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Extra younger folks hospitalized as extra contagious variants unfold

More young people hospitalized as more contagious variants spread

A paramedic takes a patient to an emergency room at Hackensack Meridian Health Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, New Jersey on December 11, 2020.

I have Betancur | AFP | Getty Images

Dr. Paul Offit, a doctor at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, said he is now seeing more patients with a rare inflammatory disease, a complication of Covid-19, than he has seen since the pandemic began.

In Texas, Dr. James McDeavitt, Dean of Clinical Affairs at Baylor College of Medicine, said he and his colleagues are noticing an increase in the admissions of young people with Covid-19, although he did not yet have accurate dates to support the anecdotal evidence.

Both doctors attributed the increase in hospital visits by teenagers and young adults, at least in part, to B.1.1.7, the coronavirus variant first identified in the UK, which, according to health authorities, is currently the most common variety circulating in the US The variant is highly contagious and is believed to be about 60% more transmissible than the original virus strain.

“I think they’ll get infected more often because of the virus they’ve got,” said Offit, a health expert in virology and immunology who also serves on advisory boards for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. “Because of this, I think you will see and see more diseases” in children and young adults.

CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said earlier this month that more and more younger adults are being admitted to hospitals with Covid-19 as new, more contagious variants of the virus spread faster than ever. The number of 18- to 64-year-olds who visit emergency rooms with Covid is increasing nationwide, while the number of visits to patients aged 65 and over is decreasing. This emerges from a slide that Walensky presented at a press conference last week.

“Cases and emergency rooms are on,” said Walensky. “We are seeing this increase in younger adults, most of whom have not yet been vaccinated.”

In New York City, Governor Andrew Cuomo said last week the state was seeing an increase in the rate of Covid positivity in people aged 18 to 24. In Michigan, where Covid-19 cases and hospital stays are increasing rapidly, case rates are at an all-time high for those ages 19 and younger, according to state data released April 6. Hospital admissions are increasing for all age groups, with the largest increase occurring in people between the ages of 40 and 49, according to the state.

Health experts say the problem is diverse: older teens and young adults were among the last to be preferred to the Covid-19 vaccines, and many of them haven’t got a chance yet. In addition, young adults are believed to be involved in higher-risk behaviors, such as: B. Sports in close contact, going out in bars, attending unmasked meetings or traveling.

According to health experts, these factors in connection with the highly contagious variant B.1.1.7 should lead to an increase in young people going to the hospital.

We are “seeing less disease in the elderly due to vaccination, so we will now see proportionally more disease in young adults,” said Dr. Stephen Schrantz, an infectious disease expert at UChicago Medicine, added that it is still unclear how much of the increase is due to strain B.1.1.7 alone.

Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Toronto, said there was evidence that B.1.1.7 caused more symptoms and more severe illness. He said health officials in the US and other countries where exposure is prevalent could see a shift towards unvaccinated young people ending up in hospitals or even in intensive care units.

“There are things that are not currently working in our favor, namely B.1.1.7 and other worrying variants,” he said.

Even if more young people could get sick, Schrantz of UChicago doesn’t expect many of them to get seriously ill, especially school-age children. He said young adults with comorbidities like obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes are likely to be most at risk.

“The severity of the disease depends mainly on two factors – the virus and the host,” said Schrantz.

“As the virus changes, I don’t think the mutations in the spike protein will have increased virulence in children because their bodies, and especially their immune systems, will be less responsive to the virus. In other words, I think the host is the more important variable compared to changes in the virus, “he said.

Offit said he expected the situation to improve as the US vaccinates more adults regardless of age. It also makes it more difficult for the virus to spread from one person to the next as more people have antibodies.

As of Thursday, more than 125 million Americans had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the CDC. That’s roughly 37% of the total US population.

Young people “live in the herd,” Offit said. “The more the herd is vaccinated, the less the virus can spread.”

