Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
The news posted last week for the coronavirus 2019-nCoV (aka SARS-CoV-2), which produces COVID-19 disease, has been surveyed and some important articles are summarized here. The articles are more or less organized with general virus news and anecdotes first, then stories from around the US, followed by an increased number of items from other countries around the globe. Economic news related to COVID-19 is found here.
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Summary:
New US cases of Covid-19 this past week were down 23.9% from the prior week, and down 53.3% from the early January peak. Although the 7-day average of news cases is now the lowest since November 9th, it’s also higher that every 7-day period before that date.
The US Covid death rate is also falling, albeit much more slowly; this week’s deaths were down 5.1% from the prior week, and down 9.8% from the week ending January 16th, which was the highest on record. Note that I am not counting the 1,507 deaths reported by Indiana on Thursday, which resulted in reports of a national record high, because those represent Covid deaths that weren’t reported over the past year that were just discovered in an audit of the states records.
Globally, this week’s new covid cases were down 15% from the prior week and down around 60% from the early January peak. The global infection is falling more slowly than in the US in recent weeks due to an increase in cases caused by the more contagious mutant strains. Global deaths from Covid were down nearly 10% week over week, but only down 12% from the peak.
With cases and deaths falling, we’re paying less attention to the disease and the demographics, and hence this week’s “disease” collection is lighter than in previous weeks. The seperately posted “economic” collection, on the other hand, is still full of news, especially including a thorough daily coverage of Biden’s $1.9 trillion covid relief package now moving through both houses of Congress.
The chart below from WorldoMeter shows the daily number of new cases for the US, updated through 06 February.
According to Johns Hopkins (graph below), new cases globally are continuing to decline.
Also, Johns Hopkins has a graph for global deaths (below). The slight downturn in global deaths is now seen by visual examination of this graphic.
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Calculated Risk has stopped posting the graphic on testing data. The last one we reported is the 30 January graphic:
The count of testing has been quite eratic over the past several weeks. The percent positive leveled off in December after previously rising sharply. In January the percent positive has fallen sharply. The reason for the continuing erratic pattern for this metric is not clear. Any holiday effect should have been removed by now.
Of course, Steven Hansen summarizes and links the latest news related to the pandemic every day, 7 days a week, plus displays over a dozen important graphics updated at least daily. The most recent article at the time this is published: 06 February 2021 Coronavirus Charts and News: Concern Continues To Grow Over The Potential Impact Of The COVID-19 Mutation.
This article leads the daily newsletter from Global Economic Intersection every day. Newsletter subscription is free.
Here are the rest of the articles for the past week reviewed and summarized:
Can You Get Reinfected with Covid? — The Incidental Economist (video with Dr Aaron Carroll)–Reports have surfaced of individuals being re-infected with Covid-19, raising questions about immunity via natural infection as well as questions about the utility of vaccines. Here we take a look at the data to see how common reinfection is and what that means in the grand scheme of things.
Study shows young COVID survivors can get reinfected – Being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 is not a foolproof shield against reinfection, a small preliminary study warns. The finding stems from tracking nearly 3,250 young U.S. Marine recruits between May and October. Of those, 189 had previously tested positive for the SAR-CoV-2 virus. During the six-week study itself, 10% of those who had tested positive got reinfected. “You don’t have a get-out-of-jail-free card just because you have antibodies from a previous infection,” said study author Dr. Stuart Sealfon. He’s a professor of neurology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, which conducted the study in collaboration with the Naval Medical Research Center. The findings were recently published in the preprint server medRXiv and have not been peer-reviewed. All the Marines were beginning basic training and were initially held in Navy quarantine for two weeks, after two weeks of at-home quarantine, according to the study. Once training began, recruits were tested for COVID-19 every two weeks over a six-week period. The result: 19 of the 189 recruits who already had COVID tested positive for a second infection during the study. Researchers said first- and second- infections involved the same strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and none involved the new, more transmissible U.K., South African or Brazilian strains that have raised alarm in recent weeks. Of 2,247 recruits who had not previously had COVID, 1,079 (48%) became infected during the study. That means recruits with a prior COVID infection “had about a fifth the risk for getting infected again when in basic training, compared with Marines who had not been previously infected and didn’t have antibodies,” Sealfon said. All those who tested positive during the study had “mild” symptoms, he said. None were hospitalized. But symptom risk and length of infection were the same, regardless of prior COVID history.
Children and COVID-19 spread Harvard Med – In the most comprehensive study of COVID-19 pediatric patients to date, a research team led by HMS scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital has found that children may play a larger role in the community spread of COVID-19 than previously thought. The researchers found that infected children, even those with mild or no symptoms, carried high levels of the virus in their respiratory secretions, especially in the first two days of symptoms, and that age did not affect the ability to carry high amounts of virus. The higher the level of virus a person carries, known as the viral load, the greater the risk of transmitting the virus to others. The team found that infected children in the asymptomatic or early infection phase had significantly higher viral loads than hospitalized adults with severe COVID-19. They also found that although younger children had lower levels of ACE2, the receptor protein that SARS-CoV-2 targets to enter human cells, than older children and adults, the lower levels did not correlate with decreased viral load. According to the researchers, this suggests that children can carry a high viral load, and thus remain contagious, regardless of their susceptibility to developing COVID-19 infection.
What One Covid-19 Cluster on an Airplane Tells Experts About Risk Factors While Flying – After an 18-hour flight from Dubai to New Zealand, seven passengers tested positive for Covid-19 while under managed isolation and quarantine. Analysis of the virus’ genetic code – along with details about the passengers’ symptoms and behavior throughout their trip – indicates that one passenger infected at least four others while aboard the plane, according to a study published in Emerging Infectious Diseases.Air travel has been difficult to study because different airlines and countries have different safety policies, and all policies rely on passengers’ willingness to follow the rules. The cluster of cases shows how precautionary measures, like obtaining a negative Covid-19 test result before a flight, aren’t enough to prevent transmission of the virus if other safety measures like mask-wearing aren’t strictly followed, Harvard Medical School physician Abraar Karan writes for Vox. It also shows how the managed isolation and quarantine, or MIQ, system successfully prevented the travelers from sparking new community spread of the disease, the researchers write.The study found that two people, travelling together, got on the flight in Dubai who had gotten a test for Covid-19 four days earlier. Their tests came back negative before the flight, but one of them began showing symptoms two days after arriving in New Zealand, and another test on the third day returned a positive result for both individuals. The pair said that they wore masks and gloves while on the plane, but took their masks off when they were seated, sleeping or eating, Marc Daalder reports for the New Zealand-based Newsroom.On such a long flight, people need to eat and drink, but each instance makes it more likely that the virus will spread. “It is surprising and not surprising, on an 18-hour flight, that an outbreak would occur,” says Karan to the New York Times’ Benedict Carey. “It’s more than likely that more than just those two people took off their mask at some point.”
Infectious disease expert: double-masking ‘can do more harm’ — A top infectious disease expert has warned thatwearing two masks can “do more harm” if one of the face coverings isn’t being worn correctly.Michael Osterholm, who was an adviser to President Biden’s transition team, said the problem occurs with masks that have an “already compromised fit or filtration capacity,” allowing respiratory droplets to escape out of holes.“If you add on another mask, you may actually make it tougher for the air to move through the two-cloth area, and then at that point it causes more air to actually leak around the sides, which actually enhances your ability to get infected,” Osterholmtold NBC anchor Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” Sunday.Osterholm said there are cases where double-masking can be an effective tool against the coronavirus. “But at the same time, there are many [where] you may do more harm,” said the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.Osterholm said what’s “very important” to him is to stop people from wearing the mask under their nose.“You know, that’s like fixing three of the five screen doors in your submarine,” he said.“We’ve got to get people to start using these right, that would help right there tremendously,” he added.
‘A waste of money’: The home Covid-19 test funded by the Biden administration is too costly and complex, critics say For months, U.S. public health experts have called on the federal government to approve and fund cheap and fast at-home Covid-19 tests, to help bring the spread of infection under control. But when the Biden administration this week announced a $231.8 million deal to ramp up production of the first fully at-home test, the experts’ response was, to say the least, unenthusiastic. One dismissed it as “a spit in the ocean.” It’s not that home testing with a 15-minute turnaround time isn’t a good idea, they said, it’s just that the rollout of this initial kit is too little and too late, and the test too expensive and complicated, to help extinguish the raging pandemic fire. A number of experts called on the Biden administration to subsidize the home test for consumers, and said the Food and Drug Administration needs to do more to make such tests widely available. The first fully over-the-counter Covid test, a rapid antigen test produced by the Australian company Ellume, was granted an emergency use authorization in December. On Monday the administration said it would provide funding to build a factory in the U.S. that will eventually make millions of tests every month, but will take time to scale up.
