The antibody deception

‘Virtually every study and piece of marketing material related to Covid is premised on scientists having positively and correctly identified the presence of the novel coronavirus (also known as SARS-CoV-2) in the material they’re working with.

‘The job of that identification is usually given to antibodies that are said to bind to the novel coronavirus. The assumption is these antibodies are able to pick out the virus and only the virus from among every other organism and substance surrounding it.

‘Unfortunately it turns out that the antibodies rarely (if ever) do that. This is because of, among other things, inadequate verification of the antibodies’ accuracy in targeting the virus by the companies that manufacture and sell them. And there’s even less verification by government regulators.’

Read here (OffGuardian, Mar 6, 2021)

Multitude of coronavirus variants found in the US — but the threat is unclear

‘For the scientists who have spent the past year poring over hundreds of thousands of coronavirus genomes, the United States has been an enigma. Despite having world-leading genome sequencing infrastructure and experiencing more COVID infections than any other country, the United States has until recently lagged far behind in sequencing coronavirus genomes and spotting worrisome variants.

‘But in recent weeks, US researchers have identified a host of new variants, including in California, New York State, Louisiana and elsewhere. And they are continuing to ramp up SARS-CoV-2 sequencing efforts.

‘That has brought another challenge: making sense of the variants that are discovered. They carry potentially worrying mutations and might be becoming more common, but a dearth of data on how the variants are spreading means the threat they pose is unclear.’

Read here (Nature, Mar 6, 2021)

From Pfizer to Moderna: Who's making billions from Covid-19 vaccines?

‘Among the biggest winners will be Moderna and Pfizer – two very different US pharma firms which are both charging more than $30 per person for the protection of their two-dose vaccines. While Moderna was founded just 11 years ago, has never made a profit and employed just 830 staff pre-pandemic, Pfizer traces its roots back to 1849, made a net profit of $9.6bn last year and employs nearly 80,000 staff.

‘But other drugmakers, such as the British-Swedish AstraZeneca and the US pharma Johnson & Johnson, have pledged to provide their vaccines on a not-for-profit basis until the pandemic comes to an end.’

Also carried in this story are: Sinovac, Sputnik V, Novavax, CureVac 

Read here (The Guardian, Mar 6, 2021)

The political economy of Covid-19 vaccines

‘Vaccine grabs, the refusal to relax patents to enable mass production, and the use of vaccines for diplomacy run the risk that poorer nations may not be protected against Covid-19 quickly enough. This will prolong the pandemic, even for the richer nations.’

Read here (The India Forum, Mar 5, 2021)

I’m alive today because of our healthcare frontliners! — Joseph Ong See Sung

‘While at the hospital, I also made many friends among the patients. I was touched by what I saw. Everyone in the ward was helping one another. There was no racial barrier. Everyone took turns to look out for one another. I told myself — this should be the Malaysia that we should have, not one that’s divisive and ruined by people with selfish interests! 

‘I saw one very filial son who was with his father. Both had Covid-19. But this young man, despite being down with the virus, made all efforts to care for his father, who even suffered a stroke there! 

‘Every minute of my waking hour there, I saw people putting aside their personal and ethnic differences to help anyone within their sight! It warmed my heart and spurred me to get better so that I can tell the outside world that people were so caring at the hospitals. Both frontliners and patients! Why can’t more people be like that?’

Read here (Malay Mail, Mar 5, 2021)

The secret weapon [abolishing factory farming] against pandemics that nobody wants to talk about | Alex O'Connor

‘Alex O’Connor is a prominent podcaster, YouTuber and student at the University of Oxford. In his TEDx talk, Alex puts forward the case against factory farming, not only based on ethical concerns, but also by exploring how factory farms can become breeding grounds for Zoonotic viruses.’

View here (TedTalk, Youtube, Mar 5, 2021)

Germany approves AstraZeneca vaccine for over-65s

‘Germany's vaccine commission has approved the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab in people aged over 65. The country previously approved it for under-65s only, citing insufficient data on its effects on older people. That led to public scepticism about its effectiveness, with some Germans spurning it and leaving many doses unused.

‘But German Chancellor Angela Merkel said recent studies had now provided enough data to approve it for all ages. Announcing the commission's decision on Thursday, Health Minister Jens Spahn said the move was "good news for older people who are waiting for an injection".’

Read here (BBC, Mar 5, 2021) 

Finding an ultimate vaccine to fight the mutating “emperor” virus

‘We are commenting on the shocking CNN website report (March 2), headlined “All our recent progress with COVID-19 could be wiped out by variants, CDC director says”. The first two paragraphs (below) are enough to sum up the CNN report: “The US is at risk of losing all its recent gains in the battle against COVID-19 as highly contagious variants take advantage of Americans getting lax with safety measures... “Please hear me clearly: At this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” said Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the US centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”...

‘With new variants, serious doubts are suggested by the CNN report on whether this “vaccine” [mRNA], the first in the global market, would work, even if safety factor is put aside. Nevertheless, there are safe and workable vaccines, using tried and tested technologies like using inactivated or attenuated virus from nature to stimulate the body to produce anti-body response. Even the adenovirus viral vector technology, tried and tested for Ebola, appears to be safer than mRNA.

‘There are also safe and good alternatives, like the anti-viral “broad spectrum” drug Ivermectin, which can destroy the new variants. In the meantime, it is vital that we improve our body immunity against COVID-19 by taking Vitamin C with zinc, Vitamin D, minerals and trace elements needed, explore proven traditional and complimentary medicines, and maintain established standard operating procedures (SOPs) of physical distancing, wearing surgical masks and personal hygiene in public places.’

Read here (Focus Malaysia, Mar 4, 2021)

China’s vaccine diplomacy falls flat in the Philippines

‘The Philippines has finally kicked off its Covid-19 vaccine rollout with much-publicized donations from China but rising controversies around the rollout will prevent Beijing from declaring a “vaccine diplomacy” win.

‘China recently delivered 600,000 doses of the vaccine developed by the Beijing-based company Sinovac Biotech and frontliners across the country are set to be among the primary beneficiaries. The drive kicks off as the Philippines grapples with one of the region’s worst outbreaks and steepest economic recessions caused by extended lockdowns.’

Read here (Asia Times, Mar 4, 2021)

Fighting the medical monopoly: Mobilising for Zero-Covid and decommodified healthcare

‘As I have discussed in an article on Interferon 2b and Cuba’s other treatments for COVID-19, decommodified universal healthcare is the alternative to monopoly-driven healthcare ravaging countries around the globe. Not for profit production and delivery of all health related goods responding to general and specific human needs of the majority of any given country is the only means to assure quality health for all, in pandemic as well as non-pandemic times.

‘More concretely, decommodified universal healthcare is ecologically sound, public sector production of everything from food to psychological support, medicines to medical technology, and medical care. Rather than results based management and other corporate models adopted by most state owned enterprises globally in the past four decades, such public production would be designed and managed democratically by citizens, health professionals, scientists, and the range of other workers involved.

‘Taxation of corporations and rich individuals would be the primary means of financing decommodified universal healthcare. Due to the social importance of health related goods, and high employment potential given the extent of need in most countries around the globe, decommodified universal healthcare would constitute a significant segment of needs based, ecologically sound, nationally focused economies.’

Read here (The Bullet, Mar 4, 2021)

Without official vaccine guidance, pregnant people are left to do their own research

‘The lack of clear guidance around pregnancy has ripple effects. Despite abundant evidence that the vaccines are safe for lactating parents and their babies, last month the Chicago Tribune reported that a new mom who was breastfeeding was denied the COVID-19 vaccine by her county’s health department. Officials said they decided not to allow pregnant or lactating women to receive the vaccine, citing a lack of data.

‘Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccinologist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told me he was appalled by the mixed messaging around vaccines in pregnancy, which he said leaves patients “reading the tea leaves.” The government “has not made a good faith effort to take down the anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation,” he said. “So by telling a pregnant woman to do her own research online means you’re basically telling her not to get vaccinated.”

Read here (Mother Jones, Mar 4, 2021)

Effect of ivermectin on time to resolution of symptoms among adults with mild Covid-19: A randomised clinical trial

‘In this randomized clinical trial that included 476 patients, the duration of symptoms was not significantly different for patients who received a 5-day course of ivermectin compared with placebo (median time to resolution of symptoms, 10 vs 12 days; hazard ratio for resolution of symptoms, 1.07).

‘The findings do not support the use of ivermectin for treatment of mild COVID-19, although larger trials may be needed to understand effects on other clinically relevant outcomes.’

Read here (JamaNetwork, Mar 4, 2021)

India's Covid vaccine wins over some sceptics after promising data

‘Indian doctors and politicians on Thursday welcomed efficacy data for a state-backed coronavirus vaccine that was given emergency approval in January without the completion of a late-stage trial, making people reluctant to receive the shot.

‘Government data shows (dashboard.cowin.gov.in) that only 10% of about 13.3 million people immunised in India have taken the COVAXIN shot, which was found to be 81% effective in an interim analysis of the late-stage trial, its developer Bharat Biotech said on Wednesday.’

Read here (Reuters, Mar 4, 2021)

Covid year: Topsy-turvy and gains

‘What should spring up eternally is compassion, tolerance, humility and other qualities that would unite us in this beloved land no matter what our ethnic or religious affiliations...

