progress were making is a significant testament to what we can do when we work together as Americans, Biden said. We still need everyone to do their part. Were still in a war with this deadly virus. Were bolstering our defense, but this war is far from won.

The announcement came hours after Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, described feeling a sense of impending doom amid a rising number of COVID-19 cases nationwide.

>> Related: Coronavirus: CDC director describes feeling impending doom as COVID-19 cases rise

We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, Walensky said. But right now, Im scared.

As of Monday, the U.S. continues to lead the world in the number of COVID-19 cases confirmed nationwide, at 30.2 million, according to a count from Johns Hopkins University. The viral infection has claimed nearly 550,000 lives in the U.S. alone.

>> Related: Coronavirus: Biden ups vaccination goal to 200 million in first 100 days

Globally, 127.3 million COVID-19 cases have been reported, causing 2.7 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

As of Monday morning, 145.8 million COVID-19 vaccination doses have been administered across the U.S. So far, 52.6 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, accounting for about 16% of the population.

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Coronavirus: 90% of US adults will be eligible for vaccination by April 19, Biden says - KIRO Seattle

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Of the nearly 400,000 Ohio coronavirus cases reported since the beginning of vaccinations in mid-December, 34 are known to have involved people who were vaccinated before being infected -- and none have died.

While its not clear how when these people became infected after being vaccinated, and how many of the cases involved people who had received all their required shots, it seems like good evidence to get the vaccine. Were talking about it on This Week in the CLE.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with Leila Atassi, Jane Kahoun and me.

Youve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom account, in which he shares what were thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.

Here are the questions were answering today:

How many of Ohios 400,000 coronavirus cases since mid-December involve people who were vaccinated, and how many of them resulted in death?

How much trouble is Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey Carr in?

What has the pandemic taught us about what we need to do as a society to be prepared for the next one?

With a quarter of all Ohioans vaccinated, why have the coronavirus cases stopped dropping?

Cleveland State University unveiled its long anticipated CSU 2.0 plan Friday. What does it envision?

What is the Count the Kicks campaign? And how successful has it been elsewhere?

Where does unemployment stand in Ohio?

What does Lee Weingart, an announced Republican candidate challenging Democrat Armond Budish for Cuyahoga County executive in 2022, have to say about the plan announced last week to build or renovate the justice center and jail without competitive bidding or any source identified for the minimum half billion dollars it could cost?

How are churches and synagogues planning to handle the pandemic as they hit their high holy days over the next week?

Want more? You can find all our past episodes here.

We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe here.

Do you get your podcasts on Spotify. Find us here.

If you use Stitcher, we are here.

RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here.

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How good are the coronavirus vaccines? A tiny, tiny fraction of Ohios cases involved people who had them: Th - cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A draft report found animals are the likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers have found pregnant women have a strong immune response to the vaccines, and may pass some protection to newborns.

Cleveland.com is rounding up some of the most notable coronavirus news making headlines online. Heres what you need to know for Monday, March 29.

Animals were likely source of the coronavirus, report says

A joint report from the World Health Organization and China ranks four possibilities for the origins of COVID-19, and concludes the virus likely to very likely passed from bats to humans through another animal, according to the Associated Press. The other scenarios evaluated by the report include direct transmission from bats to humans, which it finds likely, and spread through cold-chain food products, which it finds possible but not likely. The report found the possibility it originated from a lab extremely unlikely.

Study finds pregnant women have strong immune response to vaccines

The COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna were highly effective at producing a robust immune response in women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, according to a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Researchers from hospitals and universities in the Boston area also found pregnant women may pass antibodies to newborns through breast milk and the placenta. The study found side effects were rare, and comparable to those found in women who are not pregnant.

Transplant recipients show insufficient response to vaccines

Organ transplant recipients and others who are immunocompromised had an insufficient immune response to the coronavirus vaccine, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine studied 439 transplant recipients and found only 17% produced detectable antibodies.

The recipients who were most likely to develop an immune response were younger than age 60, did not take anti-metabolites for immunosuppression and received the Moderna vaccine.

Coronavirus infects cells in the mouth, scientists find

An international team of scientists found evidence the coronavirus infects cells in the mouth, according to the National Institutes of Health. The potential for the virus to infect cells in the mouth may explain COVID-19 symptoms such as taste loss, dry mouth and blistering, according to the NIH.

