Tag: Vaccine

Health

Moderna’s Easy Repair to Vaccine Provide: Extra Doses in Every Vial

Post author By
Post date February 2, 2021

Moderna’s Simple Fix to Vaccine Supply: More Doses in Each Vial

Moderna is asking U.S. regulators to agree to what could be a remarkably simple proposal to speed up Americans’ immunization against the coronavirus: fill the empty space in the vials with up to 50 percent more doses.

The Food and Drug Administration could decide in a matter of weeks whether Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotech company that develops one of two state-approved Covid vaccines, can increase the number of doses in its vials from up to 15. Moderna has ramped up production of its vaccine, but the process of filling, capping and labeling millions of tiny vials has proven to be a roadblock. The company could produce more if regulators allow it to make fuller vials, Ray Jordan, a Moderna spokesman, said late Monday.

While it’s not clear how quickly Moderna could adjust its production, any spike could be extremely welcome news in the campaign to contain a pandemic that has killed more than 443,000 people in the US alone.

“That just makes a lot of sense,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who was Assistant Secretary of Health for Preparedness and Response under President Barack Obama. If Moderna can use the same size vial and the same production lines that are already running, she said, “It’s a relatively simple and straightforward solution.”

Moderna has given up about 46 percent of the vaccine previously administered in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The remainder comes from Pfizer-BioNTech, the only other vaccine developer to receive emergency clearance.

Both vaccines require two doses, and both companies have promised to deliver 200 million doses by July. That would be enough to cover roughly three-quarters of the nation’s adults. If Moderna can deliver cans faster, that schedule could accelerate.

The Biden administration is looking for a way to strengthen production, for example for obstacles in the “filling and finishing” phase of production. Although this stage of the nuts and bolts receives less attention than the manufacturing process of the vaccine itself, it has been identified as a production limitation for years.

Moderna has discussed the possible change with the Food and Drug Administration but has not yet provided manufacturing data for support, according to those familiar with the discussions. Federal regulators may be receptive to the idea of more doses in each vial, but could prevent a 50 percent increase and instead approve a more modest number of additional doses.

The industry standard has long been 10 doses per vial, and federal regulators may fear that having too many extra punctures by needling the rubber cover of the vial and the time it takes to extract more doses increases the risk of contamination of the vaccine with Bacteria could increase.

At some point, too much liquid can cause a vial to break. Moderna has tested what happens when additional doses are added and found the limit to be 15, according to people familiar with the company’s operations and not authorized to speak publicly.

Moderna’s proposal for a five dose increase was previously reported by CNBC.

Packing more vaccines in each vial is one of several options the White House and health officials are considering to ramp up production before spring, when authorities expect a renewed spike in infections from emerging variants of the coronavirus. Some ideas, such as combining fractions of doses left over in vials, have been suggested and discarded.

Pfizer is unable to increase the amount of vaccine in its vials because its manufacturing is geared towards a specific vial size that can only hold about six doses. Moderna’s vial is large enough to hold more than the 10 doses currently allowed, so it can add more without creating a new production line.

When asked about Moderna’s proposal, a White House spokesman said Monday that “all options are on the table”.

Prashant Yadav, who studies healthcare supply chains at the Washington Center for Global Development, said Moderna could potentially make more of its vaccine “relatively quickly” if it were given the green light to add doses to each vial.

Covid19 vaccinations>

Answers to your vaccine questions

Am I eligible for the Covid vaccine in my state?

Currently more than 150 million people – almost half of the population – can be vaccinated. But each state makes the final decision on who goes first. The country’s 21 million healthcare workers and three million long-term care residents were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials asked all states to open eligibility to anyone over 65 and adults of any age with medical conditions that are at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying of Covid-19. Adults in the general population are at the end of the line. If federal and state health authorities can remove bottlenecks in the distribution of vaccines, everyone over the age of 16 is eligible as early as spring or early summer. The vaccine has not been approved in children, although studies are ongoing. It can take months before a vaccine is available to anyone under the age of 16. For the latest information on vaccination guidelines in your area, see your state health website

Is the Vaccine Free?

You shouldn’t have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, despite being asked for insurance information. If you don’t have insurance, you should still get the vaccine for free. Congress passed law this spring banning insurers from applying cost-sharing such as a co-payment or deductible. It consisted of additional safeguards prohibiting pharmacies, doctors, and hospitals from charging patients, including uninsured patients. Even so, health experts fear that patients will end up in loopholes that make them prone to surprise bills. This may be the case for people who are charged a doctor’s visit fee with their vaccine, or for Americans who have certain types of health insurance that are not covered by the new regulations. When you get your vaccine from a doctor’s office or emergency clinic, talk to them about possible hidden costs. To make sure you don’t get a surprise invoice, it is best to get your vaccine at a Department of Health vaccination center or local pharmacy as soon as the shots become more widely available.

Can I choose which vaccine to get?How long does the vaccine last? Do I need another next year?

That is to be determined. It is possible that Covid-19 vaccinations will become an annual event just like the flu vaccination. Or the vaccine may last longer than a year. We’ll have to wait and see how durable the protection from the vaccines is. To determine this, researchers will track down vaccinated people to look for “breakthrough cases” – those people who get Covid-19 despite being vaccinated. This is a sign of a weakening of protection and gives researchers an indication of how long the vaccine will last. They will also monitor the levels of antibodies and T cells in the blood of people who have been vaccinated to see if and when a booster shot might be needed. It is conceivable that people might need boosters every few months, once a year, or just every few years. It’s just a matter of waiting for the data.

Does my employer need vaccinations?Where can I find out more?

But he said it wasn’t an instant change. “I don’t think Moderna has a surplus,” he said.

Dr. Lurie, an advisor to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, known as CEPI, said that during the federal government’s H1N1 swine flu response, the problem of filling and completion created a “major bottleneck” with a limited supply of vaccines.

She said that at the start of the coronavirus pandemic at CEPI, there was discussion about which vial size would be suitable for mass vaccination: five, 10 or 20. Last year, a global shortage of glass vials became apparent due to negotiations between the federal government and vaccine manufacturers , which added further stress to drug companies developing coronavirus vaccines.

Mr Yadav said the finish-and-fill process has been automated to prevent contamination and ensure precise dosing of the microgram. It can fill up to 1,000 vaccine bottles per minute at top speed, he said.

A 15-dose vial made a compromise, he said. There could be more waste if healthcare professionals run out of people to be vaccinated and have to discard the remaining doses. But during a raging pandemic, experts said that could be a risk federal health officials would take.

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, who led the Trump administration’s vaccine development program and is an advisor to the Biden administration through next week, said other big drug companies like Merck or GlaxoSmithKline could potentially be able to end some of the fill and leg burden.

“It’s a more general type of manufacturing activity,” he said.

French drug maker Sanofi announced last week that it would produce more than 100 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine starting this summer to meet demand in Europe. Company employees said Sanofi will fill and package vials at a Sanofi facility in Frankfurt, near BioNTech’s German headquarters. BioNTech, Pfizer’s German partner, developed the vaccine.

Tags Doses, fix, Modernas, Simple, supply, Vaccine, vial

Health

EU’s vaccine export controls might harm world vaccine provide

Post author By
Post date February 2, 2021

EU's vaccine export controls could damage global vaccine supply

The decision of the EU to carry out export controls for coronavirus vaccines is “extremely problematic” according to experts. They warned that if other countries followed suit, this could lead to a collapse in global supply.

“There is a real risk that the EU making this decision could set off a cascade in other countries to introduce export bans (vaccines),” said Suerie Moon, co-director of the Graduate Institute of the Global Health Center in Geneva, on Monday opposite CNBC.

“There is a real risk that the cross-border movement of vaccines will collapse, just as it did a year ago when countries including the EU blocked exports of food and even masks and other essential medical supplies. This is catastrophic internationally.”