‘Any change in societal or personal lives is influenced by gender, social class, race, culture, age and other variables. I can only speak as a 73-year-old woman, former academic, Christian and Malaysian-Chinese, and post-polio person. Each facet of our multi-layered identity will be affected in different degrees by this season of Covid-19.’

Read here (Aliran, Mar 4, 2021)

How Covid-19 vaccine efforts could help defeat other diseases

• A proposed way of immunizing against malaria uses an RNA-based approach similar to COVID-19 vaccines.
• ‘Viral vector’ methods used to stem the pandemic could also yield vaccines for other purposes.
• COVID-19 vaccination achievements could be applied to diseases that kill millions of people annually.

Read here (World Economic Forum, Mar 4, 2021)

Why has P1 appeared? Heads it wins, tails we lose?

‘You may already know that viruses mutate, that this is normal and these small changes to the virus’s genetic code are to be expected. Well, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean they’re always harmless. Many mutations will be irrelevant, and some will make a virus weaker and will die out. But others will make it fitter, giving it an advantage over other variants and allowing it to out-compete them.

‘As people socially distance, observe stricter personal hygiene and wear masks, it becomes an advantage for the virus to be more transmissible. Similarly, as more people around the world gain immunity through being infected or vaccinated, another advantage would be for the virus to change so that antibodies can no longer attach to it and prevent it from infecting cells.

‘It’s therefore not surprising to see variants with mutations that provide these advantages now out-competing other forms of the coronavirus. Control measures and rising immunity are pressuring the coronavirus to evolve.’

Read here (The Conversation, Mar 3, 2021)

As the world vies for vaccines, Cuba’s making its own

‘Cuba may be on the verge of a coronavirus vaccine breakthrough and not a moment too soon, as deaths and cases spike on the communist-run island.

‘Starting in March, two of the island's four homegrown vaccine candidates will begin their third and final trials, the Cuban government has announced. While other developing countries compete with richer nations for a limited supply of doses, Cuba has gambled everything on producing their own vaccines, as much an exercise in national pride as a response to a public health crisis.’

Read here (CNN, Mar 3, 2021)

US Catholic group tells followers to avoid Johnson & Johnson vaccine

‘An American Catholic church body on Tuesday urged its followers to avoid the coronavirus vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson, alleging that it was “developed, tested and produced using abortion-derived cell lines.”

‘The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) urged Catholics to choose between the alternatives offered by Pfizer and Moderna because the J&J vaccine raised questions about “moral permissibility.”

“The approval of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine for use in the United States again raises questions about the moral permissibility of using vaccines developed, tested, and/or produced with the help of abortion-derived cell lines,” said Bishop Kevin C Rhoades, chairman of USCCB.’

Read here (Independent, Mar 3, 2021) 

‘A conflict of interest mars paper on Ayurvedic Covid drug Coronil – and it should be retracted’

‘Yoga guru Baba Ramdev and his FMCG company Patanjali Ayurved have recently been in the news for advancing a supposedly Ayurvedic drug named Coronil as the “first evidence-based medicine” for COVID-19. But despite the dubiety of this claim, Coronil has been approved for sale by the Government of India on the sole basis of a scientific paper, published in the journal Phytomedicine in February 2021.

‘A previous article discussed the wobbly assertions in the paper and their mismatch with Patanjali’s conclusion that Coronil has been properly tested or that it is efficacious. But there is another bit of detail that may disqualify the paper’s publication itself. In the paper’s ‘Declaration of Competing Interest’ section, the authors say:

“Authors declare no conflict of interests with regards to the submitted work. The medications were provided by Divya Pharmacy, Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India. Acharya Balkrishna is an honorary trustee in Divya Yog Mandir Trust. Besides, providing the medications, Divya Pharmacy was not involved in any aspect of the clinical trial reported in this study. Clinical trial was conducted at National Institute of Medical Sciences, Jaipur, India.”

Read here (Science TheWire, Mar 3, 2021)

Science and society are failing children in the Covid Era

‘In spite of the increasingly polarized debate about school reopenings, community infection rates and prioritization of vaccination, it seems clear that both science and society are failing children. Children have proven uniquely resilient to COVID-19, but many are already suffering lasting educational, mental and physical harms. The greatest harm is falling on the most vulnerable children, and yet we know so little of the true extent and duration of these harms, because relatively little research has focused on them, compared to the research on COVID-19-related spread and mitigation.

‘School closures are a prominent example where following the science is not in itself an answer. These are hard decisions based on ethical and moral considerations for elected officials to make, in ways that acknowledge the evidence on the harms, the requirement for safeguarding and the emerging evidence on COVID-19. Understanding the evidence on the potential trade-offs for children is a critical component of such policies and decisions. It is time science and society elevated this central responsibility.’

Read here (Scientific American, Mar 3, 2021) 

Don’t let private hospitals jump the vaccination queue ― no special privileges for the rich! ― Suaram

‘Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) believes that the commercialisation of the Covid-19 vaccination by the private hospitals would only encourage “queue-cutting” where the rich and powerful stands to gain and potentially undermine the government's national programme and weakens social solidarity.

‘Furthermore, allowing private hospitals to procure vaccines and subsequently running their own vaccination programme also contradicts the principles of giving everyone an equal opportunity in the country’s largest vaccination programme ever.’

Read here (Malay Mail, March 3, 2021)

Malaysia approves Sinovac, AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines for use

‘Malaysia on Tuesday (Mar 2) granted conditional approval for the use of vaccines made by UK firm AstraZeneca and China's Sinovac, just days after launching its nationwide COVID-19 inoculation programme. Malaysia began its vaccination drive on Feb 24 using a shot developed by US drugmaker Pfizer and German partner BioNTech, as it tries to rein in a spike in infections and help revive an economy that recorded its worst slump in more than two decades last year.’

Read here (Channel News Asia, Mar 2, 2021)

The Covid bubble

‘When it comes to this year, growth may yet fall short of expectations. New strains of the coronavirus continue to emerge, raising concerns that existing vaccines may no longer be sufficient to end the pandemic. Repeated stop-go cycles undermine confidence, and political pressure to reopen the economy before the virus is contained will continue to build. Many small- and medium-size enterprises are still at risk of going bust, and far too many people are facing the prospects of long-term unemployment. The list of pathologies afflicting the economy is long and includes rising inequality, deleveraging by debt-burdened firms and workers, and political and geopolitical risks.

‘Asset markets remain frothy – if not outright bubbly – because they are being fed by super-accommodative monetary policies. But today’s price/earnings ratios are as high they were in the bubbles preceding the busts of 1929 and 2000. Between ever-rising leverage and the potential for bubbles in special-purpose acquisition companies, tech stocks, and cryptocurrencies, today’s market mania offers plenty of cause for concern.’

Read here (Project Syndicate, Mar 2, 2021)

China ships millions of Covid-19 vaccines to poor nations abroad; denies ‘vaccine diplomacy’

‘China's vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccines to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press. With just four of China's many vaccine makers claiming they are able to produce at least 2.6 billion doses this year, a large part of the world's population will end up inoculated not with the fancy Western vaccines boasting headline-grabbing efficacy rates, but with China's humble, traditionally made shots.

‘Amid a dearth of public data on China's vaccines, hesitations over their efficacy and safety are still pervasive in the countries depending on them, along with concerns about what China might want in return for deliveries. Nonetheless, inoculations with Chinese vaccines already have begun in more than 25 countries, and the Chinese shots have been delivered to another 11, according to the AP tally, based on independent reporting in those countries along with government and company announcements.’

Read here (CP24, Mar 2, 2021)

The search for animals harbouring coronavirus — and why it matters

‘Ever since the coronavirus started spreading around the world, scientists have worried that it could leap from people into wild animals. If so, it might lurk in various species, possibly mutate and then resurge in humans even after the pandemic has subsided.

‘That would bring the tale of SARS-CoV-2 full circle, because wild animals probably brought it to humans in the first place. Strong evidence suggests that the virus originated in horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus spp.), possibly hitching a ride on other animals before infecting people1. In the current stage of the pandemic, with hundreds of thousands of confirmed COVID-19 infections every day, people are still driving transmission of SARS-CoV-2. But years from now, when community spread has been suppressed, a reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 in free-roaming animals could become a recalcitrant source of new flare-ups.’

Read here (Nature, Mar 2, 2021)

Coronavirus crisis unlikely to be over by the end of the year, WHO warns

‘Despite the spread of Covid-19 being slowed in some countries due to lockdowns and vaccination programs, it is “premature” and “unrealistic” to the think the pandemic will be over by the end of the year, the World Health Organization’s executive director of emergency services has said.

‘Speaking at a press briefing Geneva, Dr Michael Ryan said while vaccinating the most vulnerable people, including healthcare workers, would help remove the “tragedy and fear” from the situation, and would help to ease pressure on hospitals, the “virus is very much in control”.’

Read here (The Guardian, Mar 2, 2021) 

NIH halts trial of Covid-19 convalescent plasma in emergency department patients with mild symptoms: ‘Safe but no significant benefit’

‘The National Institutes of Health has halted a clinical trial evaluating the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 convalescent plasma in treating emergency department patients who developed mild to moderate symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

‘An independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) met on Feb. 25, 2021 for the second planned interim analysis of the trial data and determined that while the convalescent plasma intervention caused no harm, it was unlikely to benefit this group of patients. After the meeting, the DSMB recommended that the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of NIH, stop enrolling new patients into the study. NHLBI did so immediately.’