It also raises the possibility the mouth may play a role in the virus reaching the lungs or digestive system. Further research could help inform strategies to reduce transmission within and outside the body, the NIH said.

Your coronavirus vaccine questions answered:

Are you contagious if you have side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine?

Are you less immune to the coronavirus if you dont have vaccine side effects?

Can I still get my second dose of coronavirus vaccine if I develop COVID-19 symptoms after the first?

Can you mix and match two doses of coronavirus vaccine from different manufacturers?

Can you request one coronavirus vaccine if you have concerns about the other?

Coronavirus vaccine misinformation permeates social media: Here are the facts to counter six false claims

How will local drug stores keep the coronavirus vaccine on site if it needs to be cold? How will they avoid waste?

If Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are for people 16 and older, what does that mean for children? What about minors with pre-existing conditions?

If the coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective, how will you know if youre in the other 5%?

Should cancer patients get the coronavirus vaccine?

Should you get the coronavirus vaccine if youve had a bad reaction to the flu shot?

Should you get the second vaccine if you contract COVID-19 after your first coronavirus vaccine dose?

What if you contract COVID-19 in between your two coronavirus vaccine doses?

Who should skip the second shot of coronavirus vaccine? Weve got answers

Why do I need to keep a mask on if Ive been vaccinated for coronavirus?

Will your COVID-19 vaccine be less effective if you need to wait longer for the second dose?

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Animals likely source of COVID-19; pregnant women have robust immune response to vaccines: Coronavirus update - cleveland.com

Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN he believes the coronavirus originally escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. But it's too early to know for sure and investigations are ongoing.

Redfield stressed he was not implying "intentionality," and no credible scientist, including Redfield, believes the virus was man-made.

Still, Redfield's comments sparked debate. "I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped," Redfield told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta during an interview taped in January, to be aired in full Sunday. "Now, other people don't believe that, that's fine. Science will eventually figure it out. It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in the laboratory to infect the laboratory worker."

He added: "I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human. And at that moment in time, the virus came to the human, became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human to human transmission. Normally, when a pathogen goes from a zoonotic to human, it takes a while for it to figure out how to become more and more efficient."

Redfield, a virologist who headed the CDC under President Trump, stressed several times that this is just his opinion, not a proven fact. "I'm allowed to have opinions now," he said. "Most of us in a lab, when trying to grow a virus, we try to help make it grow better, and better, and better, and better, and better, and better so we can do experiments and figure out about it. That's the way I put it together," he said of his theory.

Redfield also said he believes the virus began spreading months earlier than once thought perhaps since September or October of 2019, a timeframe roughly supported by recent research. That extra time the virus may have spent circulating undetected could help explain how it became "efficient" at transmission without having been "leaked" from a lab.

Dr. Anthony Fauci addressed Redfield's comments at Friday's COVID-19 response briefing and suggested that most public health officials disagree. He noted that if the virus had escaped from a lab, that would mean that "it essentially entered the outside human population already well-adapted to humans."

"However, the alternative explanation which most public health individuals go by, is that this virus was actually circulating in China, likely in Wuhan, for a month or more before they were clinically recognized at the end of December of 2019," Fauci said.

"If that were the case, the virus clearly could have adapted itself to a greater efficiency of transmissibility over that period of time, up to and at the time it was recognized. So, Dr. Redfield was mentioning that he was giving an opinion as to a possibility, but again there are other alternatives others that most people hold by."

The current CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said at Friday's briefing that she didn't "have any indication for or against" the hypotheses and that the White House team is "looking forward" to a report from the World Health Organization that "examines the origin of this pandemic and of SARS-CoV-2 in humans."

Understanding when the coronavirus first emerged is an important piece of the epidemiological puzzle, one that scientists around the world, including a team from the WHO, have been working to nail down.

Onestudy, recently published in the journal Science, found "the period between mid-October and mid-November 2019" to be "the plausible interval when the first case of SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Hubei province."

"It is highly probable that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Hubei province at low levels in early-November 2019 and possibly as early as October 2019, but not earlier," reads the study. But for weeks or months, its prevalence was low enough to escape notice. "By the time COVID-19 was first identified, the virus had firmly established itself in Wuhan."