Line cooks, agriculture workers at highest risk of COVID-19 death: study – Essential workers in kitchens and in agricultural settings are most at risk of death from the coronavirus, according to a study that adds a new urgency to the race to vaccinate those on the front lines of the pandemic. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California-San Francisco, examined the occupations of those who have died in California since the beginning of 2016. In the past year, researchers found an especially high rate of excess mortality – the measure of how many people died over what might have been an ordinary period – among those who work in proximity to others. Line cooks experienced the most substantial number of excess death in 2020, the study found, followed by agriculture workers, bakers and construction laborers. Those who work in delivery occupations – shipping clerks, truck operators and delivery drivers – also experienced higher rates of death last year.The risk of death for those groups was between 30 and 60 percent greater than in an otherwise normal year, the study found. Deaths spiked especially in the months after California began reopening its economy. The authors said death rates were especially high for minorities serving in those jobs. Black and Hispanic workers are more likely to hold service jobs that put them in close contact with the general public than are white workers, who are more likely to have jobs that allow them to work from home. “In California, per-capita excess mortality is relatively high among Blacks, Latinos, and individuals with low educational attainment,” the authors wrote. “These populations face unique occupational risks because they may disproportionately make up the state’s essential workforce and because essential workers often cannot work from home.” Among people of Asian descent, the greatest risk increase came in health care workers. The authors noted California has an especially large population of Filipino Americans working in the nursing profession.
80% of COVID-19 Patients May Have Lingering Symptoms, Signs -Eight of 10 COVID-19 patients had lingering symptoms or signs 14 or more days after acute infection, a systematic review and meta-analysis showed. More than 50 symptoms tied to SARS-CoV-2 infection persisted, most commonly fatigue (58%), headache (44%), attention disorder (27%), hair loss (25%), dyspnea (24%), and anosmia (24%) were identified, according to Sonia Villapol, PhD, of Houston Methodist Research Institute in Texas, and colleagues. The findings were reported in a medRxiv preprint and have not undergone peer review. “We estimated that a total 80% of the patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 developed one or more long-term symptoms,” Villapol said. “Preventive measures, rehabilitation techniques, and clinical management strategies designed to address prevalent long-term effects of COVID-19 are urgently needed,” she told MedPage Today. To date, there’s no established diagnosis for the slow, persistent condition that people with lasting effects of COVID-19 experience; terms like “long COVID,” “long haulers,” and “post-acute COVID-19” have been used, Villapol and colleagues noted. In their review, they referred to lingering symptoms and signs as “long-term effects of COVID-19.” Last year, a widely-cited CDC survey showed 35% of COVID-19 patients had not returned to usual health 2 to 3 weeks after testing positive, but those were mild, outpatient cases. Early in 2021, a study in the Lancet showed that 6 months after illness onset, 76% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China, reported at least one symptom that persisted, mostly fatigue or muscle weakness. In their meta-analysis, Villapol and colleagues included 47,910 people with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis in 15 studies that had evaluated symptoms, signs, or laboratory parameters 2 weeks or more week post-viral infection. Each study had a minimum of 100 patients. Nine studies were from Great Britain or Europe, three were from the U.S. Six studies focused only people hospitalized for COVID-19; the others included mild, moderate, and severe cases. Patients ranged from ages 17 to 87 years, and follow-up time ranged from 14 to 110 days. Fatigue was the most common symptom of both long and acute COVID-19, Villapol and colleagues noted: “It is present even after 100 days of the first symptom of acute COVID-19.” During follow-up, 34% of patients had an abnormal chest x-ray or CT. Elevated markers also were seen, including D-dimer (20%), NT-proBNP (11%), C-reactive protein (8%), serum ferritin (8%), procalcitonin (4%), and IL-6 (3%). Other lingering symptoms were pulmonary (cough, chest discomfort, reduced pulmonary diffusing capacity, sleep apnea, pulmonary fibrosis), cardiovascular (arrhythmias, myocarditis), or neurologic or psychiatric (memory loss, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders).
Long-Haul Covid Cases Cast New Light on Chronic Fatigue Sufferers – Four weeks after San Diego pediatric nurse Jennifer Minhas fell ill with Covid-19 last March, her cough and fever had resolved, but new symptoms had emerged: chest pain, an elevated heart rate and crushing fatigue. Her primary care physician told her she was just anxious, and that none of her other Covid patients had those issues. “That wasn’t what I needed to hear,” Minhas said. At times, she’s been too exhausted to hold up her head. “I was kind of a zombie for months, shuffling around unable to do much of anything.”The clinical term for the flattening fatigue Minhas describes is “post-exertional malaise.” It is a common symptom among patients who have not recovered from Covid. It is also consistent with a standard feature of another chronic illness: myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS.ME/CFS patients also report cognitive impairment – “brain fog” – and orthostatic intolerance, in which standing upright produces a racing heart rate and lightheadedness. Minhas has experienced these symptoms, as have many other “long haulers,” the tens of thousands of post-Covid patients who haven’t recovered.The percentage of Covid patients who become long haulers is hard to pin down – in part because many early Covid patients were not tested in time to detect the virus. But “long Covid” is potentially an enormous problem. A recent study of 1,733 Covid patients in Wuhan, China, found three-quarters of them still had symptoms six months after being released from the hospital. As of January, doctors had documented more than 21 million cases of Covid in the United States. “If just 5 percent develop lingering symptoms,’’ – about 1 million cases – “and if most of those with symptoms have ME/CFS, we would double the number of Americans suffering from ME/CFS in the next two years,” Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Anthony Komaroff wrote recently in the Harvard Health Letter. The cause of ME/CFS is unknown, but multiple studies have found it follows acute infections with viruses – everything from the 1918 “Spanish” flu to Ebola. “A certain percentage of people don’t recover,” said Leonard Jason, a researcher at DePaulUniversity. Scientists are trying to figure out the mechanisms of the disease and why it develops in certain people and not others. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ME/CFS shares certain characteristics with autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system attacks healthy tissue in the body. Multiple studies are underway to explore this and other potential causes.
Understanding Coronavirus Variants, Mutations and Vaccines — In my laboratory I study the molecular structure of RNA viruses – like the one that causes COVID-19 – and how they replicate and multiply in the host. As the virus infects more people and the pandemic spreads, SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve. This process of evolution is constant and it allows the virus to sample its environment and select changes that make it grow more efficiently. Thus, it is important to monitor viruses for such new mutations that could make them more deadly, more transmissible or both.The genetic material of all viruses is encoded in either DNA or RNA; one interesting feature of RNA viruses is that they change much more rapidly than DNA viruses. Every time they make a copy of their genes they make one or a few mistakes. This is expected to occur many times within the body of an individual who is infected with COVID-19.One might think that making a mistake in your genetic information is bad – after all, that’s the basis for genetic diseases in humans. For an RNA virus, a single change in its genome may render it “dead.” That’s not too bad if inside an infected human cell you’re making thousands of copies and a few are no longer useful.However, some genomes may pick up a change that is beneficial for the survival of the virus: Maybe the change allows the virus to evade an antibody – a protein that the immune system produces to catch viruses – or an antiviral drug. Another beneficial change may allow the virus to infect a different type of cell or even a different species of animal. This is likely the pathway that allowed SARS-CoV-2 to move from bats into humans.Any change that gives the virus’s descendants a competitive growth advantage will be favored – “selected” – and begin to outgrow the original parent virus. SARS-CoV-2 is demonstrating this feature now with new variants arising that have enhanced growth properties. Understanding the nature of these changes in the genome will provide scientists with guidance to develop countermeasures. This is the classic cat-and-mouse scenario.In an infected patient there are hundreds of millions of individual virus particles. If you were to go in and pick out one virus at a time in this patient, you would find a range of mutations or variants in the mix. It’s a question of which ones have a growth advantage – that is, which ones can evolve because they are better than the original virus. Those are the ones that are going to become successful during the pandemic.
Alarming COVID variants show vital role of genomic surveillance –2021 is shaping up to be the year of COVID-19 variants. In the past two months, scientists have identified several fast-spreading variants that have prompted government restrictions in many countries – and new variants are being detected more frequently. The pandemic has ushered in an era of genomic surveillance in which scientists are tracking genomic changes to a virus at a speed and scale never seen before. But surveillance is patchy globally, particularly in the United States, which has the world’s largest COVID-19 outbreak, and in many low- and middle-income countries. Scientists warn that worrying variants are probably spreading undetected in these regions. “Genomic epidemiology has come of age during this pandemic,” says Oliver Pybus, who studies infectious disease evolution at the University of Oxford, UK. It has transformed from a “theoretical backwater” to a tool that helps drive public-health decisions quickly, he says. But to be as effective as possible, surveillance needs to be widespread, standardized and embedded in national pandemic-prevention programmes, scientists say. The key to good surveillance is the sequencing and sharing of enough genomes to track mutations and variants of concern as they arise. In the past year, more than 360,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes have been sequenced and stored on GISAID, a non-profit online database for sharing viral genomes. Geographic distribution of the sequences on GISAID is broad, covering more than 140 countries. But most countries have uploaded only a small number of sequences. Two exceptions are the United Kingdom and Denmark, which respectively account for 45% and 7% of SARS-CoV-2 genomes on the database. The number of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that the United States has shared on GISAID is less than 0.3% of its total number of COVID-19 infections. That compares with nearly 5% for the United Kingdom, 12% for Denmark, and almost 60% for Australia (see ‘Global surveillance’). A new variant in the United States would probably be detected quickly in certain states that have lots of active sequencing labs, such as New York and Washington, but would take a while in places that don’t. This is a problem because the more a virus circulates, the more opportunities it has to change.