Read here (NIH, Mar 2, 2021) 

Coronil: The misleading claims about an Indian remedy

‘A controversial herbal concoction has been in the news again in India, with renewed claims that it is effective against coronavirus. The substance, called Coronil, was launched recently at an event attended by some Indian government ministers. But there is no evidence that it works, and misleading claims have been made about approval for its use.’

Read here (BBC, Mar 2, 2021) 

Countries urge drug companies to share vaccine know-how

‘Across Africa and Southeast Asia, governments and aid groups, as well as the World Health Organization, are calling on pharmaceutical companies to share their patent information more broadly to meet a yawning global shortfall in a pandemic that already has claimed over 2.5 million lives. Pharmaceutical companies that took taxpayer money from the U.S. or Europe to develop inoculations at unprecedented speed say they are negotiating contracts and exclusive licensing deals with producers on a case-by-case basis because they need to protect their intellectual property and ensure safety.’

Read here (AP, Mar 2, 2021)

100,000 deaths and a White Paper: What we need instead in Britain

‘We must refuse to engage on this paltry terrain. The pandemic, and the government’s abject failure to respond to it, should prompt a radical set of popular demands. Not since 1948 has there been such overwhelming public support for the NHS, or for the medical scientists and public health experts without whose knowledge and warnings even more lives would have been lost. In this context, and in recognition of how close we have come to an even greater disaster, we must reject this tinkering with the status quo.

‘Integration’ has served as a useful cover for Simon Stevens’s dismantling of the Lansley competition-based model, but it is a perverse misnomer for what the white paper proposes to embody in law. True integration is incompatible with a system of in-built conflicts of interest. Decisions about service provision need to be clearly accountable both to Parliament, and locally, to the public, neither of which is the case in what is proposed. Integration of healthcare with social care is indeed also needed, but is only possible if social care also becomes a public service. And neither this, nor adequate funding for the NHS, is ‘unaffordable’, especially while real interest rates are negative. What is unaffordable is to face the next pandemic as unprotected as we were for COVID-19.’

Read here (The Bullet, Mar 2, 2021)

Don’t rush vaccine passports, address fundamental issues ― Ameen Kamal

‘As it would take time for nations to reach herd immunity, mechanisms to help re-open the economy and international borders such as health passports have been met with increased enthusiasm and strong support from economic sectors.

‘However, issues related to immunological uncertainties, social-ethical concerns related to its implementation as well as operational challenges in global standardisations have to be addressed in order for vaccine passports to be effective.’

Read here (Malay Mail, March 2, 2021)

Children’s hospitals grapple with young Covid ‘long haulers’

‘While statistics indicate that children have largely been spared from the worst effects of covid, little is known about what causes a small percentage of them to develop serious illness. Doctors are now reporting the emergence of downstream complications that mimic what’s seen in adult “long haulers.”

‘In response, pediatric hospitals are creating clinics to provide a one-stop shop for care and to catch any anomalies that could otherwise go unnoticed. However, the treatment offered by these centers could come at a steep price tag to patients, health finance experts warned, especially given that so much about the condition is unknown.

‘Nonetheless, the increasing number of patients like Delaney is leading to a more structured follow-up plan for kids recovering from covid, said Dr. Uzma Hasan, division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at St. Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey.’

Read here (KHN News, Mar 2, 2021)

Neoliberal finance undermines poor countries’ recovery

‘After being undermined by decades of financial liberalisation, developing countries now are not only victims of vaccine imperialism, but also cannot count on much financial support as their COVID-19 recessions drag on due to global vaccine apartheid...

‘Undoubtedly, distressed developing countries desperately need foreign exchange to cope. But IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva’s call to boost global liquidity with “a sizeable SDR” (Special Drawing Right) allocation was blocked by the Trump administration, who objected that it would give China, Iran, Russia, Syria and Venezuela access to new funds.

‘The Financial Times (FT) argues that the proposed new SDR1tn (US$1.37tn) issuance – almost five times the US$283bn issued in 2009 – is justified by the scale of the crisis. For the FT, it would be “the simplest and most effective way to get additional purchasing power into the hands of the countries that need it”...

‘With 85% of IMF votes required to issue new SDRs, and the US holding veto power with 16.5%, Biden administration support is vital. For SDR issuance under US$650 billion, the White House only needs to consult, rather than get approval from the US Congress.’

Read here (IPS News, Mar 1, 2021)

The raging evolutionary war between humans and Covid-19

‘Fighting the pandemic isn’t only about vaccines and drugs. It’s about understanding how viruses mutate and change inside us, and among us...

‘The major change to the immunity of all the hosts SARS-CoV-2 is likely to try to infect will be, of course, vaccination. That’s human ingenuity fighting viral expertise, but it can also exert a kind of direct adaptive pressure on the virus. History has examples of so-called leaky vaccines—those that aren’t effective enough to prevent all infections or all transmission, and allow better-adapted variants of whatever bug they’re trying to squish to live to fight another day.

‘In fact, one group of researchers has a model that suggests that could even happen with the new batch of vaccines against Covid—especially those that require two doses and seem to confer different levels of immunity depending on how far apart they’re administered, or whether someone skips the second one. Here's how: If one extreme is a population totally naive to a new virus, completely vulnerable and with no immunity, and the other extreme is a population with perfect sterilizing immunity, what happens to a population in between? If a vaccine allows infection but no transmission, the virus doesn’t have a chance to evolve.

‘But if a vaccine or vaccination strategy allows some infection and some transmission? “The ones that are the best at getting around the host’s defenses are the ones that are most likely to persist,” says Caroline Wagner, a bioengineer at McGill and one of the people working on the model. If that’s all true, a leaky vaccine or leaky vaccination strategy could actually drive antigenic drift and create even worse variants. Wagner and her colleagues acknowledge that they don’t have enough data to put bounds on their model yet, but they worry about strategies like one proposed in the UK to abandon second doses as a way of speeding the process and husbanding scarce vaccine, or the way some countries are hoarding vaccine while others go without (potentially letting the virus, and variants, circulate and evolve freely).’

Read here (Wired, Mar 1, 2021)

I have allergies – Can I take the Covid-19 vaccine? — Dr Amar-Singh HSS

‘I believe there are three possible options for those of us with severe allergies:

• We may choose not to get vaccinated as we feel the risk is too high. But we will have to accept a much stricter SOP for our lives and be prepared to have our lives restricted for some time.
• The second option is that we choose to vaccinate and, due to the high risk, ask that it be done with enhanced health professional support, i.e. vaccinate in a hospital and have good backup with adrenaline at hand.
• The third option is to delay vaccination and watch the data as more is made available. The risk of anaphylaxis is small and likely to be even smaller as we get more vaccination data. We will also have a clearer idea which vaccine has the lowest rate of severe allergic reaction. Once this data is available we hope to be able to choose the least allergic vaccine and vaccinate in a hospital with good physician backup.’

Read here (Code Blue, Mar 1, 2021)

To beat Covid, we may need a good shot in the nose

‘Intranasal vaccines might stop the spread of the coronavirus more effectively than needles in arms...

‘Although injected vaccines do reduce symptomatic COVID cases, and prevent a lot of severe illness, they may still allow for asymptomatic infection. A person might feel fine, but actually harbor the virus and be able to pass it on to others. The reason is that the coronavirus can temporarily take up residence in the mucosa—the moist, mucus-secreting surfaces of the nose and throat that serve as our first line of defense against inhaled viruses. Research with laboratory animals suggests that a coronavirus infection can linger in the nose even after it has been vanquished in the lungs. That means it might be possible to spread the coronavirus after vaccination.

‘Enter the intranasal vaccine, which abandons the needle and syringe for a spray container that looks more like a nasal decongestant. With a quick spritz up the nose, intranasal vaccines are designed to bolster immune defenses in the mucosa, triggering production of an antibody known as immunoglobulin A, which can block infection. This overwhelming response, called sterilizing immunity, reduces the chance that people will pass on the virus.’

Read here (Scientific American, Mar 1, 2021)

7 ways to reduce reluctance to take Covid vaccines

1. It's not necessary to change the minds of committed anti-vaxxers; they are just a tiny slice of the population, and we can reach herd immunity without them.
2. Facts alone will not persuade skeptics.
3. Some minority groups, such as Black and Native Americans, have strong historical reasons to view health authorities with suspicion. Experts favor working closely with civic and faith leaders, admired athletes and other trusted figures within those groups.
4. Low levels of vaccination, particularly among low-income communities, often reflect practical barriers.
5. Talk about how popular the vaccine is.
6. Overcome the human tendency to procrastinate.
7. For forgetful types, simple reminders—by text or voice message—can be powerful. 

Read here (Scientific American, March 2021)

Patently unfair: Can waivers help solve Covid vaccine inequality?

‘The World Trade Organization (WTO) General Council gathered virtually on Monday for the first of two days of talks amid increasing calls from civil society, states and nongovernmental actors to temporarily waive patents for COVID-19 vaccines and other coronavirus-related medical products. Endorsing a waiver on Friday, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “If not now, when?”