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Ladies and the Covid-19 Vaccine: What You Have to Know

Women and the Covid-19 Vaccine: What You Need to Know

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in February looked at the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines and found that 79 percent of the side effects reported to the agency were from women, although only 61 percent of the vaccines were administered to women.

Women could be more likely to report side effects than men, said Dr. Sabra L. Klein, Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Or, she added, women may experience side effects to a greater extent. “We’re not sure what it is,” she said.

If women actually experience more side effects than men, there may be a biological explanation: women and girls can make up to twice as many antibodies after flu shots and vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), and hepatitis A and B, probably due to a mixture of factors including reproductive hormones and genetic differences.

One study found that women accounted for 80 percent of all adult allergic reactions to vaccines in nearly three decades. Similarly, the CDC reported that most anaphylactic reactions to Covid-19 vaccines, although rare, occurred in women.

In a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine describing people’s experiences with redness, itching, and swelling that began four to eleven days after the first shot of the Moderna vaccine, 10 of the 12 patients were women. However, it’s not clear if women are more prone to the problem.

If you have mild side effects like a headache or low fever, this is a good thing, said Dr. Small as it means your immune system is going up. However, a lack of side effects doesn’t mean the vaccine isn’t working.

You can share your symptoms or concerns through the CDC’s V-Safe app, which records symptoms and provides post-vaccination health check-ins. Medically important reports sent with V-safe are followed by a call from a representative.

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Biden administration is getting ready for the potential want

Biden administration is preparing for the potential need

President Joe Biden places his hand on a man’s shoulder during a visit to a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination center at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, the United States, on April 6, 2021.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

Biden’s government is preparing for the potential need for Covid-19 vaccine booster shots, although nothing is certain, a top US official said Friday.

“The need for additional footage in the future is obviously a foreseeable potential event,” Andy Slavitt, senior advisor to President Joe Biden’s Covid Response Team, told reporters during a news conference Friday. “I would like to emphasize that while there is certainly speculation about it, this is far from saying that it will.”

Should Americans need booster vaccinations, the US government would likely need to reach agreements with drug manufacturers to provide additional doses and make plans to distribute vaccines.

Slavitt said Friday the government was considering the need to secure additional doses.

“I can assure you that as we plan, if the President orders the purchase of additional vaccines, as he has, and if we focus on all of the production expansion opportunities that we are talking about, we have a great many scenarios in mind have. “he said.

Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, said in comments first broadcast Thursday that people will likely need a third dose or booster shot of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of being fully vaccinated. Bourla also said it is possible that people may need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus annually, as with seasonal flu.

“A likely scenario is that a third dose is likely to be needed, somewhere between six and twelve months, and from there there will be an annual revaccination, but all of this needs to be confirmed. And again, the variants will play a key role,” he said CNBC’s Bertha Coombs during an event with CVS Health.

“It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people who may be susceptible to the virus,” he added.

Pfizer and Moderna have both stated that their two-dose Covid-19 vaccines, which use similar technology, will remain highly effective six months after the second dose. However, researchers still don’t know how long protection against the virus will last after six months of full vaccination, although health experts believe that protection wears off after some time.

On Thursday, David Kessler, the Biden government’s chief science officer for Covid Response, said Americans should expect booster vaccinations to protect against coronavirus variants. He told US lawmakers that currently approved vaccines offer high levels of protection, but that new variants may “question” the effectiveness of the shots.

“We don’t know everything right now,” he told the House Select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis.

“We are investigating the durability of the antibody response,” he said. “It seems strong, but that’s wearing off a bit, and no doubt the variants are challenging … they make these vaccines work harder. So I think we should be planning on doing it, just for planning purposes may have to. ” Boost. “

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC on Wednesday that the company is hoping to have a booster shot for its two-dose vaccine in the fall.