In the worst case, she said, “The greatest risk is that this will be an example that many other countries will follow and that will lead to a collapse in the global vaccine supply.”

Export controls

The people lining up outside the Belgrade Fair to receive the China-made Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine became a vaccination center on January 25, 2021.

ANDREJ ISAKOVIC | AFP | Getty Images

While insisting that the measure is not an “export ban”, Member States can restrict exports of block-made coronavirus vaccines if they believe the vaccine maker has failed to respect existing contracts with the EU.

It contains exceptions for a large number of countries outside the EU but within Europe, such as Albania and Serbia, a number of countries in North Africa and one of the 92 low and middle income countries that fall under the COVAX initiative.

Moon said: “The EU has certainly put in some pressure valves to allow exports to certain countries in the world, but there are still many countries that rely heavily on EU production and are seriously injured.” . “

The bloc made the announcement amid heightened concerns and ugly public disputes with vaccine manufacturers over insufficient supplies to the bloc.

Vaccine maker Pfizer announced that it would temporarily cut production of its shot, developed with German biotechnology BioNTech, as it modernized manufacturing facilities in Belgium, while AstraZeneca dealt a blow to the EU by announcing it would deliver far fewer vaccine doses than that originally expected in the first quarter, citing problems in the Dutch and Belgian plants.

The delays put pressure on the European Commission, which has already been criticized for its lack of speed in ordering and approving vaccines and introducing vaccines.

The move to introduce export controls caused a stir, especially in the UK after a week of simmering tensions over shipments of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is also manufactured at two UK sites.

The EU had indicated that supplies were to be diverted from the UK plants to Europe, which sparked a dispute with the drug manufacturer and the UK government. It escalated to the point where the EU said it would override part of the Brexit deal to prevent EU-made vaccines from potentially entering the UK via Northern Ireland.

This decision was reversed shortly after a public outcry, including from the World Health Organization, warning of the dangers of “vaccine nationalism”. The EU assured the UK that it would receive vaccines from the block.

Pandora’s box

Simon J. Evenett, professor of international trade and economic development at the University of St. Gallen, said on Monday that the EU’s move was tantamount to opening the “Pandora’s box” and could have unforeseen consequences.

He said the restrictions could cause concern to foreign governments for a number of reasons, including the fact that the “standard for authorizing the export of Covid-19 vaccines is unclear” and that these decisions “can be arbitrary”. He also pointed out that it shouldn’t expire on March 31, 2021 as promised.

Evenett warned that the move “could spread down the supply chain for Covid-19 vaccines to include key ingredients needed to manufacture and distribute the vaccines,” and even to export restrictions on other essential goods such as food, energy and Energy could lead to other drugs.

CSL staff will be working in the laboratory on November 08, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia, where they will begin manufacturing the AstraZeneca-Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Darrian Traynor | Getty Images

Such scenarios “would exacerbate the damage being done to both the EU public health systems and its multinationals,” he said.

“A disruption in vaccine supply chains will slow vaccine rates in the EU and elsewhere, leading to unnecessary deaths and an even slower economic recovery. If the European Commission realizes that it is going to open Pandora’s box, it may find an elegant way to pull it back of the export control regime for the Covid-19 regime, “he said.

“This would allow the EU to regain its reputation as a defender of multilateralism and the rules-based global trading system. This morning that reputation is in tatters.”

Tags controls, damage, EUs, export, global, supply, Vaccine

World News

World Covid-19 Reside Updates: Information on Vaccine, Variants, Stimulus and Circumstances

Post author By
Post date February 1, 2021

Emma Fields receiving a Covid-19 vaccination in Mound Bayou, Miss., on Saturday.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Rory Doyle for The New York Times

Vaccinations in the United States are slowly picking up speed as the Biden administration pushes to accelerate inoculations and blunt the spread of more contagious virus variants.

The United States has administered about 30 million doses, and, as of Sunday, is averaging more than 1.3 million doses administered over the past seven days, compared with an average of less than one million per day two weeks earlier, according to a New York Times vaccine tracker.

President Biden, under pressure to speed up coronavirus vaccinations, has recently suggested the nation could soon reach an average of 1.5 million shots a day.

But just as there are signs of progress, another problem has taken root: the spread of the variants, which scientists warn must be contained before they become dominant. Several hundred cases of the more contagious variant discovered in Britain, which experts have said could be the dominant form in the United States by March, have already been confirmed.

The country has also recorded its first two cases of the variant spreading rapidly in South Africa, which has proved to reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.

“If we didn’t have these variants looming,” we would be in a good place, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist and pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. If those variants take over by spring, “as many of us are predicting,” he said, “it changes everything. Now, we really have to vaccinate the American population by late spring, early summer.”

Two key challenges in the weeks ahead are “increasing the supply of vaccines” and “speeding up the time it takes to administer them,” Andy Slavitt, a White House adviser, said in a news briefing on Friday. Many experts have pushed for bringing other vaccine options out and releasing the first doses more widely.

The most effective state programs, said Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, are “very simple, age-based, not a lot of complex rules. They focus on getting the vaccines out.”

Here is a snapshot of how five of the best-performing states are doing:

West Virginia has given at least one dose to 10.7 percent of its population, second only to Alaska, and leads the nation in the percentage of its population that has received two doses (3.7 percent). Early on, the state got a head start because it opted out of a federal program to vaccinate people in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. While other states chose the federal plan, which teamed with Walgreens and CVS, officials decided the idea made little sense in West Virginia, where many communities are miles from the nearest chain store, and about half of pharmacies are independently owned. Instead the state created a network of pharmacies, pairing them with about 200 long-term care facilities.
According to health officials in Alaska, there are several reasons behind the state’s relatively high vaccination rate, The Anchorage Daily News has reported. Those factors include: the state’s having received a high number of doses through the Indian Health Service; the decision to receive doses monthly, versus weekly, as most states do; and declining virus caseloads, which has allowed health care workers to focus on inoculations. The state has vaccinated 13 percent of its population, according to a Times database.
North Dakota has used 91 percent of the vaccines distributed to the state, according to the Times vaccine tracker. It is the only state above 90 percent; more populous states like California (58 percent) and New York (64 percent) have used less, proportionally. North Dakota was among the first states to lower the minimum age eligible for vaccination, from 75 to 65.
In a recent interview with the American Medical Association, health officials in New Mexico attributed part of the state’s success to its “data-oriented and science-oriented” governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, and to an app that allowed easy registration and close coordination among hospitals and providers. The state has given 9.8 percent of residents at least one shot, and has used 83 percent of its doses.
Connecticut got mass vaccination sites up and running early, and uses an inventory system that allocates unused doses to places that need them. But older residents have complained about long waits.

United States ›	United StatesOn Jan. 31	14-day change
New cases	111,478	–32%
New deaths	1,875	–5%

World ›	WorldOn Jan. 31	14-day change
New cases	389,735	–21%
New deaths	8,093	+2%

U.S. vaccinations ›

Credit…Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times

PARIS — Public frustration with lockdowns is palpable across Europe, with pensioners protesting this weekend in Vienna, restaurateurs taking to the streets in Budapest and demonstrators clashing with the police in Belgium, prompting dozens of arrests. The Dutch authorities fined more than 10,000 people last week for violating the national curfew.

While none of the protests resulted in the kind of violence seen in the Netherlands in recent weeks, they reflect a growing impatience as political leaders extend restrictions to guard against a resurgence of the virus fueled by new variants.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron has resisted a full lockdown, making a calculated gamble that his government can tighten the rules just enough to avoid a new wave of infections.

Prime Minister Jean Castex appeared in front of television cameras for an unexpected statement on Friday night, announcing a handful of new curbs, including strict border closures.

“Even if the path is very narrow, we must take it,” Mr. Macron was reported to have said at a cabinet meeting last week, according to the Journal du Dimanche, pushing back against the advice of several senior aides. According to the newspaper, he added: “When you are French, you have all you need to get by, as long as you dare to try.”