‘At the core of the discussion stands a proposal submitted in October by South Africa and India to suspend the WTO’s agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. The goal is to facilitate the transfer of technology and scientific knowledge to developing countries to ramp up the global production of vaccines and other necessary equipment.’

Read here (Aljazeera, Mar 1, 2021)

Vaccine apartheid or corona-utopia — 6 post-pandemic futures

‘There are two types of people in the post-pandemic world: those who have been vaccinated and those who haven’t. Now, national leaders across the world are considering making that official.

‘So-called immunity passes are already a reality in Israel. With nearly half of the adult population vaccinated, the government announced last month that gyms, hotels, pools and cultural events can reopen for people who can present a QR code proving their immunity. The U.K. is exploring a similar option, and in the EU, experts say a proposal for a “digital green pass” facilitating cross-border travel could easily find domestic applications...

‘Ethicists and public health advocates note that such passes would be wildly discriminatory right now, when vaccines are in shortage. But they could easily become reality once supply outstrips demand (at least in wealthy countries) and restaurants, hotels, airlines and cultural venues seek safe ways to reopen.

‘How they are managed, and how they are accepted, will determine whether immunity passes offer a return to normalcy or usher in some sort of dystopic sci-fi scenario. Using our crystal ball (and a good deal of reporting), POLITICO has compiled snapshots from six possible futures that might be lying in wait for us before the end of the year:

1. Corona-utopia
2. Vaccine apartheid
3. Back to the future
4. Legal limbo
5. Whole new hassle
6. Why bother?

Read here (Politico, March 2021) 

Coronavirus fact-check #10: Why “new cases” are plummeting... ‘It's not vaccines, it's not lockdown’

‘Essentially, in two memos the WHO ensured future testing would be less likely to produce false positives and made it much harder to be labelled an “asymptomatic case”.

‘In short, logic would suggest we’re not in fact seeing a “decline in Covid cases” or a “decrease in Covid deaths” at all.

‘What we’re seeing is a decline in perfectly healthy people being labelled “covid cases” based on a false positive from an unreliable testing process. And we’re seeing fewer people dying of pneumonia, cancer or other disease have “Covid19” added to their death certificate based on testing criteria designed to inflate the pandemic.’

Read here (Off Guardian, Feb 26, 2021)

Obesity, walking pace and risk of severe Covid-19 and mortality: Analysis of UK Biobank

‘Both obesity and self-reported walking pace are independently associated with the population level risk of severe COVID-19 and COVID-19 mortality in UK Biobank. However, self-reported slow walkers had the highest risk regardless of their obesity status, with normal weight slow walkers having over twice the risk of severe disease and almost four times the risk of COVID-19 mortality compared to normal weight brisk walkers.’

Read here (International Journal of Obesity, February 26, 2021)

Malaysian company develops Covid-19 rapid test kits that can deliver results under 20 minutes

‘A homegrown diagnostic solution start-up has developed a digital rapid Covid-19 test kit — dubbed APTSENS — that can upload test results in real-time with geo-location data to cloud servers via a mobile app.

‘Biogenes Technologies, a startup in the field of molecular diagnostics and genomics, said that APTSENS is a simple-to-use kit consisting of Covid-19 single-use sensor chip, portable electronic reader and collection swab that can produce test results in under 20 minutes.’

Read here (Malay Mail, Feb 26, 2021)

Will I have to wear a mask after getting the Covid vaccine? The science explained

‘Public health authorities want people to keep wearing masks and social distancing, even after they receive a vaccine. This might seem counterintuitive – after all, if someone gets a vaccine, aren’t they protected from the coronavirus?

‘The answer is complicated: the vast majority of people who are vaccinated will be protected from Covid-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, vaccinated people may still be able to transmit the virus, even though they do not display any symptoms. “We know now the vaccines can protect, but what we haven’t had enough time to really understand is – does it protect from spreading?” said Avery August, professor of immunology at Cornell University.

‘That is because the the SARS-CoV-2 virus may still colonize the respiratory tract, even as systemic immune cells protect the overall body from the disease it causes – Covid-19.’

Read here (The Guardian, Feb 26, 2021)

Convalescent plasma did not improve patient outcomes compared with placebo group: Study

‘In a systematic review and meta-analysis published in JAMA, researchers evaluated treatment with convalescent plasma compared to standard of care or use of a placebo in randomized clinical trials (RCTs)—published through January 29, 2021. The researchers identified 10 total RCTs—4 published peer-reviewed studies and 6 unpublished studies—including a total of 11,782 COVID-19 patients. 

‘Overall, convalescent plasma did not significantly differ from placebo or standard of care for any of the major outcomes of interest: all-cause mortality, length of hospital stay, mechanical ventilation use, clinical improvement, clinical deterioration, and serious adverse events. The researchers noted that there was limited data available regarding clinical improvement, clinical deterioration, and serious adverse events in these studies.’ (Summary from John Hopkins Centre for Health Security newsletter of March 2)

Read here (JAMA Network, Feb 26, 2021)

Where did Covid come from? Five mysteries that remain

‘In the wake of the World Health Organization’s investigation, there are still key questions about when, where and how the pandemic began.

1. Was the virus circulating in Wuhan before the first known cases?
2. Was the virus spreading in people outside China before December 2019?
3. What was the role of the Huanan market?
4. Did frozen wild-animal meat have a role in the early spread of the virus?
5. Was the virus circulating in animals in China before the pandemic?

Read here (Nature, Feb 26, 2021)

China approves two more domestic Covid-19 vaccines for public use

‘China’s medical products regulator said on Thursday that it had approved two more COVID-19 vaccines for public use, raising the number of domestically produced vaccines that can be used in China to four. The two newly cleared vaccines are made by CanSino Biologics Inc (CanSinoBIO) and Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, an affiliate of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm).

‘They join a vaccine from Sinovac Biotech approved earlier this month, and another from Sinopharm’s Beijing unit approved last year.

‘Prior to formal approval for wider public use by the National Medical Products Administration, millions of doses of the two Sinopharm vaccines and Sinovac shot had been administered in China’s vaccination program. The program targets select groups of people facing a higher risk of infection.’

Read here (Reuters, Feb 25, 2021)

Covid-19: Pfizer BioNTech vaccine reduced cases by 94% in Israel, shows peer reviewed study

‘The Pfizer BioNTech coronavirus vaccine produces as good results in the “real world” as have been previously documented in randomised trials.

‘A case control study, which has been peer reviewed and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, compared 596 618 people who were newly vaccinated in Israel and matched them to unvaccinated controls.1 Two doses of the mRNA vaccine reduced symptomatic cases by 94%, hospitalisation by 87%, and severe covid-19 by 92%, according to the data from the Clalit Institute for Research which is Israel’s biggest healthcare provider.

‘Researchers recorded the outcomes at three periods: days 14 to 20 after the first dose of vaccine, days 21 through 27 after the first dose, and day 7 after the second dose. In Israel, the second dose of vaccine is given on day 21 in line with the trials and the manufacturer’s recommendation. The UK is leaving a 12 week gap between doses.

‘During a mean follow-up of 15 days, 10 561 infections were documented of which 5996 were symptomatic covid-19 illness, 369 required hospitalisation, 229 were severe cases, and 41 resulted in death.

‘After one dose, during days 14 to 20, the vaccine effectiveness was 57% for symptomatic covid-19, 74% for hospitalisation, and 62% for severe disease. The estimated effectiveness in preventing death from covid-19 was 72% in the two to three weeks after the first dose. There was insufficient data to produce an estimate on the reduction in mortality in those who received two doses.

‘The study took place from 20 December 2020, when Israel’s national vaccination drive was launched, to 1 February 2021. It coincided with Israel’s third and largest wave of coronavirus infection and illness.’

Read here (BMJ, Feb 25, 2021)

• BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 vaccine in a nationwide mass vaccination setting

Read original study here (New England Journal of Medicine, Feb 24, 2021)

FDA says single-dose shot from J&J prevents severe Covid

‘Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine offers strong protection against severe COVID-19, according to an analysis released Wednesday by U.S. regulators that sets the stage for a final decision on a new and easier-to-use shot to help tame the pandemic.

‘The long-anticipated shot could offer the nation a third vaccine option and help speed vaccinations by requiring just one dose instead of two. Food and Drug Administration scientists confirmed that overall the vaccine is about 66% effective at preventing moderate to severe COVID-19, and about 85% effective against the most serious illness. The agency also said J&J’s shot is safe.’

Read here (AP, Feb 25, 2021)

Viral questions

A look at some of the most commonly asked questions around the coronavirus pandemic.

• How would COVID-19 vaccine makers adapt to variants?
• How do we know the COVID-19 vaccines are safe?
• How are experts tracking variants of the coronavirus?
• Which COVID-19 tests are required for international travel?

And more...

Read here (AP, Feb 25, 2021)

UN vaccine plan is underway, but problems remain

‘As the coronavirus pandemic exploded worldwide last April, global organizations banded together to help ensure that the world’s most vulnerable people would get vaccines amid the rush for shots. The initiative known as COVAX was formed by the World Health Organization, the vaccines alliance GAVI and a coalition for epidemic innovations called CEPI.