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Learn how to Begin Liking Operating

How to Start Liking Running

“I let people rely on me as a coach,” said Becs Gentry, one of Peloton’s running instructors. Since she records classes while running herself, Ms. Gentry uses her own internal battles as motivators. When she feels exhausted, she’ll say, “I know this sucks guys, but we’re going to do this together. Do not leave me high and dry. “Or,” You can do this for three minutes. Think of all the things that take more than three minutes. “

For a less chatty virtual trainer, you can use the Couch to 5K app, a beginner-friendly program that lets you select characters like Johnny Dead, a brain-hunting zombie, or Runicorn, the running unicorn, to tell when to run or go.

Experts advise you to sleep in your landing gear – compression tights and so on – so there is nothing between you and the start of your morning run. The idea is that you put friction between you and walk out the door. And as Tara Parker-Pope explained in our 7-Day Well Challenge, removing such barriers makes you more likely to reach a new health goal. But there was no way I could sleep in a sports bra or get out of bed to run until 7 a.m.

The lightbulb moment came when the woman who runs my running group, Helen McCaffrey Birney, told us on Zoom that she doesn’t always wear clean clothes when she runs. She is wearing her cute leggings with pockets again and no one is the smarter. Since the only thing I need less is laundry (barely a second after dirty dishes) during the pandemic, this was the perfect way to reduce friction and housework.

If you’re looking to wear gear again, keep those dirty clothes in one place in your room, possibly on a hook, so the sweat dries out in time for your next workout. Finally, you should wash them before they report when entering a room – my experience is likely after three wearings.

You may not think you are fast, but you are probably running faster than necessary. Do you think you move more slowly than walking? Slow down more. Do you feel like a turtle? Put the turtle in slow motion.

That way you can walk longer. The slower you drive, the more you can take care of your body. This pain in your shins tells you something, but not necessarily, that you need to stop running. You may need to move your foot or try a different recovery route.

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WHO chief warns an infection price approaching highest degree ever

WHO chief warns infection rate approaching highest level ever

The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, will attend a press conference at WHO headquarters on July 3, 2020, organized by the Union of Geneva Correspondents’ Association (ACANU) in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak caused by the novel coronavirus was organized in Geneva.

FABRIC COFFRINI | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON – The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that an alarming spike in Covid cases has pushed global infections to the pandemic peak.

“Worldwide cases and deaths continue to rise at a worrying rate,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing on Papua New Guinea and the western Pacific.

“Globally, the number of new cases per week has almost doubled in the past two months. This is approaching the highest infection rate we’ve seen to date during the pandemic,” he continued.

“Some countries that previously avoided widespread transmission are now seeing large increases in infections,” Tedros said, citing Papua New Guinea as an example.

Tedros said the United Nations Department of Health will continue to assess developments in the coronavirus crisis and “adjust advice accordingly”.

According to Tedros, the WHO Emergency Committee met on Thursday in accordance with international health regulations and expected to receive their advice on Monday.

“Globally, our message to all people in all countries remains the same. We all play a role in ending the pandemic,” he said.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, more than 139 million Covid cases have been reported worldwide with 2.9 million deaths.

The WHO declared the coronavirus a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.

“Shocking Imbalance”

Tedros previously said that one of WHO’s top priorities is to increase the ambitions of COVAX, an initiative for equitable access to Covid vaccines around the world, to help all countries end the pandemic.

The COVAX plan was supposed to deliver nearly 100 million vaccines to people by the end of March, but has only distributed around 38 million doses.

WHO hopes the initiative can catch up in the coming months, but condemns what it calls a “shocking imbalance” in the distribution of vaccines between high and low-income countries.

The health department has also criticized countries that, for political or commercial reasons, sought their own vaccine agreements outside the COVAX initiative.

Earlier this year, Tedros warned the world was facing “catastrophic moral failure” because of vaccine inequality.

He said a “I-first” approach to vaccines would put the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people at risk, adding the approach was “self-destructive” as it would encourage hoarding and likely prolong the health crisis.