Kristian G. Andersen, director of the infectious disease genomics, translational research institute at Scripps Research, told CBS News that "none of (Redfield's) comments" on the lab theory are "backed by available evidence."

Andersen was the lead author of a study published in Nature Medicine last year that found the virus was a product of natural evolution. Furthermore, through analysis of public genome sequence data, the scientists "found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered," according to a press release from Scripps.

"By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes," Andersen said at the time.

W. Ian Lipkin, a study co-author with Andersen and the director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, said that while there's still a lot we don't know about the virus, including exactly how long it's been circulating, there is "no evidence" to suggest that it was created in a lab.

"The fact that we haven't seen it before, doesn't mean it was created in a laboratory," he said. Lipkin pointed to the coronavirus' ability to replicate in other animals, such asoutbreaks among mink, and the emergence of highly transmissible variants around the world "without any modification from a laboratory" as evidence to the contrary.

"The modifications that have been exploited by the virus are not ones that we would have predicted," he said, adding, "even if we wanted to design such a virus, we wouldn't have known how to do it."

Lipkin called Redfield's comments "counterproductive," especially given the rise indiscrimination and violenceagainst Asian Americans during the pandemic. "We should be moving away from finger-pointing," he said.

Andersen and his colleagues concluded that the virus most likely originated from one of two scenarios. The first is that "the virus evolved to its current pathogenic state through natural selection in a non-human host and then jumped to humans," according to the press release. The second is that "a non-pathogenic version of the virus jumped from an animal host into humans and then evolved to its current pathogenic state within the human population."

"We know bats carry viruses highly similar to SARS-CoV-2, so it's plausible it came straight from bats. Like SARS, it's possible that it may have come from an intermediate host which we have not identified," Andersen explained. "There is absolutely nothing unusual about the fact we haven't found such an intermediate host (if one even exists in the first place) and anybody saying otherwise simply has not read up on the literature."

Andersen noted that "we don't know the origins (reservoirs) ofmostviruses that infect humans," including other recent ones like Ebola, "and for the ones we have some idea, it can take decades."

"We know that the first epidemiologically linked cluster of cases came from the Huanan market and we know the virus was found in environmental samples including animal cages at the market," he said. "Any 'lab leak' theory would have to account for that scenario which it simply can't, without invoking a major conspiracy and cover up by Chinese scientists and authorities."

Editor's note: This story has been updated to more clearly show that no credible scientist believes the novel coronavirus was man-made and that investigations are ongoing into how it was first transmitted to humans. The headline has been updated.

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Former CDC chief says "most likely" cause of coronavirus is that it "escaped" from a lab - CBS News

Facts, not fear: We're tracking the latest numbers from the coronavirus pandemic in San Antonio and across Texas.

SAN ANTONIO We're tracking the latest numbers from the coronaviruspandemic in San Antonio and across Texas. Here are the latest numbers reported by Bexar and surrounding counties:

More county case information is available through theTexas Department of Health Services COVID-19 dashboard.

How Bexar County is trending

We've tracked how many coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Bexar County from the time officials began reporting cases in March 2020. The graphic below shows the number of cases since June and charts those daily case numbers along a 7-day moving average to provide a more accurate picture of the overall coronavirus case curve in our area and the direction we're trending amid the pandemic.

On Friday, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg reported an additional 179 coronavirus cases in Bexar County. At least 203,370 county residents have been diagnosed with the virus, and the seven-day rolling case average rose to 185.

One new virus-related fatality was reported; the local death toll rose to 3,077.

37 patients were admitted into area hospitals in the last 24 hours; 184 concurrent patients are receiving treatment for COVID-19. Of those 184 patients, 40 are on ventilators and 75 are in intensive care.

Bexar County has administered the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine to 445,651 residents. 249,552 residents are fully vaccinated. Nearly 60% of people aged 65 and up have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Monday's weekly update of the Warning Signs and Progress Indicators for Bexar County saw Bexar County holding steady at the low-risk level. The positivity rate dropped to 2.3 percent, which is the lowest rate since April 2020, when Metro Health began tracking data.

Meanwhile, a few hours after a Travis County judge upheldthe county and Austin's mask-wearing mandate, Nirenberg's response was one of gratitude for those in the Alamo City who have continued mask-wearing in places where they have the option.