‘COVAX is supposed to make deals to buy vaccines in bulk from drug companies and can also receive donated shots from rich countries. Poorer nations can receive free doses from the initiative — and wealthier ones can also buy from it, as a way of diversifying their supply.

‘But it has been dogged by shortages of cash and supplies as well as logistical hurdles — all while a handful of rich countries raced ahead with their vaccination campaigns.’

Read here (AP, Feb 25, 2021)

The scientist who’s been right about Covid-19 vaccines predicts what’s next

‘[Hilda] Bastian — an expert in analyzing clinical trial data, founding member of the Cochrane Collaboration, and a former National Institutes of Health official — has gone down rabbit holes before. There was the time she traveled the US on her own dime to research and take historical photos for a Wikipedia list of African American mathematicians.

‘But her obsession with vaccines in this pandemic has been especially fruitful: She’s called the race right at just about every turn...

‘Nearly a year into her project, I caught up with Bastian to ask where our blind spots are now and how she predicts the vaccine story — and the pandemic — will unfold. She talked about the need for health officials to acknowledge that coronavirus vaccines have potentially “big differences in efficacy and adverse events,” a time in the future when we may need Covid-19 vaccine boosters every year, and the problem of people in rich countries like the US shamelessly hogging vaccines.’

Read here (Vox, Feb 24, 2021)

Why Covid vaccines are so difficult to compare

‘Given the demand for speed amid limited supplies, any effort to rank the vaccines must take into account not only their reported effectiveness, but also supplies, costs, the logistics of deploying them, the durability of the protection they offer and their ability to fend off emerging viral variants. Even so, many people might find it hard to look away from clinical-trial results that suggest an efficacy gap. So far, more than 200 million doses of coronavirus vaccines have been delivered, and data have been rolling in from clinical trials in several countries. The top-line results from those studies suggest a range of protection: from 95% efficacy for a vaccine made by Pfizer of New York City and BioNTech of Mainz, Germany, to about 70% suggested by initial results on a vaccine made by AstraZeneca of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, both in the United Kingdom.’

Read here (Nature, Feb 23, 2021)

Pre-empting the anti-Covid-19 vaccine propaganda ― Amar-Singh HSS, Alan Teh Kee Hean, Lim Joo Kiong, Nor Azmi Kamaruddin and Lim Swee Im

‘This is a brief article to help us understand that there will be some expected deaths after receiving Covid-19 vaccination, especially in the elderly. The aim of the article is to pre-empt the anti-vaccine lobby and any attempt to damage our national Covid-19 vaccination programme. We will use data from the United Kingdom (UK), United States of America (USA) and the European Union (EU) to explain what we mean...

‘It is important for the public to understand this as we embark on our national Covid-19 vaccination programme. Some of our loved ones may die after the vaccination but this will likely NOT be due to the vaccination. As members of the public we should stay abreast of the science and data as it emerges and not fall prey to rumours or anti-vaccine propaganda.’

Read here (The Malay Mail, Feb 23, 2021)

Medical oxygen scarce in Africa, Latin America amid virus

‘A crisis over the supply of medical oxygen for coronavirus patients has struck nations in Africa and Latin America, where warnings went unheeded at the start of the pandemic and doctors say the shortage has led to unnecessary deaths.

‘It takes about 12 weeks to install a hospital oxygen plant and even less time to convert industrial oxygen manufacturing systems into a medical-grade network. But in Brazil and Nigeria, as well as in less-populous nations, decisions to fully address inadequate supplies only started being made last month, after hospitals were overwhelmed and patients started to die.’

Read here (AP, Feb 23, 2021)

US National Institutes of Health launch new initiative to study “Long Covid”

Some of the initial underlying questions that this initiative hopes to answer are:

• What does the spectrum of recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection look like across the population?
• How many people continue to have symptoms of COVID-19, or even develop new symptoms, after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection?
• What is the underlying biological cause of these prolonged symptoms?
• What makes some people vulnerable to this but not others?
• Does SARS-CoV-2 infection trigger changes in the body that increase the risk of other conditions, such as chronic heart or brain disorders?

These initial research opportunities will support a combination of ongoing and new research studies and the creation of core resources. We anticipate subsequent calls for other kinds of research, in particular opportunities focused on clinical trials to test strategies for treating long-term symptoms and promoting recovery from infection.

Read here (NIH, Feb 23, 2021)

Developing countries struggling to cope with Covid-19

‘The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is adversely impacting most developing countries disproportionately, especially the United Nations’ least developed countries (LDCs) and the World Bank’s low-income countries (LICs).

‘Years of implementing neoliberal policy conditionalities and advice have made most developing countries much more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic by undermining their health systems and fiscal capacities to respond adequately.’

Read here (IPS News, Feb 23, 2021)

We’re just rediscovering a 19th-century pandemic strategy

‘The first way to fight a new virus would once have been opening the windows...

‘Miasma theory—discredited, of course, by the rise of germ theory—held that disease came from “bad air” emanating from decomposing matter and filth. This idea peaked in the 19th century, when doctors, architects, and one particularly influential nurse, Florence Nightingale, became fixated on ventilation’s importance for health. It manifested in the physical layout of buildings: windows, many of them, but also towers erected for the sole purpose of ventilation and elaborate ductwork to move contaminated air outdoors. Historic buildings still bear the vestigial mark of these public-health strategies, long after the scientific thinking has moved on.

‘That era saw the rise of well-ventilated “Nightingale pavilions,” named after Florence Nightingale, who popularized the design in her 1859 book, Notes on Hospitals. As a nurse in the Crimean War, she saw 10 times more soldiers die of disease than of battle wounds. Nightingale began a massive hygiene campaign in the overcrowded hospitals, and she collected statistics, which she presented in pioneering infographics. Chief among her concerns was air. Notes even laid out exact proportions for 20-patient pavilions that could allow 1,600 cubic feet of air per bed.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Feb 22, 2021)

Synthetic mRNA Covid vaccines: A risk-benefit analysis

‘With a “vaccine” based on untested technology, and safety trials still ongoing, is it safe to take the shot? And does it even work? And does a disease with an IFR of 0.2% even justify that risk?’

Read here (Off Guardian, Feb 22, 2021)

I was the Australian doctor on the WHO’s Covid-19 mission to China. Here’s what we found about the origins of the coronavirus

‘As part of the mission, we met the man who, on December 8, 2019, was the first confirmed COVID-19 case; he’s since recovered. We met the husband of a doctor who died of COVID-19 and left behind a young child. We met the doctors who worked in the Wuhan hospitals treating those early COVID-19 cases, and learned what happened to them and their colleagues. We witnessed the impact of COVID-19 on many individuals and communities, affected so early in the pandemic, when we didn’t know much about the virus, how it spreads, how to treat COVID-19, or its impacts.

‘We talked to our Chinese counterparts — scientists, epidemiologists, doctors — over the four weeks the WHO mission was in China. We were in meetings with them for up to 15 hours a day, so we became colleagues, even friends. This allowed us to build respect and trust in a way you couldn’t necessarily do via Zoom or email.

‘This is what we learned about the origins of SARS-CoV-2:

• Animal origins, but not necessarily at the Wuhan markets
• Frozen or refrigerated food not ruled out in the spread
• Extremely unlikely the virus escaped from a lab

Read here (The Conversation, Feb 22, 2021)

Hong Kong’s contact tracers put up with lies and abuse, while trying to locate people close to Covid-19 patients

‘It takes persistent probing, detective work for 200 volunteers to track down patients’ contacts. Anxious to avoid quarantine, some clam up and refuse to admit they were with Covid-19 patients.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, Feb 21, 2021)

What Europeans have learned from a year of pandemic

‘From the first case diagnosed a year ago at a hospital in northern Italy to the empty shops, restaurants and stadiums of Europe's cities, the lives of Europeans have been changed forever. Curbs on movement have forced every country and society to adapt its rules and rethink its culture. There have been hard truths and unexpected innovations in a year that changed Europe.

• Restrictions are tough for societies used to freedom
• Experts are essential, but mistakes have been made
• The EU wasn't set up for a pan-European health crisis
• Societies have responded in different ways
• A Europe without borders is fine in theory
• Hard truths about how we slaughter animals
• Europeans embraced lifestyle change in different ways

Read here (BBC, Feb 20, 2021)

Coronavirus (Covid-19) infection survey: Characteristics of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England, 22 February 2021

‘The UK government published a report on the infection risk associated with various occupations, based on data on COVID-19 cases in England from September 2020-January 2021. The analysis compared the likelihood of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the study period for 25 standardized occupation categories. The occupation-specific risk ranged from 2.1% to 4.8%, with an overall risk of 3.9%. None of the individual occupation groups had a statistically significant difference from the overall average; however, some of the occupations with the highest risk showed a significant increase over those with the lowest risk. 

‘Occupation groups at the upper end include professions such as teachers, law enforcement and prison staff, childcare and home care, and secretarial professions. Occupation categories with lower infection risk include professions such as farmers and gardeners; scientists, engineers, and researchers; legal, social work, and news media; and textiles and printing services.’ (Summary by John Hopkins Centre for Health Security)

Read here (Government of UK, Feb 21, 2021)

Power jab: The rise of vaccine diplomacy

‘At the end of January the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, gave a speech on the tarmac of Santiago airport. ‘Today is a day of joy, excitement and hope,’ he said, standing in front of a Boeing 787 which had just arrived from Beijing. Inside it were two million vaccine doses produced by the Chinese company Sinovac. It was the first of two similar-sized shipments arriving that month.