Polls in France have shown weariness with restrictions, and grumbling about the rules is growing in some quarters.

France is still under a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, and places like cafes, museums and theaters are closed. Schools and shops are open.

After a widely publicized breach of the rules at a restaurant in the southern city of Nice last week and a call to “civil disobedience” by some restaurant owners, the French economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, warned on Monday that any establishments that flouted the rules would be cut off from coronavirus aid.

In the French Alps, protesters blocked roads on Monday to demand that ski lifts reopen.

Critics say that Mr. Macron’s approach may simply be delaying the inevitable and that he could be forced to change course if cases started to surge.

“It’s a risk, I’m hoping it was a calculated risk,” Karine Lacombe, an infectious-disease specialist, told the French news channel LCI on Sunday.

Mr. Macron’s plan is rooted partly in the relative stability of the pandemic in France. The number of new daily cases has inched up only slowly and while hospitalizations remain high, there has been no sudden surge. More contagious variants of the virus have been registered in the country, but the authorities say they believe that their spread, so far, is under control.

“Everything suggests that a new wave could occur because of the variant,” Olivier Véran, the French health minister, told the Journal du Dimanche. “But perhaps we can avoid it thanks to the measures that we decided early and that the French people are respecting.”

Aurelien Breeden reported from Paris, and Marc Santora from London.

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N.Y.C. Snowstorm Delays Vaccinations

On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York postponed coronavirus vaccinations to prevent older residents from traveling to appointments in blizzard-like conditions.

The storm is disrupting our vaccination effort, and we need to keep people safe. We don’t want folks, especially seniors, going out in unsafe conditions to get vaccinated. We know we can reschedule appointments very quickly because, of course, we have supply. We’re going to use the supply we have. Our problem is lack of supply. So we can take the supply we have and distribute it very quickly in the days to come, and make sure everyone gets the appointments. But it’s not safe out there today. So vaccinations are canceled today. They’re also going to be canceled tomorrow. Based on what we are seeing right now, we believe that tomorrow, getting around the city will be difficult, it’ll be icy, it’ll be treacherous. We do not want seniors, especially, out in those conditions. So we’re going to have vaccinations off for today and tomorrow, come back strong on Wednesday. We’ll be able to catch up quickly because, again, we have a vast amount of capacity. We don’t have enough vaccine. So we’ll simply use the days later in the week. Crank up those schedules, get people rescheduled into those days.

On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York postponed coronavirus vaccinations to prevent older residents from traveling to appointments in blizzard-like conditions.CreditCredit…James Estrin/The New York Times

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said on Monday that coronavirus vaccinations scheduled for Tuesday would be postponed because of the winter storm, the second day in a row that they have been delayed.

Heavy snow was also complicating vaccination efforts in Washington, Philadelphia, New Jersey and elsewhere.

At a news conference on Monday, Mr. de Blasio of New York City said he did not want older residents traveling to vaccine appointments amid blizzard-like conditions with gusty winds.

“Based on what we are seeing right now, we believe tomorrow, getting around the city will be difficult,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It will be icy, it will be treacherous.”

He said he believed the city could quickly make up the appointments later in the week.

“We have a vast amount of capacity; we don’t have enough vaccine,” he said. “We’ll simply use the days later in the week, crank up those schedules, get people rescheduled into those days.”

The storm will temporarily derail a vaccine rollout that has been plagued by inadequate supply, buggy sign-up systems and confusion over the New York State’s strict eligibility guidelines. The vaccine is available to residents 65 and older as well as a wide range of workers designated “essential.”

About 800,000 doses have been administered so far in the city, Mr. de Blasio said.

Vaccine appointments originally scheduled for Monday at several sites in the region — the Javits Center in Manhattan, the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, a drive-through site at Jones Beach in Long Island, SUNY Stony Brook and the Westchester County Center — would be rescheduled for this week, according to a statement from Melissa DeRosa, a top aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. “We ask all New Yorkers to monitor the weather and stay off the roads tomorrow so our crews and first responders can safely do their jobs,” she said.

Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference on Monday that New York’s seven-day average positive test rate was 4.8 percent, the 24th straight day it had declined.

Mr. Cuomo added that the state had administered about 1.96 million doses of the vaccine.

In the Philadelphia area, city-run testing and vaccine sites were closed on Monday. Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island and parts of the Washington, D.C., area were following suit. Some areas away from the center of the storm were expected to remain open for vaccinations, including parts of Massachusetts and upstate New York.

Credit…Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

The past few weeks in the United States have been the deadliest of the coronavirus pandemic, and residents in a majority of counties remain at an extremely high risk of contracting the virus. At the same time, transmission seems to be slowing throughout the country, with the number of new average cases 40 percent lower on Jan. 29 than at the U.S. peak three weeks earlier.

Other indicators reinforce the current downward trend in cases. Hospitalizations are down significantly from record highs in early January. The number of tests per day has also decreased, which can obscure the virus’s true toll, but the positivity rate of those tests has also gone down, indicating that the slowed spread is real.

Still, the average reported daily death rate over the past seven days remains above 3,000, compared with less than 1,000 per day in September and October.

Experts say the decrease could mark a turning point in the outbreak after months of ever-higher caseloads. But new, more contagious variants threaten to upend progress and could even send case rates to a new high if they take hold, especially if the national vaccine rollout faces hurdles.

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Biden to Discuss Pandemic Relief Package With Republicans

President Biden will meet with 10 Republican senators on Monday who have proposed a much smaller Covid-19 relief package. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the Mr. Biden’s biggest concern is releasing a package that is too small.

The president has been clear since long before he came into office that he’s open to engaging with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress about their ideas. And this is an example of doing exactly that. So as we said in our statement last night, it’s an exchange of ideas, an opportunity to do that. This group obviously sent a letter with some outline, some top lines of their concerns and their priorities, and he’s happy to have a conversation with them. What this meeting is not, is a forum for the president to make or accept an offer. His view — it remains — what was stated in the statement last night, but also what he said on Friday, which is that the risk is not that it is too big, this package, the risk is that it is too small. And that remains his view, and it’s one he’ll certainly express today. But it’s important to him that he hears this group out on their concerns, on their ideas. He’s always open to making this package stronger. And he also, as was noted in our statement last night, remains in close touch with Speaker Pelosi with Leader Schumer, and he will continue that engagement throughout the day, and in the days ahead.

President Biden will meet with 10 Republican senators on Monday who have proposed a much smaller Covid-19 relief package. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the Mr. Biden’s biggest concern is releasing a package that is too small.CreditCredit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

White House officials offered a pointed, if polite, warning to 10 Senate Republicans planning to pitch a scaled-back coronavirus relief package to President Biden at the White House on Monday evening: Think bigger.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, played down expectations of the meeting, a critical first test of Mr. Biden’s dueling commitments to bipartisanship and speeding pandemic aid, saying no deal would be done without further negotiations — a statement aimed at reassuring Democrats leery of a fast, weak deal.

“What this meeting is not is a forum for the president to make or accept an offer,” Ms. Psaki told reporters on Monday afternoon, repeating the president’s determination to push through a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill.

“The risk is not that it is too big, this package,” Ms. Psaki added. “The risk is that it is too small. That remains his view.”

A coalition of center-right Republican senators, led by Susan Collins of Maine, on Monday outlined a more limited $618 billion stimulus plan, which they are billing as a way for Mr. Biden to pass a pandemic aid bill with bipartisan support and make good on his inauguration pledge to unite the country.

With 10 Republicans on board, joining the Senate’s 50 Democrats, a bipartisan bill could overcome the chamber’s 60-vote filibuster rule. But Democrats have shown little enthusiasm for a measure that amounts to less than one third of what the president says is needed.

Still, after receiving a letter from the senators on Sunday requesting a meeting, Mr. Biden called Ms. Collins and invited her and the other signers to the White House. He also spoke with Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader.