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Why the Vaccine Security Numbers Are Nonetheless Fuzzy

Why the Vaccine Safety Numbers Are Still Fuzzy

“I will often say that the risk of getting a blood clot with birth control pills is similar to having a serious reaction to penicillin,” said Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosley, a gynecologist and the CEO of Power to Decide, a group dedicated to reducing unwanted pregnancies. She often discusses the risk of blood clots with her patients, explaining the increase in risk and the overall size of that risk. Most patients, she said, choose their birth control method based on other considerations.

What You Need To Know About The Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Break In The United States

    • On April 13, 2021, U.S. health officials called for an immediate halt to use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine after six recipients in the U.S. developed a rare blood clot disorder within one to three weeks of vaccination.
    • All 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico have temporarily suspended use of the vaccine or suspended from recommended vendors. The U.S. military, government-run vaccination centers, and a variety of private companies, including CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart, and Publix, also paused the injections.
    • Fewer than one in a million Johnson & Johnson vaccinations are currently being studied. If there is indeed a risk of blood clots from the vaccine – which has yet to be determined – the risk is extremely small. The risk of contracting Covid-19 in the United States is much higher.
    • The hiatus could complicate the country’s vaccination efforts at a time when many states are facing spikes in new cases and are trying to address vaccine hesitation.
    • Johnson & Johnson has also decided to delay the launch of its vaccine in Europe amid concerns about rare blood clots, which is taking another blow to the vaccine surge in Europe. South Africa, devastated by a contagious variant of the virus found there, also stopped using the vaccine. Australia announced that it would not buy cans.

Penicillin, a widely used antibiotic, causes serious allergic reactions in 10,000 to 10,000 patients.

For vaccines, however The safety threshold is generally higher than with other types of medication. As many researchers have found, Covid-19 also carries the risk of serious blood clots – much more than any plausible estimate of the vaccine’s effectiveness. But not everyone who doesn’t get vaccinated gets sick.

“The disease you happen to get and the vaccine you choose to get and that makes it harder,” said Dr. Steven Black, Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital studying vaccine safety.

Other vaccines are much less likely to have serious adverse events than birth control pills or penicillin – they generally affect less than 1 in 100,000 people who receive a given vaccine. That rate is “clearly much, much lower than what is tolerated for a drug,” said Dr. Nicola Klein, director of the Kaiser Permanente vaccine study center involved in the Vaccine Safety Datalink study.

Most other vaccines protect against diseases that are rather rare. In contrast, Covid-19 is still widespread in the United States and many parts of the world. Given the severity of the disease and how easily it spreads, the value of vaccination may now be greater than if such compromises are normally considered.

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Each day U.S. knowledge on April 16

Daily U.S. data on April 16

Dr. Jerry Abraham, director of Kedren Vaccines, right, gives Jose Guzman-Wug, 16, a COVID-19 shot while his mother, Adriana Wug, watches at Kedren Health in Los Angeles, CA on Thursday, April 15, 2021.

Allen J. Cockroaches | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of daily vaccine doses administered in the US exceeded 3 million for the ninth straight day, with several states approaching half the point for residents with at least one shot.

At the same time, the rate of new Covid-19 cases every day remains elevated across the country. The US reports nearly 70,500 new infections per day based on a 7-day average from Johns Hopkins University data, up 7% from a week.

US vaccine shots administered

With 3.5 million vaccine doses given Thursday, the 7-day average of daily U.S. shots is now 3.3 million.

Earlier this week, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said the hiatus in Johnson & Johnson vaccinations would not slow the pace of U.S. rollout and that the country has enough Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to keep going To give 3 million shots a day.

US percentage of the vaccinated population

About 38% of the US population have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, and 24% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

In New Hampshire, 56% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine. More than 45% of residents in Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Mexico are at least partially vaccinated.

Some states still lag behind. Mississippi and Alabama have only given 29% of their populations at least one shot. That number is 30% in Louisiana and 31% in Idaho and Georgia.

Josh Michaud, assistant director of global health policy at Kaiser Family Foundation, said the differences were partly due to different approaches to vaccine distribution. Some states have been able to make the process easier through technology and clear communication.