‘A few days earlier, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had emerged from Covid confinement to thank a ‘genuinely affectionate’ Vladimir Putin for pledging 24 million Sputnik doses to Mexico in the coming months. Hopes of vaccinating his country with the Pfizer vaccine had dissipated when supply dried up. Pfizer blamed ‘global shortages’, but here was the perfect opportunity for Putin to play the hero and to send the world a message: in times of need, Moscow, not Washington, saves the day.

‘This is vaccine diplomacy, the new great game. Nations which are hungry to compete with the West — and especially America — are using their homegrown coronavirus vaccines as a way of gaining influence. They are exchanging their vaccines for loyalty and acts of public obeisance.’

Read here (The Spectator, Feb 20, 2021)

Covid vaccines: G7 increase support for Covax scheme

‘G7 leaders have pledged to intensify co-operation on Covid-19 and increase their contribution to the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative. In a joint statement released after a virtual summit on Friday, G7 leaders raised their overall commitment to $7.5bn (£5.3bn). Wealthy countries are facing growing pressure to make sure lower-income nations get fair access to vaccines.’

Read here (BBC, Feb 20, 2021)

Breaking down the psychology of vaccine hesitancy

• 40% of respondents fell into the enthusiastic camp and reported eagerness to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
• Another 20% were in the watchful group, which means they weren't against the vaccine, but were worried about side effects and didn't want to be first in line.
• 14% were classified as cost-anxious — they tended to be younger and live in rural areas, and they perceived that the costs of the vaccine in time and money exceeded the benefits.
• 9% were system distrusters, who were more likely to be minorities, and believed the vaccine had not been adequately tested for their group.
• The last 17% were conspiracy believers who tended to be Republican and had little fear of COVID-19 itself. They often subscribed to more outlandish and harmful theories about vaccines.

Read here (Axios, Feb 20, 2021)

The end of Covid-19 pandemic? Johns Hopkins’ Dr Makary says probably

‘A February 18 Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal is raising hopes, and possibly healthy skepticism, with its title and thesis being: “We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April.” The author is Dr. Martin Makary, a professor of health policy and management and public health expert at Johns Hopkins University. He notes that the media is under reporting on the dramatic fact that COVID-19 cases are down 77 percent just in the last six weeks. Largely this is, “because natural immunity from prior infection is far more common than can be measured by testing.” 

‘Applying some statistics to the case data, we could deduce the around 55 percent in the US have natural immunity. At the same time, vaccinations have been rolling out, and 15 percent of Americans have gotten a vaccine with the percentage rising fast. Based on these factors, “There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection. As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.”

Read here (TrialSiteNews, Feb 20, 2021)

Why kids need their own Covid-19 vaccine trials

‘Adolescents are being tested now. Younger children will be next. Why did vaccine manufacturers wait to study them?...

‘The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires that new vaccines be independently studied in children. Children’s immune systems are still maturing and are unpredictable, so they might react to the coronavirus differently or have side effects that don’t occur in adults. “They might respond better or worse,” says James Campbell, professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health. “Until you do the study with the vaccine, you don’t know what will happen.”

Read here (National Geographic, Feb 20, 2021)

Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against Covid-19

‘Governments are attempting to control the COVID-19 pandemic with nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). However, the effectiveness of different NPIs at reducing transmission is poorly understood. We gathered chronological data on the implementation of NPIs for several European and non-European countries between January and the end of May 2020. We estimated the effectiveness of these NPIs, which range from limiting gathering sizes and closing businesses or educational institutions to stay-at-home orders. To do so, we used a Bayesian hierarchical model that links NPI implementation dates to national case and death counts and supported the results with extensive empirical validation. Closing all educational institutions, limiting gatherings to 10 people or less, and closing face-to-face businesses each reduced transmission considerably. The additional effect of stay-at-home orders was comparatively small.’

Read here (Science magazine, Feb 19, 2021) 

Experts answer the biggest Covid vaccine questions

‘The lack of informed messaging from the Trump administration, combined with the range of different COVID vaccines, the emergence of new coronavirus variants, and inconsistent state and municipal rollout plans, have caused confusion and driven vaccine hesitancy. Scientific American asked Namandjé Bumpus, a pharmacologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, and Ashley Lauren St. John, an immunologist at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore to answer some of the biggest questions about the currently available COVID vaccines:

• Should you get an authorized COVID vaccine now if you are eligible?
• Should you get vaccinated if you have already had COVID?
• How should you interpret vaccine efficacy—what does “95 percent efficacy” or “66 percent efficacy” even mean?
• If you get the vaccine and still get infected, does the vaccine still make a difference? 
• Will it prevent severe disease or death?
• Do the vaccines protect against the new virus variants, including those first identified in the U.K., South Africa and Brazil?
• What is the difference between mRNA and viral vector vaccines?
• Is there a “best” vaccine?
• Will the vaccine protect you from giving the virus to others?
• Will the vaccine’s effectiveness “wear off” over time?
• Should you be worried about allergic reactions to the vaccine?
• How can you ensure you’re getting a legitimate, authorized vaccine?

Read here (Scientific American, Feb 19, 2021)

Three concessions from the West at G7: Britain, France and US

1. Boris Johnson pledges surplus to poorer countries at G7. Read here (BBC, Feb 20, 2021)
2. Macron proposes sending 4-5% of doses to poorer nations. Read here (BBC, Feb 19, 2021)
3. Biden pledges $4 billion for COVAX vaccinations program. Read here (DW, Feb 18, 2021)

Covid-19 infections falling worldwide but WHO warns against apathy

‘Reported daily coronavirus infections have been falling across the world for a month and on Tuesday (Feb 16) hit their lowest since mid-October, Reuters figures show, but health experts warned against apathy even as vaccines are being rolled out worldwide. Falls in infections and deaths coincide with lockdowns and severe curbs on gatherings and movement as governments weigh the need to stop successive waves of the pandemic with the need to get people back to work and children back to school.

‘But optimism over a way out of the crisis has been tempered by new variants of the virus, raising fears about the efficacy of vaccines. "Now is not the time to let your guard down," Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead on COVID-19, told a briefing in Geneva.’

Read here (Channel News Asia, Feb 19, 2021) 

Can Covid vaccines stop transmission? Scientists race to find answers

‘Controlling the pandemic will require shots that prevent viral spread, but that feature is difficult to measure...

‘Preliminary analyses suggest that at least some vaccines are likely to have a transmission-blocking effect. But confirming that effect — and how strong it will be — is tricky because a drop in infections in a given region might be explained by other factors, such as lockdowns and behaviour changes. Not only that, the virus can spread from asymptomatic carriers, which makes it hard to detect those infections.

“These are among the hardest types of studies to do,” says Marc Lipsitch, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. “All of us are out there, hungrily trying to see what we can get out of little bits of data that do come out,” he says. Results from some studies are expected in the next few weeks.’

Read here (Nature, Feb 19, 2021)

Rich nations stockpiling a billion more COVID-19 shots than needed: Report

‘Rich countries are on course to have over a billion more doses of COVID-19 vaccines than they need, leaving poorer nations scrambling for leftover supplies as the world seeks to curb the coronavirus pandemic, a report by anti-poverty campaigners found on Friday. In an analysis of current supply deals for COVID-19 vaccines, the ONE Campaign said wealthy countries, such as the United States and Britain, should share the excess doses to “supercharge” a fully global response to the pandemic.

‘The advocacy group, which campaigns against poverty and preventable diseases, said a failure to do so would deny billions of people essential protection from the COVID-19-causing virus and likely prolong the pandemic. The report looked specifically at contracts with the five leading COVID-19 vaccine makers - Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax.’

Read here (Reuters, Feb 19, 2021)

A quite possibly wonderful summer

‘The summer of 2021 is shaping up to be historic... After months of soaring deaths and infections, COVID-19 cases across the United States are declining even more sharply than experts anticipated. This is expected to continue, and rates of serious illness and death will plummet even faster than cases, as high-risk populations are vaccinated. Even academics who have spent the pandemic delivering ominous warnings have shifted their tone to cautiously optimistic now that vaccination rates are exploding.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Feb 19, 2021)

Malaysia enforces requirement for improved worker lodging to rein in Covid-19

‘Malaysia has gazetted an emergency ordinance compelling employers to provide lodging with sufficient living space and amenities for migrant workers to effectively control the spread of Covid-19, the Human Resources Ministry said on Thursday (Feb 18).

‘It is among the first emergency ordinances - laws that do not require prior parliamentary approval - to be enforced since a national emergency was declared on Jan 12 to curb the coronavirus spread.

‘Covid-19 infections in Malaysia have raged among migrant workers who typically work and live closely, with an outbreak at world's largest glove maker Top Glove becoming the largest cluster in the country in December after more than 5,000 workers were infected.’