More contagious UK variant of COVID gains in South Florida – South Florida leads the state in cases of the highly contagious UK variant of the COVID-19 virus, with Broward County showing the biggest numbers.Broward had 39 cases, Miami-Dade had 35 and Palm Beach County had 17, with those counties’ cases totaling more than the rest of the state combined, according to the Florida Department of Health. The actual number of UK variant cases in each county is actually many times higher, since these numbers represent only the fraction of cases selected for additional testing. But they indicate that South Florida is experiencing the worst so far of a variant thought to be twice as contagious as the more familiar COVID virus. The UK variant, technically known as B117, is one of several strains, including ones first detected in Brazil and South Africa, that could spread and kill more efficiently than their predecessors, making it more difficult for the world to emerge from the pandemic. “If we get a virus that is much more transmissible, what we could see, potentially, is an upswing in case numbers, with impacts on hospitals,” said Dr. Glenn Morris, director of the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute. “If we pick up a vaccine that has more virulence, we could start to see a rising death rate.”Florida has the highest known number of cases, followed by California, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The UK variant is likely to be the dominant strain in Florida and southern California within weeks, according to a California company called Helix that tests for the strain.
Dangerous new coronavirus strains may incubate in COVID-19’s sickest — Among the 100 million people around the world who have battled coronavirus infections, scientists are turning to the case of a 45-year-old COVID-19 patient in Boston to understand how the virus is able to outwit humans.During his 154-day illness – one of the longest on record – the patient’s body became a crucible of riotous viral mutation. He offered the world one of the first sightings of a key mutation in the virus’ spike protein that set off alarm bells when it was later found in strains in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.In the U.K. strain, the genetic change known as N501Y is thought to help enhance the virus’ transmissibility by about 50%. In the South Africa strain, it may reduce the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. Tests of its effect on the Brazil variant are still in progress.The Boston patient is now being viewed as an important harbinger of the coronavirus’ ability to spin off new and more dangerous versions of itself. Though he died over the summer, the medical file he left behind is helping experts anticipate the emergence of new strains by focusing on the role of a growing population of patients with compromised immune systems who battle the virus for months. Among the sickest of COVID-19 patients, this population of “long haulers” appears to play a key role in incubating new variants of the coronavirus, some of which could change the trajectory of the pandemic.The mutations that arose from this single patient are “a microcosm of the viral evolution we’re seeing globally,” said Dr. Jonathan Z. Li, an infectious-disease specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who treated him. “He showed us what could happen” when a germ with a knack for genetic shape-shifting stumbles upon conditions that reward it for doing so.Indeed, situations in which patients can’t clear a viral infection are “the worst possible scenario for developing mutations,” said Dr. Bruce Walker, an immunologist and founding director of the Ragon Institute in Boston.
Fauci: Still time to prevent mutant virus strains from becoming dominant – Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious diseases doctor, on Wednesday said there is still time to prevent new variants of the coronavirus from becoming the dominant strain in the United States. “One of the ways you prevent the further evolution of virus to become mutational, the way you do that is to suppress the replication of the virus,” Fauci said in an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show. That approach is twofold, Fauci said. “One, continue to double down on the public health measures to prevent spread from person to person and get as many people as you possibly can,” he said. “The more people you have that are protected the less opportunity you give to the virus to mutate. It can’t mutate if it doesn’t replicate. So the more you suppress it, the less it does.” Host Savannah Guthrie then asked Fauci who is winning the “race between virus and vaccine.” “We sill have a demand [for vaccine] that far exceeds the supply,” Fauci replied. A number of variants of the coronavirus have been reported in states across the country in recent days and they are believed to be more contagious than the original strain. Public health experts remain optimistic, however, that approved coronavirus vaccines such as those made by drugmakers Moderna and Pfizer are effective against newer strains of the virus. Fauci said if the virus is able to spread itself more rapidly through the passage of nonvaccinated people, an upgrade or enhancement to current vaccines may need to be made in the weeks and months to come. “The mutants are here in the United States. They are not dominant yet. We can prevent them from becoming dominant by trying to suppress the replication,” Fauci said. “But if they do become the dominant we may need to upgrade the vaccine. That’s the direction we’re going in right now.”
B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant is picking up a worrisome new mutation. –As the world races to get vaccines into arms, one of the most concerning coronavirus variants appears to be getting a little more concerning.Researchers in the UK have detected at least 15 cases of B.1.1.7 variants carrying an additional mutation: E484K, a mutation already seen in other concerning variants and one that may make current vaccines less effective at preventing infection. The B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the United Kingdom, is already known to spread more easily among people than earlier strains of the pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. And according to some preliminary evidence, it may cause more severe disease. So far, B.1.1.7 variants carrying E484K appear rare. On Monday, Public Health England reported in a technical briefing that it had detected E484K in just 11 B.1.1.7 variants among more than 200,000 viruses examined. For now, it’s unclear if the augmented mutants will take off and become dominant in the population or fizzle out. It’s also not entirely clear what the addition of E484K means for B.1.1.7 in people. Preliminary laboratory experiments suggest the mutation alone, and its presence in B.1.1.7 specifically, may help the virus evade immune responses. But more studies and clinical data are necessary to understand the full effect of the new addition.Still, without doubt, the new mutation in B.1.1.7 signals again that the pandemic coronavirus is not done trying to outwit us, even as numerous vaccines prove they can thwart infection and prevent severe disease. As long as we continue to let the virus spread rampantly among us, the virus will have ample opportunities to hone its disease-causing and vaccine-evading capabilities – and it will use them. The findings highlight once again that we must continue to use proven mitigation efforts – physical distancing, mask wearing, hand hygiene, good ventilation, and avoiding crowds and enclosed areas – to reduce transmission as much as possible while vaccination efforts are underway. In fact, given the current state of the pandemic and what we know about the virus already, some researchers say finding E484K in B.1.1.7 is not at all surprising. It may have just been a matter of time.
Study shows UK coronavirus variant with potentially vaccine-resistant mutation – A variant of the coronavirus first found in the United Kingdom has gained a mutation that could make it more resistant to vaccines, according to a new analysis from Public Health England. The mutation, known as E484K, is linked to strains in Brazil and South Africa that have proved more resistant to existing vaccines. According to the analysis, estimated rates for cases with the mutation are 25 to 40 percent higher than estimated attack rates for other strains. The variant, known as B.1.1.7, was first discovered in December and spread rapidly across the U.K. It has since turned up in 72 countries. It is much more transmissible than other strains, and there is some evidence it could cause more deaths. In the U.S., the variant has been discovered in 32 states, though experts believe it is likely much more widespread and could become the dominant strain by March. The existing vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer are effective against the B.1.1.7 strain, but the variant found in South Africa is more problematic. Trial data from Johnson & Johnson and Novavax show their COVID-19 vaccines are not as effective against it. That South African variant known as B.1.351 has been reported in 31 countries and at least two states so far. According to Public Health England, preliminary investigation has found the E484K mutation appearing more than once among the B.1.1.7 variants. If that’s the case, it is a sign that the mutation is a relatively easy way for the virus to gain an advantage. Experts say the best way to prevent further mutations and more potentially dangerous variants is for people to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, because more immune people means less chance for the virus to spread and evolve.