“A well-oiled, well-functioning vaccine operation certainly helps,” said Michaud.

Michaud also pointed to the hesitation of the vaccine, saying that many Americans eager for a vaccine have already received it, leaving those next on the fence standing in line. Vaccinating these reluctant populations will require more outreach and communication, he said.

US Covid cases

The 7-day average of daily US cases of new coronavirus is 70,484, according to Johns Hopkins. This is well below the country’s winter peak of an average of 250,000 new cases per day, but largely corresponds to the summer increase.

Michigan continues to have the country’s worst outbreak based on average daily new cases per capita, with infection rates close to pandemic highs. The state reports a 7-day average of nearly 7,700 daily new cases per day, and is approaching the state’s high of more than 8,300 per day recorded in December.

US Covid deaths

The US reported 887 Covid deaths on Wednesday, JHU data shows, and the 7-day average of daily deaths is 714. As of Thursday, a total of more than 565,000 Covid deaths have been reported in the US.

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A Lawsuit Over Frozen Embryos

A Lawsuit Over Frozen Embryos

Dr. Meyer, a devoted Quaker, needed a little more time and spiritual advice, but also made peace, grateful for Noah. “We both decided,” said Dr. Prizant, “viewing just one child as an opportunity to have more resources to serve many more children through our work.”

Reading the second letter, which, like the first, asked for $ 500, fulfilled Dr. Meyer with fear. She left a voicemail message at the hospital. Days later, she spoke to someone who turned out to be an employee in the accounting department.

“I’m telling you there are no embryos,” said Dr. Meyer and asked her to contact the lab herself.

She waited for a call back for weeks. Nothing. She called the clerk again. “I confirmed with the lab that there are two frozen embryos,” said the clerk.

Mrs. Meyer was stunned and kept silent. Then she spoke. “Do you understand how serious this is?” She said.

She was driving back from the family home in South Kingstown a few days later when Dr. Ruben Alvero, then director of the fertility center at Women & Infants, called to confirm this. “We have two of your embryos,” he said.

She pulled her car to the side of the road.

The embryos, said Dr. Alvero were found in a glass bottle at the bottom of the tank. The vial has a crack, he said, which meant the embryos may have been exposed to the nitrogen coolant for a decade. You are most likely not viable, he said, and apologized.

Dr. Meyer said Dr. Alvero, this is too much to take from the roadside. A meeting between Dr. Meyer, her husband, Dr. Alvero and Richard Hackett agreed to help set up and manage the IVF laboratory at Women & Infants. Dr. Frishman, the Dr. Meyer’s chief physician and still employed by Women & Infants was not present.

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Pfizer CEO says third Covid vaccine dose doubtless wanted inside 12 months

Pfizer CEO says third Covid vaccine dose likely needed within 12 months

President Joe Biden listens as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla speaks at the Pfizer Kalamazoo manufacturing facility in Portage, Michigan on February 19, 2021.

Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images

Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, said people “likely” will need a booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of being fully vaccinated. His comments were posted on Thursday but recorded on April 1st.

Bourla said it was possible that people would need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus annually.

“A likely scenario is that a third dose is likely to be needed, somewhere between six and twelve months, and there will be an annual revaccination from there, but all of this needs to be confirmed. And again the variants will play a key role,” said he Bertha Coombs of CNBC during an event with CVS Health.

“It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people who may be susceptible to the virus,” Bourla said.

The comment comes after Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told CNBC in February that people may need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 annually, just like seasonal flu shots.

Researchers still don’t know how long protection against the virus will last once someone has been fully vaccinated.

Pfizer said earlier this month that up to six months after the second dose, its Covid-19 vaccine was more than 91% effective against the coronavirus and more than 95% effective against serious illnesses. Moderna’s vaccine, which uses technology similar to Pfizer, was also shown to be highly effective after six months.

Pfizer’s data was based on more than 12,000 vaccinated participants. However, researchers say more data is needed to determine if protection continues after six months.