Read here (Straits Times, Feb 18, 2021)

Inside poverty: How we gave a voice to Asia’s poor during Covid-19

‘When COVID-19 struck in 2020, sending many Asian countries into lockdown, CNA’s Insight series zoomed in on its impact on the poor - with teams on the ground in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India and Hong Kong. Poverty rates soared for the first time in almost two decades, dealing a blow to decades worth of poverty alleviation efforts.

‘With well over 100,000 views per episode, Poverty in Asia drew thousands of comments, ranging from words of encouragement for our profiles, to asking questions such as “is this poverty porn?” and “Why do the poor have so many children?”.

‘The producers behind the episodes, Aji Yahurti from Indonesia, Chen Yih Wen from Malaysia, Lolita Lachia from Philippines and Insight’s Ikhwan Adrian Rivai answer viewers’ questions and talk the about the challenges faced in recording the stories of the poor, amid a pandemic.

‘They also share about unexpected kindnesses and life lessons they learnt from those living in scarcity. One profile from the Philippines, Tricia Borromeo, had received $2,000 in donations to resume her university education, after the episode was released.’

View here (Channel News Asia video, Feb 18, 2021)

No jab, no job? Ethical issues in mandatory Covid-19 vaccination of healthcare personnel

‘Mandating COVID-19 vaccination of healthcare personnel (HCP) could maximise vaccine uptake, but risks exacerbating breakdowns in trust between HCP and their institutions.

‘Ethical arguments for mandating COVID-19 vaccination of HCP appeal to their duties to ‘do no harm’ and to care for patients, but the fulfilment of these duties requires a safe working environment.

‘We argue for policies aimed at strengthening HCP’s trust in healthcare systems by addressing HCP concerns, including the institutional factors that have put them at risk of infection throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, before considering a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.’

Read here (BJM, February 17, 2021)

‘Wildly unfair’: UN boss says 10 nations used 75% of all vaccines

‘The United Nations chief has sharply criticised the “wildly uneven and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, pointing out that just 10 countries have administered 75 percent of all vaccinations. Addressing a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Antonio Guterres said 130 countries have not received a single dose of vaccine.’

Read here (Aljazeera, Feb 17, 2021)

Malaysia’s National Covid-19 Immunisation Plan: The missing details — Ezzaty Hasbullah

‘The Malaysian Government has recently published its National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) outlining its strategy to achieve coverage by February of 2022. Though the document gives a good overview of the country’s vaccination plan from procurement to vaccination, it omits the minute execution details on several aspects along this value chain. The missing details:

• Trust building and outreach
• Ensuring equity in access
• Task-shifting and training
• Strengthening digital infrastructure

‘What the NIP gives is a general overview of the immunisation efforts in the months to come. What it does not give are the particulars in each step towards achieving this goal. More information on the actual particulars in realising this strategy has to be made available for public scrutiny — if such particulars are even available. These details could be the differentiating factors in determining Malaysia’s success or failure to achieve its 2022 immunisation targets because, as always, the devil is in the details.’

Read here (Malay Mail, Feb 17, 2021)

How much testing is enough? It’s complicated

‘One of the key measures of a country’s Covid-19 response is how much testing is done. The more cases in the community, the greater the need to expand testing to keep pace with the outbreak. But just how much testing is enough?

‘At a press conference on Tuesday, Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the benchmark set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is to have at least ten negative tests for every person found to be positive. In other words, the test positivity rate should be no higher than about 10 percent. Any higher, it suggests many cases are being missed.

‘However, several sources including health experts quoted in previous Malaysiakini reports had instead cited a five percent figure as the benchmark to meet. One source, the website "Our World in Data", even cited WHO for setting it as the benchmark. So, who is right? And how did different sources attribute different numbers to WHO?’

Read here (Malaysiakini, Feb 17, 2021)

Vaccine hesitancy: Israel's much-publicised vaccination drive hits stumbling blocks

‘Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu, who's made the vaccination campaign a major election issue, warned that more than half a million Israelis over the age of 50 have still not gone to get their jab. "I remind you of the most dramatic piece of data," he said this week. "97% of deaths and 93% of severe cases are in this group." Since the start of the pandemic over 5,400 people have died of COVID-19.

‘Overall, four million Israelis have been vaccinated so far, and about 2,6 million of them have received both shots. Since February, everybody aged over 16 has been called upon to get their shot. "We are trying to see what are the attitudes of people towards the vaccine. There is a tremendous amount of fake news in the public," says Dr. Boaz Lev, head of the vaccine task force at the Ministry of Health in Jerusalem. "This is worrisome, but it will take a while to know what the compliance is."

Read here (DW, Feb 17, 2020)

Covid-19 cases are dropping fast. Why?

‘One month ago, the CDC published the results of more than 20 pandemic forecasting models. Most projected that COVID-19 cases would continue to grow through February, or at least plateau. Instead, COVID-19 is in retreat in America. New daily cases have plunged, and hospitalizations are down almost 50 percent in the past month. This is not an artifact of infrequent testing, since the share of regional daily tests that are coming back positive has declined even more than the number of cases. Some pandemic statistics are foggy, but the current decline of COVID-19 is crystal clear.

**Four reasons: social distancing, seasonality, seroprevalence, and shots.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Feb 17, 2021) 

‘India’s Covid-19 infections grossly underestimated’

‘India’s southern state of Karnataka alone may have had 31.5 million cases of COVID-19 or nearly 95 times greater than have been reported, says a new study that puts a question mark on the 10 million plus cases reported for the whole country so far.

‘Published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study is based on data collected from a representative sample of households in 20 districts of Karnataka, home to 70 million of India’s 1.3 billion people.’

Read here (SciDev, Feb 17, 2021)

The coronavirus is here to stay — here’s what that means

‘In January, Nature asked more than 100 immunologists, infectious-disease researchers and virologists working on the coronavirus whether it could be eradicated. Almost 90% of respondents think that the coronavirus will become endemic — meaning that it will continue to circulate in pockets of the global population for years to come (see 'Endemic future')...

‘More than one-third of the respondents to Nature’s survey thought that it would be possible to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 from some regions while it continued to circulate in others. In zero-COVID regions there would be a continual risk of disease outbreaks, but they could be quenched quickly by herd immunity if most people had been vaccinated.’ 

Read here (Nature, Feb 16, 2021)

FLCCC to Merck: The data shows ivermectin's strong efficacy against Covid-19

‘The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) has issued a public statement in response to a press release recently issued by Merck.

‘The FLCCC Alliance reports that the Merck release of February 4, 2021— which concluded that there was no meaningful evidence for the clinical efficacy of ivermectin in patients with COVID-19 disease — did not provide any scientific data or analyses by Merck to support their conclusion.

‘Dr. Pierre Kory, President and Chief Medical Officer of the FLCCC said that, "The company's disregard for the most current medical evidence is an evidentiary indictment of their uncorroborated position. Merck's press release will cause governments, health authorities, medical providers, business leaders, and citizens to retreat from pursuing a medical agent that, according to our recent peer-reviewed and accepted publication to the highly regarded Frontiers in Pharmacology, has been proven to be an effective and globally available agent to prevent and treat every phase of COVID-19 disease."

Read here (PRWeb, Feb 16, 2021)

Private hospitals to work with govt in vaccine rollout

‘Private hospitals across the country say they are ready to work with the government in vaccinating the public to speed up the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.

‘Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia (APHM) president Dr Kuljit Singh said the group was waiting to discuss the mechanism of the programme as “many would be happy to be vaccinated in private hospitals”. “It is a service we can provide for the public. However, we are waiting for further instructions,” he said in a statement.’

Read here (Free Malaysia Today, Feb 16, 2021)

IP, vaccine imperialism cause death and suffering, delay recovery

‘Vaccine developers’ refusal to share publicly funded vaccine research findings is stalling broader, affordable vaccinations which would more rapidly contain COVID-19 contagion. The pandemic had infected at least 109 million people worldwide, causing over 2.4 million deaths as of mid-February.

‘Avoidable delays in preventive vaccination are imposing terrible burdens on the world economy and human welfare, with economic disruption demanding more relief and recovery measures. They have cost US$28 trillion in lost output globally, with developed countries contracting by 7% in 2020.’

Read here (IPS News, Feb 16, 2021)

Trump’s false posts were treated with kid gloves by Facebook

‘In August, as the election approached and misinformation about COVID-19 spread, Facebook announced it would give new fact-checking labels to posts, including more nuanced options than simply “false.” But data from The Markup’s Citizen Browser project, which tracks a nationwide panel of Facebook users’ feeds, shows how unevenly those labels were applied: Posts were rarely called “false,” even when they contained debunked conspiracy theories. And posts by Donald Trump were treated with the less direct flags, even when they contained lies. The Markup shared the underlying data for this story with Facebook.’

Read here (The Markup,  Feb 16, 2021)

More people died of drug overdoses last year than ever before in US

‘The data for the 12-month period ending last June showed 81,003 deaths, a 20% increase over the previous year. Separate research found that weekly counts of all drug overdoses were up to 45% higher in 2020 than in 2019.

• Stat: During Covid-19 pandemic, overdose deaths reached new heights 
• USA Today: Covid pandemic sends more people to ER for drug overdoses’

Read here (Kaiser Health News, Feb 16, 2021)

NY Times lies to say WHO investigators dissatisfied with Chinese cooperation

This story carries the rebuttals on Twitter by two WHO expert-team members, Peter Daszak, British zoologist, and Thea Kølsen Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist. It also provides a background to the story, quoting various findings elsewhere in the world. The earlier studies suggest that the Covid-19 virus could have circulated in Europe before it surfaced in Wuhan. 