The Republican proposal is likely to be met with resistance from congressional Democrats, who are preparing this week to begin laying the groundwork for passing Mr. Biden’s plan through a process known as budget reconciliation, which would allow it to bypass a filibuster and pass solely with Democratic votes.

The proposal would include $160 billion for vaccine distribution and development, coronavirus testing and the production of personal protective equipment; $20 billion toward helping schools reopen; more relief for small businesses; and additional aid to individuals. The package would also extend enhanced unemployment benefits of $300 a week — currently slated to lapse in March — until June 30.

“We recognize your calls for unity and want to work in good faith with your administration,” wrote the Republican group, which includes Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mitt Romney of Utah.

The measure omits a federal minimum wage increase that Mr. Biden included in his plan. It would also whittle down his proposal to send $1,400 checks to many Americans, and limit it to lower-income earners.

The proposal calls for checks of up to $1,000 for individuals making $50,000 a year or less and families with a combined income of up to $100,000, with individuals earning less than $40,000 — and families earning less than $80,000 — receiving the full amount.

Previous rounds of direct payments were targeted to Americans earning less than $99,000 annually, with those earning less than $75,000 receiving the full amount.

Congress approved more than $4 trillion through a series of bills last year to address the coronavirus crisis and its economic fallout. Most recently, in December, lawmakers passed a $900 billion stimulus plan that included $600 direct checks to many Americans.

Mr. Biden received an important boost on Monday ahead of his meeting with the senators: Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia, a close ally of former President Trump, said he supported a bigger relief package than the one that the center-right Republicans are proposing.

“If we actually throw away some money right now, so what?” said Mr. Justice, a former Democrat who switched parties to support Mr. Trump in 2017, told CNN.

Credit…Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

The American economy will return to its pre-pandemic size by the middle of this year, even if Congress does not approve any more federal aid for the recovery, but it will be years before everyone thrown off the job by the pandemic is able to return to work, the Congressional Budget Office projected on Monday.

The new projections from the office, which is nonpartisan and issues regular budgetary and economic forecasts, are an improvement from the office’s forecasts last summer. Officials told reporters on Monday that the brightening outlook was a result of large sectors of the economy adapting better and more rapidly to the pandemic than originally expected.

They also reflect increased growth from a $900 billion economic aid package that Congress passed in December, which included $600 direct checks to individuals and more generous unemployment benefits.

The budget office now expects the unemployment rate to fall to 5.3 percent at the end of the year, down from an 8.4 percent projection last July. The economy is expected to grow 3.7 percent for the year, after recording a much smaller contraction in 2020 than the budget office initially expected.

The rosier projections are likely to inject even more debate into the discussions over whether to pass President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic rescue package. It could embolden Republicans who have pushed Mr. Biden to scale back the plan significantly, saying the economy does not need so much additional federal support and that another big package could “overheat” the economy.

But the report shows little risk of that happening. The economy is projected to remain below potential levels until 2025 on its current path. And big economic risks remain. The number of employed Americans will not return to its pre-pandemic levels until 2024, officials predicted, reflecting the prolonged difficulties of shaking off the virus and returning to full levels of economic activity.

The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, warned last week that the economy was “a long way from a full recovery” with millions still out of work and many small businesses facing pressure.

Budget officials said the rebound in growth and employment could be significantly accelerated if public health authorities were able to more rapidly deploy coronavirus vaccines across the population.

As it stands, the budget office sees little evidence of growth running hot enough in the years to come to spur a rapid increase in inflation. It forecast inflation levels below the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent for years to come, even with the Fed holding interest rates near zero.

Other independent forecasts, including one from the Brookings Institution last week, have projected that another dose of economic aid — like the $1.9 trillion package Mr. Biden has proposed — would help the economy grow more rapidly, topping its pre-pandemic path by year’s end.

Credit…Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times

During January, the pandemic’s deadliest month, Laredo, Texas, held the bleak distinction of having one of the most severe outbreaks of any city in the United States. The death toll in the overwhelmingly Latino city of 277,000 now stands at more than 630 — including at least 126 in January alone.

When the virus made its way to the borderlands almost a year ago, Dr. Ricardo Cigarroa could have just hunkered down. He could have focused on his profitable cardiology practice, which has 80 employees. He could have kept quiet.

Instead, Dr. Cigarroa has become a top crusader and the de facto authority on the pandemic along this stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border.

On regional television stations, he calmly explains, in both English and Spanish, how the virus is evolving. Known for making Covid-19 house calls around Laredo in his old Toyota Tacoma pickup, he is interviewed so often that Texas Monthly called him “The Dr. Fauci of South Texas,” comparing him to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert — though Dr. Cigarroa holds no official government portfolio.

Lately, Dr. Cigarroa has been losing his patience.

Looking exhausted in a video posted on Facebook, he blasted political leaders for allowing the virus to rampage through this part of South Texas. Dr. Cigarroa singled out Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, for refusing to allow Laredo to impose stricter mitigation measures.

“To the governor: It’s OK to swallow your pride,” Dr. Cigarroa said, stunning some viewers with a warning that the virus could kill 1 in 250 Laredoans by midyear. “It’s OK to say that you’re not going to do it, and then do it to save lives.”

Pleading with the people of Laredo to consider civil disobedience in the form of staying home from work if politicians fail to act, he added, “The only thing that will save lives at this point will be staying home and shutting down the city.”

Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Even as more districts reopen their buildings and President Biden joins the chorus of those saying schools can safely resume in-person education, hundreds of thousands of Black parents say they are not ready to send their children back. That reflects both the disproportionately harsh consequences the coronavirus has visited on nonwhite Americans and the profound lack of trust that Black families have in school districts, a longstanding phenomenon exacerbated by the pandemic.

It also points to a major dilemma: School closures have hit the mental health and academic achievement of nonwhite children the hardest, but many of the families that education leaders have said need in-person education the most are most wary of returning.

That is shifting the reopening debate in real time. In Chicago, only about a third of Black families have indicated they are willing to return to classrooms, compared with 67 percent of white families, and the city’s teachers’ union, which is hurtling toward a strike, has made the disparity a core part of its argument against in-person classes.

In New York City, about 12,000 more white children have returned to classrooms than Black students, though Black children make up a larger share of the overall district. In Oakland, Calif., just about a third of Black parents said they would consider in-person learning, compared with more than half of white families. And Black families in Washington, Nashville, Dallas and other districts also indicated they would keep their children learning at home at higher rates than white families.

Education experts and Black parents say decades of racism, institutionalized segregation and mistreatment of Black children have left Black communities to doubt that school districts are being upfront about the risks.

“For generations, these public schools have failed us and prepared us for prison, and now it’s like they’re preparing us to pass away,” said Sarah Carpenter, the executive director of Memphis Lift, a parent advocacy group in Tennessee. “We know that our kids have lost a lot, but we’d rather our kids to be out of school than dead.”

In many cities and districts, Latino and Asian-American families are also less likely than white families to send their children back. Asian-Americans have opted out of in-person classes at the highest rates of any ethnic group in New York City. Latino families in Chicago were most likely to say they would keep their children at home when schools reopened.

Still, the pattern is most consistent and pronounced with Black families, which have been particularly affected by decades of underinvestment. By one estimate, a $23 billion gap, or $2,226 per pupil, separates funding for predominantly white districts and nonwhite districts, and Jessica Calarco, a sociologist at Indiana University Bloomington who has studied reopening, said the pandemic had amplified that inequity.

“If you know your school doesn’t have hot running water, how would you feel about sending your child to that school knowing they can’t fully wash their hands before they eat lunch?” she asked.

GLOBAL ROUNDUP

Credit…Elmond Jiyane for GCIS, via Reuters

A million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine arrived in South Africa on Monday, paving the way for the country to begin vaccinating its population of nearly 60 million. Health care workers will be the first to be offered the shots, officials said.