David Kessler, the Biden government’s chief science officer for Covid Response, said earlier Thursday that Americans should expect booster vaccinations to protect against coronavirus variants.

Kessler told US lawmakers that currently approved vaccines offer high levels of protection, but that new variants may “question” the effectiveness of the shots.

“We don’t know everything right now,” he told the House Select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis.

“We are investigating the durability of the antibody response,” he said. “It seems strong, but it’s wearing off a bit and no doubt the variants are challenging … they make these vaccines work harder. So I think we should, for planning purposes, for planning purposes only, expect us to possibly need to increase. “”

In February, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they were testing a third dose of their Covid-19 vaccine to better understand the immune response against new variants of the virus.

At the end of last month, the National Institutes of Health began testing a new Covid vaccine from Moderna, in addition to the existing one, which is intended to protect against a problematic variant first found in South Africa.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC on Wednesday that the company is hoping to have a booster shot for its two-dose vaccine in the fall.

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Can the Covid Vaccine Shield Me Towards Virus Variants?

Can the Covid Vaccine Protect Me Against Virus Variants?

The main concern of B.1.1.7 is that it is highly contagious and that it is spreading rapidly among the unvaccinated, potentially overwhelming hospitals in areas where cases are soaring.

All of the main vaccines used – Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Sputnik, and Novavax – have been shown to be effective against B.1.1.7. We know this from a large number of studies and indicators. First, scientists used the blood of vaccinated patients to study how well vaccine antibodies bind to a variant in a test tube. The vaccines have all proven themselves relatively well against B.1.1.7. There is also data from clinical trials, notably from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca (the most widely used vaccine in the world), showing that it is effective against both infections and severe ones in areas where B.1.1.7 is circulating Diseases are highly effective. And in Israel, for example, where 80 percent of the eligible population are vaccinated (all with the Pfizer shot), even as schools, restaurants, and workplaces open, case numbers drop, suggesting vaccines may introduce new infections, including those , curb caused by variants.

No vaccine is child’s play, and although the Covid vaccines offer a high level of protection, people who have been vaccinated sometimes still get infected. But breakthrough cases from vaccinated people are very rare, even when variants trigger an increase in the number of cases. And the vaccines clearly prevent serious illness and hospitalization in the few vaccinated patients who become infected.

What is the risk of infection after vaccination? Nobody really knows, but we have some pointers. For example, during the Moderna study, only 11 out of 15,210 vaccinated patients were infected. Both Pfizer and Moderna are currently conducting more detailed studies of breakthrough cases in vaccinated subjects and should publish these data soon.

Updated

April 15, 2021, 9:08 p.m. ET

Two real-world studies of vaccinated health care workers at much higher risk of virus exposure than the rest of us offer hopeful signs. One study found that only four out of 8,121 fully vaccinated employees at the University of Texas’ Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas were infected. The other found that only seven of 14,990 employees at UC San Diego Health and the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles tested positive two or more weeks after receiving a second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccinations . Both reports were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and are a sign that breakthrough cases were uncommon even in those who were frequently exposed to sick patients, although cases in the United States rose sharply. Most importantly, patients infected after vaccination had mild symptoms. Some people had no symptoms at all and were only discovered through tests in studies or as part of their independent medical care.

Researchers are still investigating whether the variants may increase the number of breakthrough cases or whether vaccine antibodies decline over time. So far, data from Moderna shows that the vaccine is still 90 percent effective after at least six months. Pfizer has reported similar results.

A recent study of 149 people in Israel who became infected with the Pfizer vaccine after vaccination found that a variant first identified in South Africa was more likely to cause breakthrough infections. However, these eight infections occurred between the seventh and the 13th day after the second dose. “We didn’t see a South African variant 14 days after the second dose,” said Adi Stern, the study’s lead author, professor at the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research at Tel Aviv University. “It was a small sample size, but it is very likely that two weeks after the second dose the level of protection may increase and the South African variant will be blocked completely. That gives us more room for optimism. “