"We're glad there continues to be a majority in our community that continues to do their part," the mayor said. "Regardless of the chaos that's been happening over the (last) year, thank you to the folks who are mask-wearing."

Coronavirus in Texas

The total number of novel coronavirus cases in the state since the pandemic began grew by 5,580 on Friday, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. That total includes 2,239 new confirmed cases, 738 new probable cases, and a backlog of 2,603 cases. More details can be found on this page.

Friday's figures bring the total number of Texans diagnosed with COVID-19 to more than 2.765 million.

Meanwhile, state health authorities reported an additional 118 deaths from coronavirus complications in Texas. In all, 46,986 Texans have died from COVID-19 complications.

The number of concurrent hospitalizations across the state, increased by five over the last 24 hours to 3,415 COVID-19 patients receiving treatment for their symptoms across the state, as of Friday.

The state, meanwhile, estimates that about 2.614 million Friday have recovered, while 97,349 Texans remain ill with COVID-19.

The latest update from the Texas Education Agency showed that there have been at least 196,560 cumulative cases among staff and students on Texas public school campuses through March 21. That number comprises 128,352 positive student cases and 68,208 staff cases. More information can be found here.

The TEA typically releases new data on school cases on Fridays.

Latest Coronavirus Headlines

Coronavirus symptoms

The symptoms of coronavirus can be similar to the flu or a bad cold. Symptoms include fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, and diarrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Most healthy people will have mild symptoms. A study of more than 72,000 patients by the Centers for Disease Control in China showed 80 percent of the cases there were mild.

But infections can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure, and even death, according to the World Health Organization. Older people with underlying health conditions are most at risk.

Experts determined there was consistent evidence these conditions increase a person's risk, regardless of age:

Human coronaviruses are usually spread...

Help stop the spread of coronavirus

Find a Testing Location

City officials recommend getting a COVID-19 test if you experience fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, or diarrhea.

Here's a Testing Sites Locatorto help you find the testing location closest to you in San Antonio.

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Coronavirus Tracker: Nearly 60% of county residents 65 and older have received at least one vaccine dose - KENS5.com

Even as COVID-19 vaccinations increase across the globe, experts have wondered whether its possible to get people vaccinated more quickly if vaccines can be mixed and matched.

Evidence of vaccine supply chain issues show that potentially allowing people to use different vaccines may help people get fully vaccinated more quickly.

In an attempt to create more flexible COVID-19 vaccination programs, the United Kingdoms National Health Service (NHS) is conducting research to discover the effectiveness of combining two different vaccines.

Its called the Com-COV study, and its raising important questions, like whether this can increase or decrease vaccine effectiveness.

By using two different vaccines, there is not going to be a greater magnitude of protection against the disease, Dr. Nikhil Bhayani, infectious disease specialist with Texas Health Resources, told Healthline.

However, Bhayani emphasized that at this time, [the] use of two different vaccines is not recommended.

Bhayani also cautioned that while the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines do offer a degree of protection against COVID-19, as we see more variant strains the expectation of the vaccine protecting you from the disease could decrease. However, clinical trials will be warranted to prove this.

According to the NHS, the purpose of this 13-month trial is to see how well peoples immune systems respond once theyre primed with one type of vaccine and then boosted with another.

Researchers want to see how strong the immune system response is when the second dose is separated from the first dose by different amounts of time.

Researchers will also use blood samples from trial volunteers to monitor the effect of different dosing regimens on participants immune system responses, and look for any additional adverse reactions to these combinations of vaccines.

The two vaccines used for this study are from AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech.

However, the NHS added that if more vaccines are approved for use in the U.K. after this study starts, they may be added to the trial.

Its important to note, according to the most current guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that a lack of available safety data means COVID-19 vaccines shouldnt be mixed unless theres an exceptional situation, like a shortage of the vaccine the person first received.

We use this approach to protect against pneumococcal disease, which is serious illness caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria and can include pneumonia, bloodstream infection, meningitis, among other infections, said Dr. Dana Mazo, hospital epidemiologist and assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

She explained that in some instances, one type of vaccine can increase the effectiveness of another.

There are two different types of pneumococcal vaccines that have different mechanisms of action, and in certain situations we recommend boosting one with the other, she said.