The country has reported by far the most cases and deaths from the coronavirus on the African continent. It has participated in clinical trials of several vaccines.

The plane delivering the eagerly awaited doses from the Serum Institute of India, which produced them, was met at the airport by President Cyril Ramaphosa. The president has come under criticism over the country’s lagging start to widespread vaccination, with many countries in Asia and the West able to start immunizing their populations weeks before South Africa could secure a supply.

South Africa experienced a surge in new cases around the turn of the year, fueled by the more transmissible variant of the virus that was first detected in the country. But the surge has begun to ease in recent weeks. Information has not yet been released on the AstraZeneca vaccine’s effectiveness against the variant, which is now predominant in the country.

Over the course of the pandemic, South Africa has reported about 1.45 million cases, and has lately been averaging about 5,800 new cases a day, according to a New York Times database.

In other developments around the world:

Seeking a better understanding of the pandemic’s origins, a team of 15 World Health Organization experts is visiting some of the places first hit by the coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan, including a live animal market, a hospital and a disease control center. The inquiry is expected to take months to complete. Scientists initially believed the outbreak began at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, but many experts now doubt that theory.
The European Union will get 75 million additional doses of vaccine in the next few months, the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech announced on Monday. The vaccine jointly developed by the company and Pfizer was the first to be authorized for use in the E.U., but supplies have been limited by production issues in the early going, and several countries, including Germany, are off to slower than expected starts in vaccinating their populations.
The police in China said they had broken up a criminal ring that manufactured and sold more than 3,000 fake coronavirus vaccine doses, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Monday. More than 80 people were arrested, the agency said. According to Xinhua, the police said that since September, the main suspect had been selling vials of “vaccine” that was really just saline solution.

Credit…J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

The scattered reports from around the country can play like a cruel irony: Someone tests positive for the coronavirus even though they have already received one or both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Notable examples

It’s happened to at least three members of Congress recently:

But it’s been reported in people in other walks of life too, including Rick Pitino, a Hall of Fame basketball coach, and a nurse in California.

How can that happen?

Experts say cases like these are not surprising and do not indicate that there was something wrong with the vaccines or how they were administered. Here is why.

Vaccines don’t work instantly. It takes a few weeks for the body to build up immunity after receiving a dose. And the vaccines now in use in the U.S., from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both require a second shot a few weeks after the first to reach full effectiveness.
Nor do they work retroactively. You can already be infected and not know it when you get the vaccine — even if you recently tested negative. That infection can continue to develop after you get the shot but before its protection fully takes hold, and then show up in a positive test result.
The vaccines prevent illness, but maybe not infection. Covid vaccines are being authorized based on how well they keep you from getting sick, needing hospitalization and dying. Scientists don’t know yet how effective the vaccines are at preventing the coronavirus from infecting you to begin with, or at keeping you from passing it on to others. (That’s why vaccinated people should keep wearing masks and maintaining social distance.)
Even the best vaccines aren’t perfect. The efficacy rates for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are extremely high, but they are not 100 percent. With the virus still spreading out of control in the U.S., some of the millions of recently vaccinated people were bound to get infected in any case.

Credit…Pool photo by Mary Altaffer

The deputy commissioner for public health at the New York State Health Department resigned in late summer. Soon after, the director of its bureau of communicable disease control also stepped down. So did the medical director for epidemiology. Last month, the state epidemiologist said she, too, would be leaving.

The high-level departures came as morale plunged in the Health Department and senior health officials expressed alarm to one another over being sidelined and treated disrespectfully, according to five people with direct experience inside the department.

Their concern had an almost singular focus: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

Even as the pandemic continues to rage and New York struggles to vaccinate a large and anxious population, Mr. Cuomo has all but declared war on his own public health bureaucracy. The departures have underscored the extent to which pandemic policy has been set by the governor, who with his aides designed a vaccination program hampered by early delays.

The troubled rollout came after Mr. Cuomo declined to use the longstanding vaccination plans that the State Department of Health had developed in recent years in coordination with local health departments. Mr. Cuomo instead adopted an approach that relied on large hospital systems to coordinate vaccinations.

In recent weeks, the governor has repeatedly made it clear that he believed he had no choice but to seize more control over pandemic policy from state and local public health officials, who he said had no understanding of how to conduct a real-world, large-scale operation like vaccinations. After early problems, in which relatively few doses were being administered, the pace of vaccinations has picked up and New York is now roughly 20th in the nation in percentage of residents who have received at least one vaccine dose.

“When I say ‘experts’ in air quotes, it sounds like I’m saying I don’t really trust the experts,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference on Friday, referring to scientific expertise at all levels of government during the pandemic. “Because I don’t. Because I don’t.”

His comments reflected a rift between the state’s top elected official and its career health experts of the sort that has occurred across different levels of government during the pandemic.

In Albany, tensions worsened in recent months as state health officials said they often found out about major changes in pandemic policy only after Mr. Cuomo announced them at news conferences — and then asked them to match their health guidance to the announcements.

That was what happened with the vaccine plan, when state health officials were blindsided by the news that the rollout would be coordinated locally by hospitals.

At least nine senior state health officials have left the department, resigned or retired in recent months. They include Dr. Elizabeth Dufort, the medical director in the division of epidemiology; and Dr. Jill Taylor, the head of the renowned Wadsworth laboratory — which has been central to the state’s efforts to detect virus variants — and the executive in charge of health data, according to state records.

Tags cases, Covid19, global, Live, News, stimulus, Updates, Vaccine, Variants

World News

N.Y.C. Postpones Vaccine Appointments As Winter Storm Approaches

Post author By
Post date February 1, 2021

Vaccination sites in the New York subway area will close on Monday due to an impending winter storm that is expected to throw up to 16 inches of snow on the area.

Winter storm warnings were issued on Sunday for much of the eastern United States, disrupting vaccinations in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New Jersey and elsewhere.

Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he did not want older New Yorkers on their way to vaccinations and warned of blizzard-like conditions with gusty winds. The vaccinations scheduled for Tuesday in New York City have not been canceled for the time being, de Blasio said.

The storm will temporarily disrupt the vaccine rollout in New York City, which is plagued by inadequate supplies, faulty registration systems, and confusion over the state’s stringent licensing policies. The vaccine is available to residents aged 65 and over, as well as a large number of workers classified as “essential”.

About 800,000 doses have been administered in the city so far, de Blasio said.

Vaccine appointments at multiple locations in the area – the Javits Center in Manhattan, the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, a transit point on Jones Beach on Long Island, SUNY Stony Brook and the Westchester County Center – are postponed for this week, according to a statement from this week Melissa DeRosa, a top advisor to Governor Andrew Cuomo. “We are asking all New Yorkers to monitor the weather and stay out of the streets tomorrow so our crews and first responders can do their jobs safely,” she said.

In the Philadelphia area, urban testing and vaccination sites will be closed on Monday. Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and parts of the DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas followed suit. Some areas outside the center of the storm were expected to remain open for vaccination, including parts of Massachusetts and New York state.

In Oregon, a storm on Tuesday resulted in a group of health officials hauling vaccines to be offered to drivers stuck on the side of the road shortly before their expiration date.

The rollout in New York City was also hampered by distribution problems and severe racial differences, according to de Blasio, with residents of black and Latino receiving far fewer doses than residents of white.

The city’s demographics were incomplete, but the numbers so far have been remarkable: of the nearly 300,000 city dwellers who received a dose and whose race was recorded, about 48 percent were white, 15 percent were Latinos, 15 percent were Asian, and 11 percent were black . The Latino and Black residents were underrepresented: the city’s population is 29 percent Latinos and 24 percent black.

Attempts to provide more vaccination kits to underserved communities in Brooklyn and the Bronx, including churches and public housing areas, were also delayed this week as six pop-up locations in the two counties were moved to Wednesday. Ms. DeRosa said.