What If the COVID Pandemic Never Really Ends? – What if it never really ends, just recedes? There are, at the moment, a number of encouraging signs about the near-term course of things: Caseloads and hospitalizations are falling dramatically, perhaps as a sign of seasonal effects turning a corner; vaccine deployment, while still suboptimal, is improved from a month ago; there has been good news about additional vaccines, with AstraZeneca (already approved in the U.K. but facing an FDA roadblock here) reporting fantastic results against severe disease. But thanks to a combination of higher herd-immunity estimates, stubbornly high vaccine “hesitancy,” and the arrival of new coronavirus variants that render existing vaccines less effective, the second year of the American pandemic is beginning to look less like a page-turning, book-slammed-shut bang and more like a long and indefinite whimpering into the future – in which many are protected but the disease, undefeated, still circulates, perhaps forever. That the coronavirus would become endemic, like the common cold, has always been one possible outcome, though less appealing than true elimination. The arrival of new variants has made that kind of near-term future, with enduring reservoirs of virus throughout the country, seem less appealing still. In December, Harvard’s Marc Lipsitch estimated that the current bundle of vaccines would likely prove between 50 and 70 percent effective against transmission. What does that mean in terms of herd immunity? A sort of median estimate of the natural reproduction rate (or “R0″) for the classic COVID-19 strain is around 3 – on average, each person infected in a totally unexposed population would infect three others. Assuming an R0 of 3 yields an estimated herd-immunity threshold of 67 percent exposure, which, Bloomberg’s Justin Fox points out, would require between 96 percent and 134 percent of the population be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. At the end of last year, Anthony Fauci somewhat controversially revised his own estimate of the threshold of herd immunity, first from between 60 and 70 percent to “70, 75 percent,” then to “75, 80, 85 percent,” then to “80-plus percent,” and then all the way to 90 percent. Mathematically, you simply cannot achieve 90 percent protection from a vaccine that offers even 70 percent protection, let alone 50 percent, and while the vaccines might somewhat outperform Lipsitch’s back-of-the-envelope calculations, the new variants are driving their efficacy in the other direction, pushing herd immunity even further out of reach
Global vaccine trust rising, but France, Japan, others skeptical (Reuters) – People’s willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is rising around the world and more than half of those questioned said they would take the shot if it were offered next week, an updated survey of global vaccine confidence found on Thursday. But attitudes and confidence vary widely in the 15 countries covered in the survey, with France showing high levels of scepticism and some Asian countries showing declining trust in vaccines, while some European nations see rising confidence. Overall, vaccine confidence is higher than in November, when the same survey – conducted in 15 countries and covering 13,500 people each time – found that only 40% would be willing to get vaccinated. The survey, co-led by YouGov and Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI), found that people in Britain were the most willing to have a COVID-19 vaccine, at 78%, followed by Denmark at 67%. France had the highest proportion of respondents who said they would not take a vaccine, at 44%, but saw a doubling in the proportion who strongly agreed that they would take a vaccine, from 15% in November to 30% in January. In Australia, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, willingness to take a vaccine has dropped off since November, with Japan showing the least preparedness, followed by Singapore. “As vaccines will play a vital role in controlling the pandemic, leaders must act now to help more people understand the benefits of being vaccinated against COVID-19 and make sure that no one is left behind,”
Britain trial to test combining Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines in two-shot regimen (Reuters) – Britain on Thursday launched a trial to assess the immune responses generated if doses of the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca Plc are combined in a two-shot schedule. The British researchers behind the trial said data on vaccinating people with the two different types of coronavirus vaccines could help understanding of whether shots can be rolled out with greater flexibility around the world. Initial data on immune responses is expected to be generated around June. The trial will examine the immune responses of an initial dose of Pfizer vaccine followed by a booster of AstraZeneca’s, as well as vice versa, with intervals of 4 and 12 weeks. Both the mRNA shot developed by Pfizer and Biontech and the adenovirus viral vector vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca are currently being rolled out in Britain, with a 12-week gap between two doses of the same vaccine. It is expected more vaccines will be added to the trial when they are approved and rolled out. Recruitment for the study starts on Thursday, with over 800 participants expected to take part, the researchers said. That makes it much smaller than the clinical trials that have been used to determine efficacy of the vaccines individually. The trial will not assess the overall efficacy of the shot combinations, but researchers will measure antibody and T-cell responses, as well as monitor for any unexpected side effects.
Exclusive: Oxford kept COVID-19 vaccine trial volunteers in dark about dosing error, letter shows (Reuters) – – About 1,500 of the initial volunteers in a late-stage clinical trial of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were given the wrong dose, but weren’t informed that a mistake had been made after the blunder was discovered, documents obtained by Reuters show. Instead, the dosing mishap was presented to the trial participants in a letter dated June 8 as an opportunity for University of Oxford researchers to learn how well the vaccine works at different doses. The letter was signed by the trial’s chief investigator, Oxford professor Andrew J. Pollard, and sent to the trial subjects. As Reuters reported on Dec. 24, participants were given about a half dose due to a measuring mistake by Oxford researchers. The Pollard letter didn’t acknowledge any error. Nor did it disclose that researchers had reported the issue to British medical regulators, who then told Oxford to add another test group to receive the full dose, in line with the trial’s original plan. Reuters shared the letter – which it obtained from the university through a Freedom of Information request – with three different experts in medical ethics. The ethicists all said it indicates the researchers may not have been transparent with trial participants. Volunteers in clinical trials are supposed to be kept fully informed about any changes.
The COVID-19 vaccine should change the way we think about obesity — I’m 24, I’m not an essential worker, and I’m in good health, so I assumed that I would be one of the last people to get the vaccine. As I filled in the pre-registration survey, one question listed several chronic conditions, including cancer, heart disease, kidney failure, sickle cell disease, smoking, and obesity, among others. I was asked to check a box if any of these conditions applied. My Body Mass Index (BMI) is over 30, meaning that I’m obese – so, I indicated on the survey that I did, indeed, have one of the chronic conditions listed. As a result, I was placed in the coveted “priority group 1C.” I felt guilty, like I was given a gift I didn’t deserve simply for existing in the body I’ve always had. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) determines obesity based on BMI, which was never intended to be a holistic metric of individual health. Still, as Johns Hopkins University health disparities researcher Dr. Michelle Ogunwole puts it, “It’s better than a coin flip. Obesity does increase your risk of diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and a host of other issues. But there are some people who have obesity, but don’t have any other medical problems.” Personal health is intimate, especially when it comes to something as stigmatized as our weight. I find it hard to articulate, especially on a COVID-19 pre-registration survey, that I can be fat, yet healthy – that weight is one indicator of health, but not the only indicator. When I discovered my priority group, I couldn’t help but feel unsettled that I’d get the vaccine sooner than 64-year-olds deemed “normal” by BMI, or immunocompromised people whose conditions aren’t considered a priority. I talked to health journalist Julia Métraux, 23, who has a rare form of systemic vasculitis. This chronic illness causes blood vessel inflammation, so if she were infected with the coronavirus, she could suffer serious complications. “[The CDC is] not going to look at my type of autoimmune disorder, because it’s rare,” she explains. “It’s frustrating. I couldn’t help but feel guilty that my weight would allow me to get vaccinated sooner than someone like Julia. But as a fat woman, guilt feels familiar. When we talk about who deserves to get vaccinated for a lethal, contagious virus first, it makes sense that people like me would feel conditioned to believe that we’ve been handed an undeserved gift. But after talking with several public health experts, I learned why obesity is included as a chronic condition.
Should You Worry About Covid Vaccine Side Effects? – Dr Aaron Carroll, video – As the vaccine to protect against Covid-19 continues to roll out to more and more people, interest in side effects is high. This can lead to lots of media coverage when people experience side effects, particularly when serious side effects occur. We’re here to talk about side effects and put some of these stories in context, which will hopefully leave less room for disiformation and scare tactics to be part of the conversation.
Far-right protesters temporarily shut down COVID-19 vaccinations at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles –On January 30, the mass COVID-19 vaccination site at Los Angeles’s Dodger Stadium, one of the largest in the United States, was shut down for about an hour by about 50 demonstrators who blocked the entrance. The group organizing the protest, Shop Mask Free Los Angeles, designated the event a “Scamdemic Protest/March” directed “against everything COVID, Vaccine, PCR Tests, Lockdowns, Masks, Fauci, Gates, Newsom, China, digital tracking, etc.” Participants were advised to “please refrain from wearing Trump/MAGA attire as we want our statement to resonate with the sheeple. No flags but informational signs only.” Signs included “END THE LOCKDOWN,” “COVID=SCAM,” “TAKE OFF YOUR MASK,” and “DON’T BE A LAB RAT.” As people sat in their vehicles waiting to be vaccinated, protesters shouted at them to turn around and tossed leaflets into open windows. Virtually none of the protesters wore a mask, even though the City of Los Angeles has ordered that all people outside of their homes must wear them. Shortly before 2:00 p.m., the Los Angeles Fire Department, which manages the vaccination site, announced that the demonstration was forcing their closure of the entrance to the stadium. Several Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers responded, but no arrests were made. Dating back at least to the Watts riots almost 60 years ago and continuing through the George Floyd-inspired antipolice violence demonstrations last summer, the LAPD has garnered an international reputation for repression of free speech and brutality. In this instance, however, the far-right demonstrators were allowed to disrupt a major public health operation by impeding the flow of traffic into the vaccination site while LAPD officers stood by and watched. Once the gates were reopened around 3:00 p.m. and protesters began to leave, one of the organizers thanked LAPD officers, who waved back. This demonstration was not unexpected. It was promoted publicly on social media for several days. The LAPD was not caught off guard. They deliberately chose not to act.
AstraZeneca vaccine slows virus transmission, researchers say –Initial testing of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, developed in partnership with Oxford University, shows that it slows virus transmission in addition to protecting recipients, researchers announced on Tuesday.Their study, which has not been peer-reviewed, indicated that the AstraZeneca vaccine could cut transmission by almost two-thirds.The research is the first to find evidence that a vaccine could cut down on coronavirus spread. Matt Hancock, the British health secretary, celebrated the initial research on Wednesday, telling the BBC that a vaccine that decreases transmission “will help us all get out of this pandemic.”The data analysis, which experts told The New York Times needs to be further confirmed, also determined that a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine was 76 percent effective at protecting a person from contracting COVID-19 90 days after it was administered. The results also suggested that the amount of time between the two doses affected the effectiveness. At least a three-month delay between doses resulted in 82 percent effectiveness, while efficacy dropped to 55 percent with less than six weeks between shots. Researchers noted that providing the doses three months apart “may be the optimal for rollout of a pandemic vaccine when supplies are limited in the short term.”