According to Bhayani, scientific data has shown that getting several vaccines at the same time does not cause any chronic health problems.

When every new vaccine is licensed, it has been tested along with the vaccines already recommended, he added.

Mazo said the AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines use two different technologies to protect against COVID-19.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is an mRNA vaccine, but AstraZenecas vaccine is not.

AstraZeneca uses adenovirus vector technology, similar to Johnson & Johnson, Mazo explained. [But] both vaccines contain instructions that tell our cells to make the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

Mazo said this causes our bodies to then build an immune response against the coronavirus spike protein that helps protect us if were exposed to the virus.

She pointed out that the difference is how the two vaccines transport these instructions to our cells.

Pfizer uses mRNA coated in lipid (fatty) material to get the information into the cells, she said, while AstraZeneca uses a weakened version of an adenovirus, a common cold virus, to do the same thing. Both vaccines currently require two doses.

According to Bhayani, the altered virus in AstraZenecas vaccine cant make you sick, but it carries a gene from the coronaviruss spike protein, the portion of the virus that triggers an immune response.

As a result, the immune system manufactures antibodies that work against COVID-19, teaching the body how to respond should one become infected, he said.

It is a new approach, which is why the U.K. is proposing to do a research study to evaluate it, Mazo said.

She explained its possible that getting the information to the cells in two different ways (one via mRNA and one by adenovirus viral vector) could create a better response either in terms of stronger or longer protection.

But this approach could also compromise overall effectiveness.

This question about whether it will be better or worse is why this approach is most appropriate in the context of a study, Mazo said. Since we do not know the answers, we want to learn from it.

Without question, there are critical COVID-19 vaccine shortages.

How we resolve these issues to protect the majority of people from the pandemic and return to a more normal situation is a serious concern.

But is mixing different vaccines better than not receiving a needed second dose?

Ideally you want to give the second dose to achieve the 90 percent efficacy, Bhayani said.

However, in dire circumstances, if there is a shortage of COVID vaccines, it would be better to get more people vaccinated with a single dose. At least some protection is better than none.

Dr. Eric Cioe-Pea, director of global health at Northwell Health in New York, believes that at this time, theres simply too little known about mixing vaccines.

We dont know if theres an advantage to mixing vaccines or a disadvantage. Further study is needed of the effects of mixing. Its not yet ready for prime time, he said.

U.K. researchers are conducting a clinical trial to learn whether mixing the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines can help increase the number of people who can be vaccinated with the needed two doses to protect against COVID-19.

Experts say theres not enough data to know whether this approach is an effective solution, and it might even reduce the protection offered by these vaccines.

The CDC currently recommends against mixing vaccines except under exceptional circumstances.

According to experts, in situations when its either mix different COVID-19 vaccines or not receive the second dose, its better to use the same vaccine in one dose until we know more.

Read this article:

Can We Mix and Match COVID-19 Vaccines? Experts Say Not Yet - Healthline

For a second straight week, the number of new coronavirus cases in counties across New Jersey took a jump.

Of the states 21 counties, 17 added more new cases of COVID-19 during the week of March 18-24 than the week prior. New Jersey saw 25.9 new cases per 10,000 residents, a 6% increase over last week.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

The highest number of new cases per capita came in Monmouth County. At 33.9 new cases per 10,000 residents, Monmouth was one of five counties to eclipse 30. The others were Sussex County (33.7 new cases per 10,000 people), Warren County (32.8), Hudson County (31.4), and Ocean County (30.9).

Cape May County, for a second straight week, had the states lowest rate of new cases at 10.8 per 10,000 people.

Is the map not displaying? Click here.

Of the 17 counties that had a higher new case rate this week than last, nowhere was the spread greater than in Gloucester County, which went from 15.2 new cases per 10,000 residents to 21.3 this week, a 40% increase.

Salem County and Sussex County both increased by more than 30%. Two other counties were over 20%, and three were over 10%.

Among those where new case numbers dropped, Morris County experienced the biggest decline, going from 31.4 new cases per 10,000 people to 26.9 this week, a 14% decrease.

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Nick Devlin is a reporter on the data & investigations team. He can be reached at ndevlin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @nickdevlin.

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COVID cases rose across N.J. again this week. See where your county stands. - nj.com