Tags Appointments, Approaches, NYC, Postpones, Storm, Vaccine, Winter

Health

Truth Verify: Hank Aaron’s Demise Was Not Associated to Covid-19 Vaccine

Post author By
Post date February 1, 2021

Fact Check: Hank Aaron's Death Was Not Related to Covid-19 Vaccine

On January 5, Hank Aaron, the legendary homerun hitter, posted on Twitter that he had been vaccinated against the coronavirus at Morehouse School of Medicine along with other prominent Atlanta civil rights activists who were 75 years or older and were part of the group with the highest priority to be vaccinated.

“I hope you do the same!” he wrote.

Seventeen days later, Mr. Aaron died at the age of 86.

Now anti-vaccine activists including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic, are seizing his death to suggest – with no evidence – that there may be a connection.

“That was pure coincidence,” countered Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, Founding Dean of Morehouse Medical School and Secretary for Health and Human Services in the George HW Bush Administration, who was vaccinated with Mr. Aaron. He told Atlanta broadcaster WSB-TV: “However, it is if you could say that Hank was in a car before he died, and we are trying to attribute his death to being in a car.”

The Fulton County medical examiner also said there was nothing to suggest that Mr. Aaron had an allergic or anaphylactic reaction related to the vaccine.

Even so, Mr Aaron’s death has been embroiled in a vortex of misinformation and misunderstanding regarding the coronavirus and society’s efforts to fight it. Skepticism about the vaccines has emerged as one of the most recent forms of resistance health officials faced during the pandemic, as critics broke social distancing rules and were reluctant to cover their faces with masks.

Protesters forced Los Angeles authorities to close the entrance to Dodger Stadium, one of the largest vaccination sites in the country, for an hour on Saturday. About 50 demonstrators had gathered there, some holding placards saying “99.96% survival rate” and “End the lockdown”.

Health officials say the two vaccines already approved for use appear reasonably safe to date, with more than 23 million doses administered in the US. There have been some serious allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, but they are treatable and considered rare, and no deaths have been reported. The rates at which anaphylaxis has occurred to date – five cases per million doses for the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech and 2.8 cases per million for the vaccine from Moderna – are in line with other widely used vaccines.

At a meeting of expert advisors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday, Dr. Tom Shimabukuro of the CDC: “Overall, the safety profiles of the Covid-19 vaccines are reassuring and in line with those seen in the pre-approval clinical trials.”

He said the federal government had “conducted the most intense and comprehensive vaccination safety surveillance program in history.”

Even so, anti-vaccine activists have tried to undermine public confidence in the vaccines by using social media to spread unsubstantiated reports of people dying or suffering from drastic side effects.

Covid19 vaccinations>

Answers to your vaccine questions

Am I eligible for the Covid vaccine in my state?

Currently more than 150 million people – almost half of the population – can be vaccinated. But each state makes the final decision on who goes first. The country’s 21 million healthcare workers and three million long-term care residents were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials asked all states to open eligibility to anyone over the age of 65 and adults of any age with medical conditions that are at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying of Covid-19. Adults in the general population are at the end of the line. If federal and state health authorities can remove bottlenecks in the distribution of vaccines, everyone over the age of 16 is eligible as early as spring or early summer. The vaccine has not been approved in children, although studies are ongoing. It can take months before a vaccine is available to anyone under the age of 16. For the latest information on vaccination guidelines in your area, see your state health website

Is the Vaccine Free?

You shouldn’t have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, despite being asked for insurance information. If you don’t have insurance, you should still get the vaccine for free. Congress passed law this spring banning insurers from applying cost-sharing such as a co-payment or deductible. It consisted of additional safeguards prohibiting pharmacies, doctors, and hospitals from charging patients, including uninsured patients. Even so, health experts fear that patients will end up in loopholes that make them prone to surprise bills. This may be the case for people who are charged a doctor’s visit fee with their vaccine, or for Americans who have certain types of health insurance that are not covered by the new regulations. If you received your vaccine from a doctor’s office or emergency clinic, talk to them about possible hidden costs. To make sure you don’t get a surprise invoice, it is best to get your vaccine at a Department of Health vaccination center or local pharmacy as soon as the shots become more widely available.

Can I choose which vaccine to get?How long does the vaccine last? Do I need another next year?

Does my employer need vaccinations?Where can I find out more?

Surveys have shown that public confidence in vaccines has generally strengthened over the past few months, but African American confidence is lower than that of other populations, even though the virus has permeated this community with punitive anger.

Because of this, the Morehouse School of Medicine gathered pioneering civil rights activists like Aaron and Andrew Young, former United Nations Ambassadors, to get vaccinated and lead by example.

“They marched in the elections to secure our rights,” Valerie Montgomery Rice, dean and president of the medical school, said in a statement. “And now they are rolling up their sleeves to save lives.”

Tags Aarons, Check, Covid19, Death, Fact, Hank, Related, Vaccine

Health

A Have a look at Previous Vaccine Drives: Smallpox, Polio and the Swine Flu

Post author By
Post date February 1, 2021

A Look at Past Vaccine Drives: Smallpox, Polio and the Swine Flu

Scientists developed vaccines less than a year after Covid-19 was identified, reflecting a remarkable advance in vaccine technology. Advances in vaccine distribution, however, are a different story.

Many questions that arose decades ago when vaccines were introduced are still debated today. How should local and federal authorities coordinate? Who should be vaccinated first? What should officials do about resistance in the communities? Should the most affected locations be prioritized? Who should pay?

Some answers can be found in the successes and failures of vaccine campaigns over the past two centuries.

When scientist Edward Jenner discovered that people infected with cowpox became immune to smallpox in 1796, doctors in England went from town to town, deliberately spreading cowpox by scratching infected material into people’s arms.

The rollout worked at the local level, but how could it be distributed to people in remote areas like America, where smallpox had ravaged the population? In 1803 the Spanish government put 22 orphans on a ship to their South American territories. Senior doctor Francisco Xavier de Balmis and his team injected two of the boys with cowpox and then, as soon as cowpox wounds developed, they would take material from the wounds and scratch it into the arms of two more boys.

When the team got to the Americas, only one boy was infected, but that was enough. The distribution of vaccines in the Spanish territories was unsystematic, but eventually members of the Spanish expedition worked with local political, religious and medical authorities to set up vaccination clinics. More than 100,000 people in Mexico received free vaccinations by 1805, according to a magazine article in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine: “The World’s First Vaccination Campaign.”

1947: Smallpox again

By the 20th century, when scientists figured out how to store and mass-produce the smallpox vaccine, outbreaks had generally been contained.

However, a 1947 outbreak in New York City, just before an Easter Sunday parade on a warm weekend, was a major problem. The city’s then health commissioner, Israel Weinstein, urged everyone to be vaccinated, even if they were vaccinated as children. Posters all over town warned, “Be safe. Be sure. Get vaccinated! “

The rollout was quick and well orchestrated. Volunteer and professional health care providers went to schools and delivered vaccines to students. At the time, the public had a strong reliance on the medical community, and the modern anti-vaccination movement barely existed. More than six million New Yorkers were vaccinated in less than a month, and the city recorded only 12 infections and two deaths.

1955: polio

On April 12, 1955, the U.S. government approved the first Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine against poliomyelitis after scientists announced that day that it was 80 to 90 percent effective.

The next day, the New York Times reported in a front-page headline: “Supply is said to be low in time, but production is accelerating.”

State and local health officials were responsible for introducing children who were at greatest risk of developing the disease.

“Young African American children were hit but were not at the top of the priority list because of the social conditions at the time,” said Dr. René F. Najera, editor of the History of Vaccines project at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. Dr. Noting that it was difficult for parents in worker jobs to take the time to be in harmony with children in clinics, Najera said, “You keep seeing this, history repeats itself.”