White House announces some COVID-19 vaccines will be sent directly to pharmacies –The Biden administration on Tuesday announced that it will begin providing COVID-19 vaccines directly to pharmacies around the country in an effort to expand access. The vaccines will be available in 6,500 pharmacies to start with, said Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator. Supplies will be limited at first, with 1 million vaccine doses per week given to pharmacies starting Feb. 11. In addition, the administration is increasing by 5 percent the vaccine doses given to states each week, to 10.5 million per week. That is on top of a 16 percent increase announced last week. The moves are part of a drumbeat of announcements from the Biden administration in its first weeks around the vaccine effort, a daunting challenge where officials are trying to demonstrate they are moving urgently to boost the number of vaccinations. Still, Zients was careful to temper expectations that far from everyone will be able to walk into a CVS for a vaccine in the near future. “This will be limited when it begins next week,” he said. Some pharmacies “may have very limited supply,” he added. As supply from the manufacturers increases, officials hope to expand the program, up to as many as 40,000 pharmacies nationwide. The increase in vaccine supply to states and the extra doses given directly to pharmacies are due to Moderna and Pfizer scaling up their production capabilities, Zients said. States across the country have been eager for more doses, saying they have capacity to administer more than they are currently getting, but manufacturing capacity is a limitation. Finally, the administration is increasing reimbursement to states for expenses like using the National Guard, dating back to the start of the pandemic last year. That totals $3 billion to $5 billion, which Zients said is a small share of the funding states need, and the administration is asking Congress for much more.
CDC director: COVID infections, hospitalizations falling – New coronavirus cases in the U.S. have fallen to pre-Thanksgiving levels, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Wednesday, and infection rates are continuing to decline. “We now appear to be in a consistent downward trajectory” for both cases and hospital admissions, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters during a White House COVID-19 briefing. Cases have declined since hitting a peak on Jan. 8, dropping 13.4 percent to an average of nearly 144,000 per day from Jan. 26 to Feb. 1, Walensky said. Deaths are continuing to increase, but the pace is slowing. Fatalities are a lagging indicator, so it will take time before they reflect the lower infection and hospitalization rates. “The recent decline in hospitalizations gives us hope that the number of deaths should start to decrease in the coming weeks,” Walensky said. The decreasing number of infections has led states and cities to begin rolling back some of the restrictions that have been in place since before the December holiday period, such as prohibitions on indoor dining. Despite the relatively positive news, infection numbers are still twice as high as the peak number of cases over the summer, and the U.S. is still averaging more than 3,000 deaths a day. Walensky cautioned Americans not to let their guard down, especially as variants that likely have increased transmissibility continue to multiply. Experts say the best way to prevent the spread of the variants is for people to follow basic public health precautions like avoiding large crowds, mask wearing and physical distancing, and to get vaccinated as soon as they are eligible. Walensky specifically warned against people gathering indoors in large groups for Super Bowl parties this weekend, saying that people should instead gather virtually or with immediate household members.
New Covid Cases Plunge 25% or More as Behavior Changes — A dozen states are reporting drops of 25% or more in new covid-19 cases and more than 1,200 counties have seen the same, federal data released Wednesday shows. Experts say the plunge may relate to growing fear of the virus after it reached record-high levels, as well as soaring hopes of getting vaccinated soon. Nationally, new cases have dropped 21% from the prior week, according to Department of Health and Human Services data, reflecting slightly more than 3,000 counties. Corresponding declines in hospitalization and death may take days or weeks to arrive, and the battle against the deadly virus rages on at record levels in many places. Health officials, data modeling experts and epidemiologists agreed it’s too early to see a bump from the vaccine rollout that started with health care workers in late December and has, in many states, moved on to include older Americans. Instead, they said, the factors involved are more likely behavior-driven, with people settling back home after the holidays, or reacting to news of hospital beds running out in places like Los Angeles. Others are finding the resolve to wear masks and physically distance with the prospect of a vaccine becoming more immediate. A single reason is hard to pinpoint, said Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs for the National Association of County and City Health Officials. She said it may be due in part to people hoping to avoid the new, more contagious variants of the virus, which some experts sayappear to be deadlier as well. She also said so many people got sick in the last surge that more people may be taking precautions: “There’s a better chance you know someone who had it,” Casalotti said. She also said the national trend, with even steeper drops in California, also reflects restrictions in that state, which included closing indoor dining and a 10 p.m. curfew in hard-hit regions. She said those measures take a few weeks to show up in new-case data. “It is a very unstable equilibrium at the moment,” Lee wrote in the email. “So any premature celebration would lead to another spike, as we have seen it time and again in the US.”
Dr. Michael Osterholm warns of massive spring surge of coronavirus in the US — In a recent interview on “Meet the Press,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of Joe Biden’s coronavirus transition team, warned that the United States had to prepare for a potentially massive surge that could hit the country in the next few weeks. Currently, there have been 26.8 million cases of COVID-19 reported and 453,000 deaths directly attributed to the virus. Since their peak in early January, cases have been declining to reach early December levels, with the seven-day moving average registering at 150,000 cases per day, a 32 percent decline over two weeks. Deaths are at their peak with over 3,300 per day on a seven-day moving average. It is expected that these will follow the decline in cases as they lag behind new infection numbers by two to three weeks. Cell phone data has shown a slowdown in the population’s movement since the holidays contributing to these trends. As hospitals and health care workers have seen a break in the punishing number of cases that have left them exhausted and shaken, governors and state officials are seizing on these trends to begin relaxing mitigation measures. For example, Michigan and Illinois have opened up indoor dining. Illinois will allow parties of 10 people to sit inside restaurants and bars. Foremost on the minds of politicians is seeing schools return to in-person education. However, attempts at bringing teachers back into schools are meeting with fierce opposition in Chicago. Speaking Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” former Biden adviser Dr. Michael Osterholm said, “We’re all loosening up right now. We all want to end our pandemic fatigue and our pandemic anger that don’t believe the pandemic’s even real. But we have got to turn that ship around, too. … As fast as we are opening restaurants, we’re likely to be closing them in the near term.” Having previously recommended keeping vaccinations on track with two-dose regimens per their schedule, Dr. Osterholm is now calling for giving as many people, especially the most vulnerable, one dose of the vaccine before the next surge that he said is surely coming. Dr. Osterholm voiced genuine concern that the spring wave will have a catastrophic impact on health care systems, worse than the winter surge, with peaks in hospitalizations reaching over 130,000 admissions. Recognizing that a lockdown is not forthcoming from this administration, he explained that even with the single dose’s reduced efficacy, it would help avert death and severe illness for those at the highest risk. The urgency to administer these vaccines immediately is paramount, he emphasized..
Nine-year-old schoolboy dies from COVID-19 in Texas – On Tuesday, January 29, 9-year-old J.J. Boatman of Vernon, Texas, died from COVID-19. His parents fear that he acquired the virus while at school, which he had attended the previous Friday, just four days prior to his death. As late as Sunday night, J.J. was playing at home and seemed in good health. J.J., who had celebrated his birthday earlier in January, died on the same day as another Texas child – a one-year-old in Tarrant County, the youngest person to die from COVID-19 in the county. These two deaths of young children were among 29 deaths in the county on that day alone. J.J.’s father, Jason Boatman, described his son as “the life of this house,” and told a local ABC News affiliate, “I can’t imagine living without that boy here.” Jason said that on Monday morning J.J was wheezing. After leaving for work, his son’s health took a turn for the worse. His wife Priscilla told him that J.J. was “purple, blue and screaming that he couldn’t breathe. He was yelling for help.” She rushed him to the local hospital in Vernon, where doctors performed CPR. They quickly made the decision to move him to a better-equipped hospital, and J.J. was flown to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth. Upon arriving, physicians determined that J.J.’s lungs were filled with fluid. They told his parents that his brain had swollen due to lack of oxygen, and that he had tested positive for COVID-19. Jason told the media, “The nurse came in and told me that his heart was failing, and that’s what happened.” The young boy was placed on a ventilator and died 12 hours later.
Missouri teen who beat cancer three times dies from COVID-19 –A Missouri teen who beat cancer three times has died from COVID-19 complications, her family said. Aspen Deke, 17, of Kansas City, succumbed to the virus Saturday following a months-long battle that began with her diagnosis in November, news station Fox4 reported. The high school junior had survived a rare form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer that impacts white blood cells. When she was diagnosed with cancer at age 4, she had been given a poor prognosis, the outlet said. But she went on to beat cancer three times after four rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, Fox4 reported. During her battle with coronavirus, she was admitted to Children’s Mercy Hospital, where she had been in the pediatric intensive care unit since New Year’s Eve. Her family said COVID-19 was in some ways more terrifying than her previous health woes. “At least with cancer, as bad as it sounds and it is scary, but there’s a lot that you know about it,” her father, Eric Deke, told the news station. “They can say, ‘This is how bad it is, this is what we are going to do. This is what we expect.’ But with this, everything is unknown.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 267 children have died since the beginning of the pandemic – accounting for less than 1 percent of total deaths.