Read here (Scoop NZ, Feb 15, 2021)

The next pandemic? It may already be upon us

‘Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) won’t race across the world like Covid-19, but its effects will be devastating. Thankfully, we already know what we need to do to defeat it...

‘Reining in the inappropriate use of antibiotics, in humans and in farmed animals, is key to staying ahead of AMR, but we also need novel anti-infectives coming down the pipeline – new last resorts. The thing holding up that pipeline to date has been the same thing that meant we had no coronavirus vaccines at the start of this pandemic: the economic incentives are few. Because antibiotics tend to be needed in relatively small quantities at a time, there are no economies of scale to be had either.

‘That’s the bad news; now for the good. Efforts are afoot to stimulate the development of novel anti-infectives. Outterson is the founder and executive director of CARB-X, which is funded by the British and German governments, the Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and several arms of the US government, and which promotes the early stages of R&D – technically, the preclinical and phase 1 clinical phases. Meanwhile, last July the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations launched a $1bn initiative, the AMR Action Fund, to finance the much more expensive phase 2 and 3 clinical trials that bring a drug – the few that get that far – to the threshold of regulatory approval. And the UK is experimenting with a new subscription-style payment model that pays drug companies upfront for access to novel antibiotics, so decoupling profit from volume sold.’

Read here (The Guardian, Feb 15, 2021)

Sensationalising, misrepresenting facts does disservice to people: Jeyakumar Devaraj

‘Yesterday morning, I came across an article titled “UK Government releases shocking report on Covid vaccine side effects” in one of the WhatsApp chat groups I am in. This article by dailyexpose.co.uk, dated 9 February 2021, states that 70,500 adverse reactions were reported in the 6.9 million people vaccinated in the UK between 8 December 2020 and 24 January 2021.

‘The article says five people went blind, 21 suffered strokes, 69 developed facial nerve weakness (Bell’s Palsy) and 107 died because of the Covid vaccine they received.

‘This is a terribly unscientific way of looking at the data. People get sick, suffer various maladies and die even when not vaccinated. So, we need to check whether the incidence of each of these adverse events is actually higher in the vaccinated cohort when compared to the baseline figures for that population. If it is, then it could be possible that the vaccine predisposes to these conditions, and we would have to look more closely.

‘Let’s take the deaths first. According to the UK Office for National Registration, in 2019 there were 1,079.4 deaths per 100,000 males and 798.9 deaths per 100,000 females – over the whole year.

‘The 107 deaths observed in the 6.9 million vaccinated individuals gives a mortality rate of 1.6 per 100,000 – over seven weeks. If we annualise it by multiplying 1.6 by 52 and dividing it by 7, we arrive at a figure of 11.5 per 100,000 – much lower than the UK Crude Death Rate (CDR) for 2019 (CDR = overall death rate without breaking it down into death rates for each age group). These figures indicate that it would be difficult to sustain an argument that the Covid vaccine increases the risk of dying in the UK population.’

Read here (Aliran, Feb 15, 2021)

Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

‘Israel's largest healthcare provider on Sunday (Oct 14) reported a 94 per cent drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among 600,000 people who received two doses of the Pfizer's vaccine in the country's biggest study to date.

‘Health maintenance organization (HMO) Clalit, which covers more than half of all Israelis, said the same group was also 92 per cent less likely to develop severe illness from the virus.’

Read here (Channel News Asia, Feb 15, 2021)

Bill Gates: Solving Covid easy compared with climate

‘Fifty-one billion and zero - the two numbers Bill Gates says you need to know about climate. Solving climate change would be "the most amazing thing humanity has ever done", says the billionaire founder of Microsoft. By comparison, ending the pandemic is "very, very easy", he claims.

‘Mr Gates's new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, is a guide to tackling global warming. Don't underestimate the scale of the challenge, he told me when we spoke last week. "We've never made a transition like we're talking about doing in the next 30 years. There is no precedent for this."

‘Fifty-one billion is how many tonnes of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere each year. Zero is where we need to get to.’

Read here (BBC, Feb 15, 2021)

Coronavirus: Is the pandemic finally coming to an end in India?

‘By the middle of last week, India was barely counting an average of 10,000 Covid cases every day. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths from the disease slid to below 100. More than half of India's states were not reporting any Covid deaths. On Tuesday, Delhi, once an infection hotspot, did not record a single Covid death, for the first time in 10 months.

‘So far, India has recorded more than 10 million infections - the second-highest in the world after the US. There have been over 150,000 reported deaths from the disease. The number of deaths per million people stands at 112, much lower than what has been reported in Europe or North America. It is also clear that the decline in cases is not because of lower testing.

‘Most pandemics typically rise and fall in a bell-shaped curve. India has been no exception. Also, it has seen a high proportion of cases and deaths of people above the age of 65 living in densely packed cities, hewing to infection trends around the world. "There's nothing unusual about infections dropping in India. There's no miracle here," says Dr Shahid Jameel, a leading virologist. Experts say there's no dearth of possible causes - explained below - for the relatively low severity of the disease and its toll.’

Read here (BBC, Feb 15, 2021)

Anatomy of a conspiracy: With Covid, China took leading role

‘From Beijing and Washington to Moscow and Tehran, political leaders and allied media effectively functioned as superspreaders, using their stature to amplify politically expedient conspiracies already in circulation. But it was China -- not Russia – that took the lead in spreading foreign disinformation about COVID-19’s origins, as it came under attack for its early handling of the outbreak.

‘A nine-month Associated Press investigation of state-sponsored disinformation conducted in collaboration with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, shows how a rumor that the U.S. created the virus that causes COVID-19 was weaponized by the Chinese government, spreading from the dark corners of the Internet to millions across the globe. The analysis was based on a review of millions of social media postings and articles on Twitter, Facebook, VK, Weibo, WeChat, YouTube, Telegram and other platforms.’

Read here (Associated Press, Feb 15, 2021)

As vaccinations lag, Israel combats online misinformation

‘After surging ahead in the race to vaccinate its population against the coronavirus, Israel is blaming online misinformation for a sudden slowdown in the campaign. Now, officials are fighting back.

‘Israel’s Health Ministry, which is spearheading the vaccination efforts, is employing both warnings and incentives as it tries to persuade reluctant holdouts to get immunized. It has beefed up a digital task force to counter spurious claims about the vaccines, while local governments are turning to DJs and free food to lure people to vaccination centers. Concerts and museums could soon be off limits to the unvaccinated.’

Read here (AP, Feb 15, 2021)

WHO experts slam NYT for twisting, misquoting their words on virus origins probe

‘WHO experts who recently visited Wuhan slammed the New York Times for twisting their words and casting shadows over the efforts to uncover the origins of the virus, after the newspaper accused China of refusing to hand over sensitive data to WHO experts.

‘The report by New York Times titled “On WHO Trip, China Refused to Hand Over Important Data” accuses China of failing to share important data that may help in identifying the origins of the virus and prevent future outbreaks.

 ‘After the report was published, two WHO experts [Peter Daszak, British zoologist and Thea Kølsen Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist] slammed New York Times for misquoting them in the report to fit its own narrative, with the report casting a shadow over the scientific work of seeking for virus origin.’

Read here (Global Times, Feb 14, 2021)

US and UK in a spat with China over WHO probe on Covid-19

• White House cites 'deep concerns' about WHO Covid-19 report, demands early data from China (read here)
• UK says it shares US concerns over WHO COVID-19 mission to China (read here)
• China fires back at US allegations of lack of transparency over Covid-19 probe (read here)

All reports on Channel News Asia, Feb 14, 2021

On WHO trip, China refused to hand over important data

‘Chinese scientists refused to share raw data that might bring the world closer to understanding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, independent investigators for the World Health Organization said Friday.

‘The investigators, who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to the Chinese city of Wuhan, said disagreements over patient records and other issues were so tense that they sometimes erupted into shouts among the typically mild-mannered scientists on both sides.

‘China’s continued resistance to revealing information about the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the scientists say, makes it difficult for them to uncover important clues that could help stop future outbreaks of such dangerous diseases.

“If you are data focused, and if you are a professional,” said Thea Kølsen Fischer, a Danish epidemiologist on the team, then obtaining data is “like for a clinical doctor looking at the patient and seeing them by your own eyes.”

‘For 27 days in January and February, the team of 14 experts for the WHO led the mission to trace the origins of the pandemic. Several say their Chinese counterparts were frustrated by the team’s persistent questioning and demands for data.’

Read here (New York Times via Economic Times, India, Feb 13, 2021)

Oxford University to test Covid-19 vaccine response among children for first time

‘The University of Oxford has launched a study to assess the safety and immune response of the Covid-19 vaccine it has developed with AstraZeneca in children for the first time, it said on Saturday (Feb 13).

‘The new mid-stage trial will determine whether the vaccine is effective on people between the ages of 6 and 17, according to an emailed statement from the university. Around 300 volunteers will be enrolled and first inoculations are expected this month, Oxford said.’

Read here (Straits Times, Feb 13, 2021)