Shortly after the rollout began, the program was put on hold after reports that children had developed polio in the arms they received the vaccination in rather than the legs, which was more typical of the disease.

More than 250 cases of polio have been traced back to faulty vaccines caused by a manufacturing error from one of the drug makers involved in the effort, Cutter Laboratories in California, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Covid19 vaccinations>

Answers to your vaccine questions

Am I eligible for the Covid vaccine in my state?

Currently more than 150 million people – almost half of the population – can be vaccinated. But each state makes the final decision on who goes first. The country’s 21 million healthcare workers and three million long-term care residents were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials asked all states to open eligibility to anyone over the age of 65 and adults of any age with medical conditions that are at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying of Covid-19. Adults in the general population are at the end of the line. If federal and state health authorities can remove bottlenecks in the distribution of vaccines, everyone over the age of 16 is eligible as early as spring or early summer. The vaccine has not been approved in children, although studies are ongoing. It can take months before a vaccine is available to anyone under the age of 16. For the latest information on vaccination guidelines in your area, see your state health website

Is the Vaccine Free?

You shouldn’t have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, despite being asked for insurance information. If you don’t have insurance, you should still get the vaccine for free. Congress passed law this spring banning insurers from applying cost-sharing such as a co-payment or deductible. It consisted of additional safeguards prohibiting pharmacies, doctors, and hospitals from charging patients, including uninsured patients. Even so, health experts fear that patients will end up in loopholes that make them prone to surprise bills. This may be the case for people who are charged a doctor’s visit fee with their vaccine, or for Americans who have certain types of health insurance that are not covered by the new regulations. If you received your vaccine from a doctor’s office or emergency clinic, talk to them about possible hidden costs. To make sure you don’t get a surprise invoice, it is best to get your vaccine at a Department of Health vaccination center or local pharmacy as soon as the shots become more widely available.

Can I choose which vaccine to get?How long does the vaccine last? Do I need another next year?

Does my employer need vaccinations?Where can I find out more?

The so-called Cutter incident resulted in stricter regulatory requirements and the introduction of the vaccine continued in the fall of 1955. The vaccine prevented thousands of debilitating disease cases, saved lives and ultimately ended the annual epidemic threat in the United States.

1976: swine flu

H1N1 influenza virus, also known as swine flu, native to Mexico, did not appear during the typical flu season in the spring of 2009.

By late summer, it was clear that the virus was causing fewer deaths than many seasonal strains of flu and that some of the early reports from Mexico were exaggerated. That was one of the main reasons many Americans avoided the flu vaccine when it finished that fall. It wasn’t just the anti-vaccination movement, though that was a factor.

The H1N1 virus was harsh on children and young adults and appeared to have a disproportionately high death rate in pregnant women. Because of these factors, the first groups to be vaccinated after healthcare workers were those at the highest risk of complications, pregnant women and children.

The last group eligible for the vaccine were healthy people over 65 who were the least likely to get the vaccine because they appeared to have some resistance to it.

Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed to the coverage.

Tags Drives, Flu, Polio, Smallpox, Swine, Vaccine

Health

AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid vaccine authorised to be used by European regulator

Post author By
Post date January 30, 2021

AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid vaccine approved for use by European regulator

Head nurse Sam Foster is holding a vial of Oxford University / AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on January 4, 2021 at Churchill Hospital in Oxford, South West England.

Steve Parsons | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON – The coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University has been approved by the European Medicines Agency, the European Medicines Agency.

The EMA said on Friday that it had assessed the safety and effectiveness of the Covid vaccine and recommended that the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, give formal conditional marketing authorization.

It also said the shot would likely work in the elderly after a German vaccine committee recommended Thursday not to give the vaccine to those over 65.

“With this third positive opinion, we have further expanded the arsenal of vaccines available to EU and EEA member states to fight the pandemic and protect their citizens,” said Emer Cooke, Executive Director of EMA, in a statement on Friday.

“As in previous cases, the CHMP has rigorously evaluated this vaccine and the scientific basis of our work underpins our firm commitment to protecting the health of EU citizens,” said Cooke, referring to the EMA’s Committee on Medicinal Products for Human Use.

The vaccine is already being used in the UK, having received approval in late December, and now, along with the Pfizer BioNTech shot, which has already been approved for use in the UK, makes up most of the EU shocks administered in the country.

Approval comes at a difficult time for the EU as the vaccination program is at best sluggish and very prone to supply shortages.

He has been dealt two blows in the past few weeks, one from Pfizer, who announced that it would temporarily cut production while improving production capacity at its Belgian facility. Then last Friday it was reported that AstraZeneca would deliver far fewer cans to the block than originally expected due to production problems at its plants in the Netherlands and Belgium this spring.

The delays have sparked a crisis in the EU which has announced it will curb exports of coronavirus vaccines from the bloc to give citizens priority. These controls are expected to last until March.

On Wednesday, the EU called on AstraZeneca to do whatever it takes to deliver its agreement to supply millions of coronavirus vaccines, suggesting that the company is diverting some supplies from its UK manufacturing facilities to the EU.

German doubt

On Thursday, doubts arose about the possible approval of AstraZeneca’s vaccine after the German vaccine committee recommended that the vaccine only be offered to people between the ages of 18 and 64.

This is due to the fact that there is insufficient data to assess the effectiveness in people over 65 years of age.

Older study participants were later admitted to phase 3 clinical trials with the AstraZeneca shot, which took place in the UK and Brazil and earlier in South Africa. As a result, there are fewer data on effectiveness in those over 65.

AstraZeneca said this data would be collected when its study results were published in the medical journal The Lancet in December: “As older age groups were recruited later than younger age groups, there was less time to collect cases and, consequently, efficacy data in these cohorts The number of cases is currently limited, but additional data will be available in future analyzes, “it said.

On Friday when the AstraZeneca approval was announced, the EMA announced that older participants (over 55 years of age) had not yet had enough results to establish a number for the vaccine’s effectiveness in this group. However, it states that “protection is expected because an immune response is observed in this age group and is based on experience with other vaccines”.

Tags Approved, AstraZenecaOxford, Covid, European, regulator, Vaccine

World News

Vaccine Rollout Provides U.Okay. a Uncommon Win within the Pandemic

Post author By
Post date January 30, 2021

Vaccine Rollout Gives U.K. a Rare Win in the Pandemic

“With the UK, we had an additional three months to fix any issues we encountered,” AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot told an Italian newspaper, la Repubblica, this week.

On Friday, the European Union drug regulators approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for all adults, following the precedent set by the UK regulator last month.

Britain could get another vaccine soon.

Novavax, a biotechnology company based in Gaithersburg, Md., Reported Friday that its vaccine was 89.3 percent effective in a large-scale study in the UK. The government has secured 60 million cans made at a facility in north east England. If the UK regulators approve, the vaccine will be dispensed in the second half of 2021.

In total, the UK government has spent at least £ 11.7 billion, or $ 16 billion, developing, manufacturing, buying and administering vaccines.

“The vaccination is the only thing we got right,” said Christina Pagel, professor of operational research at University College London.

That doesn’t mean that the rollout was free of tension. With hospital congestion and a contagious variant across the country, the UK has bet on giving more people partial protection from a single dose rather than quickly giving fewer people full protection from two doses.

Doctors whose booster vaccinations were delayed were upset with the approach, accusing the government of making them the subject of a risky new experiment that they fear will make vaccines less effective. Immunologists have raised concerns that a country full of people with only partial immunity could produce vaccine-resistant mutations, while Pfizer said the strategy is not supported by the data gathered in clinical trials.

Tags Pandemic, Rare, Rollout, Vaccine, win

Health

Which Covid Vaccine Ought to You Get? Specialists Weigh the Impact Towards Extreme Illness

Post author By
Post date January 30, 2021

Which Covid Vaccine Should You Get? Experts Weigh the Effect Against Severe Disease

At first glance, the results reported on Friday of the long-awaited study of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine may have been disappointing. Overall effectiveness – the ability to prevent moderate and severe illnesses – was reported at 72 percent in the United States, 66 percent in Latin American countries, and 57 percent in South Africa.