Nine nuns die from COVID-19 outbreak in Michigan – Nine nuns died in January from a COVID-19 outbreak that struck their retirement home in southern Michigan, officials said. The women were retired from active ministry and lived at the campus of the Adrian Dominican Sisters in Adrian, 75 miles southwest of Detroit, news station WDIV reported. “We spent nine months keeping the coronavirus at bay. Right before Christmas, it slipped in,” Sister Pat Siemen told the outlet. But Siemen said the virus managed to infiltrate the home, despite the protocols in place. “It slips in. That’s the heartache of this virus,” Siemen said. “We’ve had no guests on campus. Our sisters have not seen their family members. They haven’t even seen our other sisters who live off campus since this started in the middle of March. And yet that virus is very sneaky.” The outbreak infected at least 48 of the more than 200 residents who live there. Most of the sisters who died were high risk for other health complications, Siemen said. The sisters – Dorothea Gramlich, 81, Helen Laier, 88, Jeannine Therese McGorray, 86, Charlotte Moser, 86, Esther Ortega, 86, Mary Lisa Rieman, 79, Ann Rena Shinkey, 87, Margaret Ann Swallow, 97, and Mary Irene Wischmeyer, 94 – died between January 11 and 26, WDIV reported. “It’s numbing,” Siemen said. “I have a much deeper appreciation for all of the other families who have gone through this. The hundreds of thousands of families. And until it personally touches you, I don’t care how much we can have a sympathetic heart, it’s different when you’ve been there and you’ve lost someone.”
Cases of COVID-19 in nursing homes have steadily fallen since the US rolled out vaccines, the latest data shows – New cases of COVID-19 in nursing homes dropped 45% in the four weeks following the first US vaccination, government data suggests.The latest government data on COVID-19 cases shows that new infections have steadily dropped in nursing homes since the US began rolling out vaccines. The US gave its first coronavirus vaccine on December 14 to critical care nurse Sandra Lindsay. That week, ended December 20, the US recorded more than 32,500 new cases in nursing homes, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data shows. That number has fallen every week since and for the week ended January 17, the most recent week for which data has been released, the US recorded 17,584 new cases. That is a drop of more than 45% in four weeks. The decline roughly mirrors a nationwide trend outside of nursing homes, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told The New York Times. Cases in nursing homes are driven by infections in the community, he said. But the fact that cases in nursing homes have dropped faster, and began dropping earlier, than the rest of the country suggests the vaccine rollout is having its desired effect, Jha said. Nursing home residents and staff have been among the first to receive their vaccinations: As of Saturday, more than 3.5 million vaccines have been given in nursing homes, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showed, per the Times. Nonetheless, the rollout has been slower than hoped, Jha told the Times. Once all nursing home residents are vaccinated, “then we should feel really confident that these declines will continue and we will not see a spike back up, even if we see one in the national picture,” he said. Long-term care facilities account for 5% of US COVID-19 cases but more than 35% of deaths, data compiled by the Times suggests.
February 2 COVID-19 Test Results and Vaccinations –Note: Bloomberg has great data on vaccinations. “In the U.S., more Americans have now received at least one dose than have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began. So far, 33.7 million doses have been given, according to a state-by-state tally. In the last week, an average of 1.32 million doses per day were administered.”Also check out the graphs at COVID-19 Vaccine Projections The site has several interactive graphs related to US COVID vaccinations including a breakdown of how many have had one shot, and how many have had both shots. The US is now averaging close to 2 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, for adequate test-and-trace (and isolation) to reduce infections, the percent positive needs to be under 5% (probably close to 1%), so the US has far too many daily cases – and percent positive – to do effective test-and-trace. There were 1,375,084 test results reported over the last 24 hours.There were 115,619 positive tests. Over 5,000 US deaths have been reported in February. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.And check out COVID Act Now to see how each state is doing. (updated link to new site) This graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported and daily hospitalizations. The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 8.4%. The percent positive is calculated by dividing positive results by total tests (including pending). It seems likely cases and hospitalizations have peaked, but are declining from a very high level.
Experts warn Hawaii on the brink of major outbreak and hospital overcrowding catastrophe – Despite its relatively low case numbers, the state of Hawaii is on the verge of a major COVID-19 outbreak which is just weeks away. The Healthcare Association of Hawaii warned Hawaii Public Radio on January 8 that by February 19 hospitals would reach full capacity, noting that hospitalizations were up by 77 percent in the previous two weeks. The warnings about a coming wave of cases has faced a near media blackout as the state pushes to reopen schools. The site Covidactnow.org, which tracks statistics, has labeled Maui as being on the verge of an outbreak with zero ICU capacity available. The Hawaii State Department of Health (DOH) reported 92 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the statewide total to 26,187. Significantly, Hawaii’s effective reproduction rate (Rt) was 1.12 according to data gathered from rt.live on January 27 – the second highest within the United States. This means that every infected person is spreading the virus to 1.12 other people. The data collection site rt.live is owned by Instagram, and recently stopped publicizing data. It projects a message on its page arguing that with the administration of vaccines, the Rt figure is no longer of value and that one should “never rely too heavily on a single metric.” The suspension of this aggregated data raises concern, particularly since the virus is still spreading out of control throughout the United States, and it remains undetermined to what degree the vaccines – which have so far only been administered to a small segment of the population – slow the spread of infection in the population. Adding to the concern is the February 2 announcement by DOH officials that analysis pointed to the possible spread of the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 UK variant in Hawaii. The DOH says it will release definitive proof by the end of this week once the genome sequencing is completed. However, state officials and the media have sought to downplay the news and insist that no changes to current health and safety protocols are necessary at this time. Just last week, Hawaii acting epidemiologist, Dr. Sarah Kemble, announced that scientists have also detected a variant associated with California outbreaks among seven patients on Oahu, one on Maui and one on Kauai, proving that opening travel to and from the mainland has resulted in increased infections. In mid-October, Hawaii arbitrarily reduced its quarantine period from 14 to 10 days, allowing travelers with a 72-hour-old negative coronavirus test to bypass quarantining altogether. Traveling to Oahu from another Hawaiian island requires no test nor a quarantine. Significantly, all four COVID-19 deaths reported on Wednesday were from Oahu.
February 4 COVID-19 Test Results and Vaccinations – Note: The Covid Tracking Project will end daily updates on March 7th. Heroes that filled a critical void! Quality government data will be available soon. From Bloomberg on vaccinations as of Feb 4th. “In the U.S., more Americans have now received at least one dose than have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began. So far, 32.7 million doses have been given, according to a state-by-state tally. In the last week, an average of 1.34 million doses per day were administered.” Also check out the graphs at COVID-19 Vaccine Projections The site has several interactive graphs related to US COVID vaccinations including a breakdown of how many have had one shot, and how many have had both shots.The US is now averaging close to 1.5 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, for adequate test-and-trace (and isolation) to reduce infections, the percent positive needs to be under 5% (probably close to 1%), so the US has far too many daily cases – and percent positive – to do effective test-and-trace. There were 1,678,444 test results reported over the last 24 hours.There were 123,907 positive tests.Almost 14,000 US deaths have been reported in February. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.And check out COVID Act Now to see how each state is doing. (updated link to new site) This graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported and daily hospitalizations.The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 7.4%. The percent positive is calculated by dividing positive results by total tests (including pending). It seems likely cases and hospitalizations have peaked, but are declining from a very high level.
US records record 5,077 COVID deaths after audit — The US recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic Thursday – tallying 5,077 COVID-19 deaths and exceeding the previous pandemic peak set in January by more than 600, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The staggering death toll appears to be largely due to a backlog of data released Wednesday from Indiana, which identified 1,507 more cases since the beginning of the pandemic, the Guardian reported. The previous record was set on Jan. 12 when 4,466 coronavirus deaths were recorded. Indiana Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box said the deaths – including 302 since the beginning of the year – were found during a year-end audit of coronavirus deaths, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported that the newly identified deaths will be added to the state’s tally of about 9,700 COVID-19 fatalities. “This isn’t going to be the last time we audit. And by the way, I would suggest 49 other states continue to do regular audits,” said Gov. Eric J. Holcomb, according to the news outlet. On Thursday, 122,473 new cases of the virus also were recorded, down from the previous daily high of 300,282 from Jan. 2, JHU data shows. However, cases and hospital admissions are on a downward trend, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a Friday White House COVID task force briefing.Walenksy said cases were down 61% on Wednesday, which saw about 121,000 new infections, since the peak on January 8. “Similarly, the number of new hospital admissions reported on February 2, approximately 10,500, was down nearly 42% since the hospitalization peak of 18,000 reported on January 5,” Walensky explained. Deaths also appear “to be slowing,” Walenksy continued, citing a seven day average showing a 6.7% decline in fatalities from January 28 through February 3, which doesn’t include Thursday’s record-breaking death count.
Virginia surpasses 500,000 COVID-19 cases: A product of the “herd immunity” policies of the state’s Democratic Party government – Late last month, Virginia topped 500,000 COVID-19 cases. According to an InsideNoVa report from January 31, the state has increased its count from 400,000 earlier in the month. Indicative of the acceleration of sickness as states across the country recklessly reopen schools and businesses, the report notes that this happened within a span of 19 days. According to the Virginia Department of Health, the state has registered nearly 520,000 cases. Additionally, there have been over 6,500 deaths since March. Based on the current rate of new infections, the state will most likely record 600,000 cases before the end of the month. This situation will be exacerbated by the homicidal policy of reopening schools now being spearheaded by the Democratic Party. According to a local Fox News affiliate, Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam stated, “All of our school divisions need to be making plans about how to reopen schools” in the near future. In the heavily populated suburbs of northern Virginia there have been almost 92,000 cases of COVID-19. Fairfax County, where officials have announced plans to reopen K-8 schools on February 16, has had almost 39,000 cases, resulting in over 600 deaths. On Thursday, Alexandria City Public Schools officials announced they too would plan to reopen classes to their 16,000 students on February 16. This follows both Fairfax County and Loudoun County, which combine for a total of 270,000 students between them. Arlington County recently announced plans to keep its students online, with Superintendant Francisco Durfln stating case numbers exceeded the county’s “highest risk” category. The push for reopening occurs as the vaccination effort in the state has broken down. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that “wait lists for vaccine appointments grow[s] by the thousands each day in some jurisdictions” in Maryland and Virginia. The latter state “ranked among the worst performing states in getting doses out.” Even as Northam has demanded schools reopen in Virginia’s most populated areas, last week Fairfax County was forced to suspend shots for educators slated to return for in-person instruction. According to a model from the University of Virginia Biocomplexity Institute cited in the InsideNoVa report, the state will most likely see tens of thousands of cases in the coming period, peaking at 98,000 cases this month. This peak would be three to four times the current caseload. The UVA report stated that “[c]old weather, time indoors, and pandemic fatigue, spurred by holiday travel and gatherings, increase the risk of transmission.” According to the report, viral spread will increase by 15 percent if weather remains cold. This would mean “total COVID-19 cases in Virginia [would increase] to 700,000, or 10 percent of the state’s population” by midyear.
Tennessee reports record-high 203 new COVID-19 deaths on Friday – – The Tennessee Department of Health reported 101 new COVID-19 cases, seven new deaths, and 159 new inactive/recovered cases in Northeast Tennessee while the state reported a record 203 new deaths statewide on Friday. Over the last seven days, Northeast Tennessee has added 864 new cases. During the seven days prior, the region reported 1,066 new cases. There have been 47,108 cases reported in Northeast Tennessee since the pandemic began. Over the last seven days, Northeast Tennessee has reported 59 new deaths. During the previous seven-day period, 55 deaths were reported. There have been 916 deaths reported in Northeast Tennessee since the pandemic began. There are currently 1,467 active cases in Northeast Tennessee, down 65 from yesterday. This marks the fifth day of declining active cases. The current number of active cases is the lowest since Oct. 14.
Covid Road to Hell Paved with Good Intentions – Access to COVID-19 vaccines for many developing countries and most of their people will have to wait as the powerful and better off secure earlier access regardless of need or urgency. More profits, by manufacturing scarcity, will surely cause even more loss of both lives and livelihoods. To induce private efforts to develop and distribute vaccines, the WHO initiated COVAX to ensure more equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. However, interest by vaccine companies has been limited, while some governments – especially from better-off upper middle-income countries – pursue other options.COVAX has been co-led with GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). Buoyed by their earlier success with advance market commitments (AMC), they have extended the same approach in very different circumstances.AMC was originally conceived to induce the development of vaccines for ‘neglected diseases’. Such infectious diseases remain threats in poor countries and among poor people. Hence, prospective sales revenue was believed to be too small for needed investments by profit-seeking vaccine companies.By guaranteeing and subsidising sales, the AMC effectively promises the vaccine developer to make the research and development effort profitable, typically with early payments and subsidies to enhance the inducement.In the Covid-19 pandemic context, however, the COVAX AMC is not a ‘white knight’ coming to the rescue of an orphaned, typically tropical disease. Instead, it competes with other buyers, mostly of greater means.To put it bluntly, the Covid-19 pandemic context is quite different from the ‘neglected diseases’ problem which the AMC was conceived to address, i.e., contemporary Western R&D efforts presumed to be driven primarily, if not exclusively by the prospect of profits.The highly infectious ‘aerosol-borne’ virus quickly achieved a global reach. Apparently more likely to be lethal with advancing age, mass vulnerability to infection ensured a broad, inclusive, international market for Covid-19 vaccines from the outset. Recognising the extent and impact of the pandemic threat, vaccine developers expect to sell their vaccines very profitably. They made advance sales to many rich-country governments, rather than, or even while committing to COVAX. Unsurprisingly in these circumstances, the COVAX AMC approach has not worked well, let alone equitably.
China sending 10M vaccine doses to developing nations – China’s government announced Wednesday that it plans to deliver 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to developing nations around the world as part of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVAX program.The Associated Press reported that the announcement was made at a press briefing held by China’s Foreign Ministry. It wasn’t initially clear if the plan includes a monetary incentive for China or whether Beijing would donate the vaccines.“We hope countries in the international community with the capability will swing into action, support COVAX through practical actions, support the work of the World Health Organization, assist developing countries in obtaining vaccines in a timely manner and contribute to … conquering the pandemic at an early date,” said Weng Wenbin, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, according to the AP.Two Chinese companies have manufactured COVID-19 vaccines that are on the market, though just one is approved for emergency use within China’s borders currently, the news service noted. The two vaccines are seen as slightly less effective in preventing infections than other Western-made variants, but have fewer storage requirements, thus allowing them to be transported easier. Cold storage requirements for vaccines such as the one manufactured by Pfizer and BioNTech were seen as hurdles standing in the way of delivering and distributing the vaccine to remote areas, particularly in countries where infrastructure is lacking. The Trump administration declined to join COVAX, the WHO’s global effort to distribute vaccines to low-income nations, last year, but officials in President Biden’s administration last month indicated that they will join the effort.
Macron: AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine seems to be ‘quasi-ineffective’ for over 65s – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine appeared not to be effective for people over 65 years of age. Speaking to reporters only hours before the European Medecines Agency (EMA) recommended the vaccine for adults of all ages, Macron said there was “very little information” available for the vaccine developed by the British-Swedish company and Oxford University. “Today we think that it is quasi-ineffective for people over 65,” he told the reporters, his office confirmed to AFP. “What I can tell you officially today is that the early results we have are not encouraging for 60 to 65-year-old people concerning AstraZeneca,” he said. Macron said he was awaiting the EMA’s verdict – which came later Friday – and also that of France’s own health authority “because they have the numbers”. The French expert decision on the vaccine is expected at the start of next week, according to sources close to the health authority. “I don’t have any data, and I don’t have a scientific team of my own to look at the numbers,” Macron acknowledged. Meanwhile, Germany’s vaccine commission on Friday maintained its advice against using AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccines on older people. “The reason is because there is currently insufficient data on the effectiveness of the vaccines on people above 65 years old,” said the commission known as STIKO. The advice by the panel of medical experts will be taken into account by the government as it officially draws up its decree on usage of the vaccine. The discussion about the right target age group for the vaccine has compounded controversy surrounding AstraZeneca’s vaccine. The European Commission Friday published a redacted version of its contract with the drugs giant, hoping to prove the company had breached a commitment on vaccine deliveries. Brussels is furious with the pharmaceuticals company after it warned that it would only be able to deliver a fraction of the doses the EU had been expecting once the vaccine is approved for use in the bloc.
The right to breathe: COVID-19 and the scarcity of medicinal oxygen for the developing world – The singularly most important treatment for patients with severe COVID-19 is medicinal oxygen. However, this life-saving treatment is not ubiquitous as it has tragically been shown. Recent reports that oxygen supplies were exhausted in Manaus, Brazil, and Egypt, while patients suffocated in their pulmonary fluid, shocked the world that a lack of oxygen so plentiful in the world could be in short supply. Patients with severe or critical COVID-19 cannot get enough oxygen into their bloodstream by simply breathing in room air. They need a higher concentration of oxygen and support to get it into their lungs to survive. But these particular types of equipment and supplies are lacking in much of the developed world. The oxygen demand is so high in COVID-19 patients that even the United States, the wealthiest nation on the planet, took stock of the oxygen crisis that put Los Angeles hospitals in extremis in the first week of January when hospitals were overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases.The first month of the new year was horrifically brutal. There were 18.75 million new cases of COVID-19 and over 400,000 further deaths worldwide. The most recent global tally stands at 103.3 million cases of COVID-19 and 2.23 million deaths. During the initial onslaught, many patients with low blood oxygen levels were immediately placed on ventilators, leading to difficulties weaning them off the breathing device and extensive lung injury from the high pressures that had to be used. The move to delivering oxygen through helmets, masks and nasal tubes shifted the survival curves. Patients found to be stable are now being sent home from hospitals with portable oxygen canisters and asked to monitor their symptoms and oxygen levels with affordable pulse-oximeters. The rate of hospitalized COVID-19 patients on ventilators has declined from a high of 18.6 percent in March to 1.5 percent in September. Additionally, the use of blood thinners and steroids have contributed significantly to survival. But, as witnessed over the winter surge, the health system’s lack of capacity, despite these measures, increased the fatality rate. In countries with direly limited health resources, a rapid rise in cases can be catastrophic. A report published last week in the Wall Street Journal notes, “As COVID-19 cases increase sharply in much of the world, a scarcity of oxygen is forcing hospitals to ration it for patients and is driving up the coronavirus pandemic’s death toll. The problem is especially acute in the developing world.”
Flu cases ‘almost completely wiped out’ this winter in England, but COVID-19 continues to soar – As coronavirus cases continue to surge in England this winter, the number of people suffering from flu has plunged to levels not seen in more than 130 years, experts told the Sunday Times.Medical experts said flu appears to have been “almost completely wiped out” after rates plummeted by a whopping 95%.According to data obtained by the Times, the number of those who reported influenza-like illnesses to their GPs was 1.1 per 100,000 people, compared to a five-year average rate of 27.The data comes from the second week of January, which is normally the peak time of the influenza season in which thousands of people are hospitalized.The number of hospital admissions in England for flu was zero as of mid-January.”I cannot think of a year this has happened,” Simon de Lusignan, a professor of primary care at the University of Oxford told the Times. John McCauley, director of the World Health Organization’s collaborating center in London told the Times that the collapse in numbers was “unprecedented.”But while this might be good news overall, some scientists who are developing a vaccine for next year’s flu season are struggling because of the few samples they now have to work on. “It’s a nightmare to work out what comes next,” said McCauley. “If you have flu away for a year, then immunity will have waned. It could come back worse.”Experts have previously said that flu rates have been lower this yeardue to ongoing lockdown restrictions and social distancing measures.The low flu numbers in the country offer a stark difference to its coronavirus cases.
Portugal records worst rate of Covid-19 cases in the world – The people of Portugal are suffering the terrible fate of leading the world in terms of new coronavirus infections and deaths. Around 15,000 new infections and 250 deaths per 1 million inhabitants occurred last month, compared to the European Union (EU) average of 4,200 and 103. A record 16,432 new cases and 303 deaths from the virus were reported on January 28. In the month of January alone, nearly half of the 726,321 infections and 12,757 deaths since the start of the pandemic were reported. Hospitals across the country of just over 10 million people are reportedly on the verge of collapse, with ambulances queuing for hours due to the lack of beds. The Garcia de Horta Hospital in Almada is operating at more than 300 percent of its capacity. Socialist Party (PS) Health Minister Marta Temido admitted, “We are putting all means to work in all sectors, but there is a limit. And we are very close to the limit.” Last Friday, Portugal’s air force flew three critically ill COVID-19 patients from Lisbon to the island of Madeira, where there are spare hospital beds. On Sunday, Austria agreed to take Portuguese intensive-care patients and Germany agreed to airlift military medics, paramedics and equipment. International flights have been curtailed and Portugal’s sole land border with Spain closed. The newly re-elected conservative President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, warned that the lockdown announced in mid-January in response to the surge in infections and deaths would probably last until the end of March and possibly into the summer. PS Prime Minister, António Costa, told reporters that the situation was not just “bad” but “terrible”: “There’s no point in feeding the illusion that we are not facing the worst moment. And we’ll face this worst moment for a few more weeks, that is for sure.” Costa said the reason for the surge in infections was his government’s relaxation of restrictive measures at Christmas and the appearance of a more infectious COVID-19 variant first detected in Britain. In a de facto warning to the working class throughout Europe, experts estimate the British variant accounts for up to 40 percent of all new cases. There has also been an increase in a new variant from Brazil, a former colony, the people of which still have close connections with Portugal. But Costa sought to shift his government’s responsibility for continuing the chronic underfunding of Portugal’s public health system (SNS), saying it was down to his confusing “messages”.
Europe nears 750,000 COVID-19 deaths as governments move to end lockdown restrictions -The European continent, including Russia and Ukraine, is approaching the horrific toll of three quarters of a million deaths due to COVID-19. As of Friday evening, 729,201 people had already perished. Total infections passed 31 million in Europe on Tuesday, with over 180,000 new cases recorded daily on Wednesday and Thursday this week. In the UK, there have been over 111,000 deaths, in Italy 90,618, in France 77,952, in Russia 75,732, in Germany 61,161 and in Spain 61,386. These deaths are measured by governments based on various criteria but are around 20 percent lower than the real figure, according to a study of excess deaths by Nature magazine, meaning that Europe may be closer to a million deaths. Around 5,000 people a day are dying in Europe and the pandemic is undergoing a dramatic resurgence in parts of the continent. The mass loss of life continues amid escalating moves to end lockdown and restrictions by governments. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has announced a “roadmap” out of its current limited lockdown, beginning February 22 – with around 20,000 new infections announced daily and an average of over 1,000 deaths. Lockdowns are being ended in the knowledge that not only are new and more deadly variants of the virus developing, including the UK’s B117, but they continue to infect, and at a higher rate. On Friday, a million people in Liverpool, Preston and Lancashire in the North West of England were advised to get a Covid test, including for a far wider range of symptoms than the original strain, with more than 100 cases of a new mutated strain (E484K) of the virus detected in the region. In some countries, B117, first detected only last September, has become the dominant variant. In the last week, 1,854 lives have been lost to Covid in Portugal, an average of 264 a day. By Wednesday, over the previous seven days, almost 850 new coronavirus cases were recorded for every 100,000 inhabitants. Last month, Portugal recorded the worst rate of per capita COVID-19 new infections in the world. According to health authorities, 43 percent of the country’s overall COVID-19 infections and 44 percent of all related deaths were recorded in January alone. Hospitals are unable to offer care for those sick and dying of Covid, with Deutsche Welle reporting Wednesday that with the “country’s intensive care units (ICUs) already treating around 850 patients there are almost no vacant beds for the treatment of severe new coronavirus cases.” “Approximately 6,700 other patients are being looked after in normal hospital wards and triage tents have even been erected outside some hospitals. Here doctors decide which patients to treat first on the basis of oxygen levels and body temperature. Field hospitals, too, are being speedily set up to take in more sick people.”
The Latest: Mexico sees near-record daily coronavirus deaths – Mexico reported a near-record 1,707 confirmed coronavirus deaths Wednesday, as the country runs out of vaccines. The Health Department reported Mexico’s COVID-19 deaths now total 161,240, and confirmed infections rose by 12,153 to nearly 1.89 million. Estimates based on excess-death statistics suggest the real death toll is over 195,000. Mexico approved Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine Tuesday, but has not yet signed a purchase contract and does not have a firm date for its first delivery. The government had hoped to get 400,000 doses by the end of February. Mexico has received about 766,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and has administered about 686,000 shots, with much of the remainder set aside for second doses. The next Pfizer shipment is not expected until mid-February. Meanwhile, the government website set up to register people for vaccines when they do arrive was overwhelmed and inoperable for a second straight day.
The Coronavirus Vaccine Fail and International Elites – Dean Baker – The vaccine rollout process has been painfully slow in the United States. More than 40 days after the first vaccine was approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration, just over 6.0 percent of our population has been vaccinated. And that is with just the first shot, very few having gotten the two shots needed to hit the targeted levels of immunity. Thankfully the pace of the vaccination program is picking up, both as kinks are worked out and now that we have an administration that cares about getting people vaccinated.But we still have to ask why the process has been so slow. We have an obvious answer in the United States, the Trump administration basically said that distribution wasn’t its problem. As Donald Trump once tweeted, he considered the distribution process the responsibility of the states and gave the order “get it done.” If we can explain the failure to have more rapid distribution in the United States on Trump’s Keystone Cops crew, what explains the failures in other wealthy countries? As bad as the U.S. has done so far, we have vaccinated a larger share of our population than any country in Europe with the exception of the United Kingdom. That’s right, countries like Denmark, France, and even Germany have done worse in vaccinating their populations than the United States. And these countries ostensibly have competent leaders and all have national health care systems. Nonetheless, they have done worse far worse in the case of France and Germany, than Donald Trump’s clown show. The pandemic is a worldwide crisis, that requires a worldwide solution. This is a classic case where there are enormous benefits from collective action and few downsides. This is not a case, like seizing oil or other natural resources, where if the United States gets more, everyone else gets less and vice-versa. Sharing knowledge about vaccines, treatments, and best practices for prevention is costless and the whole world benefits if the pandemic can be contained as quickly as possible. This point is being driven home as new strains develop through mutation, which may spread more quickly and possibly be more deadly and vaccine-resistant. The logical path would have been to open-source all research on treatments and vaccines, both so that progress could be made as quickly as possible, and also intellectual property rights would not be an obstacle to large-scale production throughout the world. This would have required some collective agreement where countries agreed to both put up some amount of research funding, presumably based on size and per capita income, and also that all findings, including results from clinical trials, would be quickly posted on the web. This way, the information would be quickly shared so that researchers and public health experts everywhere could benefit. The big problem, of course, is that going this route of open-source research and international cooperation could call into question the merits of patent monopoly financing of prescription drug research. After all, if publicly funded open-source research proved to be the best mechanism for financing the development of drugs and vaccines in a pandemic, maybe this would be the case more generally. And, no one in a position of power in American politics wanted to take this risk of a bad example.
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