These numbers are well below the high bar set by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the first two emergency vaccines approved in the United States, which had an overall effectiveness of 94 to 95 percent.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and now President Biden’s leading medical advisor on the coronavirus pandemic, acknowledged the remarkable difference at a briefing Friday.

“If you woke up and say, ‘Well, go to the left door and you get 94 or 95 percent, go to the right door and you get 72 percent. ‘Which door do you want to go to? ”He asked.

Dr. However, Fauci said the most important measure is the ability to prevent serious illness, which means keeping people out of the hospital and preventing deaths. For Johnson & Johnson, that result was 85 percent in all of the countries it was tested in, including South Africa, where a rapidly spreading variant of the virus had shown some ability to evade vaccines.

More important than preventing “some pain and a sore throat,” said Dr. Fauci, is the defense against serious illnesses, especially in people with underlying diseases and in older adults who are more likely to become seriously ill and die of Covid. 19th

“If you can prevent serious illness in a high percentage of people, it will soothe the stress of human suffering and death in this epidemic that we are seeing it right now,” said Dr. Fauci, “As we know, over the past few weeks our healthcare system has been burdened by the number of people requiring hospitalization and intensive care.”

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, compared the ability to prevent serious illness to the effects of flu vaccinations, which may not always prevent influenza completely, but make it less severe.

“The same seems to be true here, in circumstances where this variant clearly makes it a little harder to get the most forceful response you want,” said Dr. Collins. “But it still looks very good for serious illnesses.”

The Moderna vaccine also showed high 100 percent effectiveness against serious illnesses. The Pfizer BioNTech appeared to be too, but the total number of severe cases in the study was too few to be certain.

However, the researchers caution that trying to compare effectiveness between new and previous studies can be misleading because the virus is developing quickly and the studies have to some extent examined different pathogens.

“You have to realize that Pfizer and Moderna had an advantage,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, in an interview. “They did their clinical studies before the variant strains became very clear. Johnson & Johnson not only tested their vaccine against the standard strain, but they also had the variants. “

The best way to stop the spread of mutants and prevent new ones from emerging is to vaccinate as many people as you can as soon as possible, says Dr. Fauci and other researchers. Viruses can’t mutate if they can’t replicate, and they can’t replicate if they can’t get into cells. Keeping them away from people by immunizing them can kill the process.

In addition to the Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines already in use in the US, three more may soon be available: those made by Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca’s vaccine has already been approved in the UK and other countries.

Globally, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is expected to play an important role, especially in low- and middle-income countries, as it works after just one shot, is relatively inexpensive, and is easier to store and distribute than Pfizer-BioNTech’s manufactured vaccines and Moderna, as it does not share their strict requirements for freezing and chilling.

People waiting to be vaccinated may wonder if they will be able to choose vaccines and if they should hold out and wait until the one that looks best to them becomes available.

Covid19 vaccinations>

Answers to your vaccine questions

Am I eligible for the Covid vaccine in my state?

Currently more than 150 million people – almost half of the population – can be vaccinated. But each state makes the final decision on who goes first. The country’s 21 million healthcare workers and three million long-term care residents were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials asked all states to open eligibility to anyone over the age of 65 and adults of any age with medical conditions that are at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying of Covid-19. Adults in the general population are at the end of the line. If federal and state health authorities can remove bottlenecks in the distribution of vaccines, everyone over the age of 16 is eligible as early as spring or early summer. The vaccine has not been approved in children, although studies are ongoing. It can take months before a vaccine is available to anyone under the age of 16. For the latest information on vaccination guidelines in your area, see your state health website

Is the Vaccine Free?

You shouldn’t have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, despite being asked for insurance information. If you don’t have insurance, you should still get the vaccine for free. Congress passed law this spring banning insurers from applying cost-sharing such as a co-payment or deductible. It consisted of additional safeguards prohibiting pharmacies, doctors, and hospitals from charging patients, including uninsured patients. Even so, health experts fear that patients will end up in loopholes that make them prone to surprise bills. This could be the case for people who are charged a doctor’s visit fee with their vaccine or for Americans who have certain types of health insurance that are not covered by the new regulations. If you received your vaccine from a doctor’s office or emergency clinic, talk to them about possible hidden costs. To make sure you don’t get a surprise invoice, it is best to get your vaccine at a Department of Health vaccination center or local pharmacy as soon as the shots become more widely available.

Can I choose which vaccine to get?How long does the vaccine last? Do I need another next year?

Does my employer need vaccinations?Where can I find out more?

Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccines expert at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, told CNN that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines would be his first choice when they were abundant because of their higher overall effectiveness.

But right now there aren’t enough of these vaccines.

If he couldn’t get the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine or the Moderna vaccine, he would do the Johnson & Johnson shot, said Dr. Offit – as long as the data the company will submit to the Food and Drug Administration looks as good as the company reported on Friday.

He said Johnson & Johnson’s Serious Disease Reduction Report was a strong selling point.

“That’s what you want,” said Dr. Offit. “You want to stay out of the hospital and out of the morgue.”

He noted that the company was also investigating a two-shot regimen that could increase its effectiveness.

People taking the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be able to safely get a Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna vaccine later if a booster shot is needed, he said.

Dr. Schaffner said he had just attended a meeting with other public health experts and they asked each other what they would say to their spouses or partners if they could get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine tomorrow or had to wait three weeks Pfizer- BioNTech’s or Moderna’s.

“We all said, ‘Get it tomorrow,” said Dr. Schaffner. “The virus is bad. You risk another three weeks of exposure instead of receiving protection tomorrow.”

He said the 85 percent effectiveness of Johnson & Johnson against serious illnesses is a little less than that reported by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, “but it’s still damn high.”

It is not yet known whether it is safe to take a different type of vaccine every now and then, said Dr. Schaffner, adding, “We haven’t investigated this.”

Tags Covid, disease, effect, Experts, Severe, Vaccine, weigh

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Moderna asks FDA to authorize 5 further doses per Covid vaccine vial to hurry distribution, supply tells CNBC

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Post date January 30, 2021

Moderna asks FDA to authorize 5 additional doses per Covid vaccine vial to speed distribution, source tells CNBC

A health care worker holds a vial of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a pop-up vaccination station operated by SOMOS Community Care during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in New York on January 29, 2021 .

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Moderna has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to fill their Covid-19 vaccine bottles with up to five additional doses to help clear a manufacturing bottleneck, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The change would allow Moderna to fill 15 cans into vials of the same size, now cleared for 10, which eases the pressure on the manufacturing process known as filling / finishing, said the person who refused to named because the application is not public yet.

The availability of Covid-19 vaccines has caused frustration since their approval in the US in mid-December. While the pace of administration has increased to an average of more than 1 million a day, the limited supply has hampered states’ ability to operate mass vaccination centers. By Friday, the US had distributed 49.2 million doses and 27.9 million had been given, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We have problems making these mRNA vaccines,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and a physician at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital. “We have up to 1.2 million doses a day when we need 3 million doses a day.”

The FDA declined to comment and asked questions to the company. Moderna did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move from Moderna came after Pfizer requested and received a change in emergency approval from the FDA to specify that the Covid-19 vaccine bottles contain six doses instead of five after pharmacists determined that it had a bonus dose the correct syringes could be extracted. Pfizer then said it would ship fewer vials to the US, but the same number of doses specified in its contracts.

Moderna vials have also been found to contain a bonus dose, but a policy change is being sought to add volume to the vials.

The bottleneck is not the vials themselves, but the manufacturing capacity to fill the vials. The manufacturing filling / finishing process must be performed under aseptic conditions to ensure contamination does not occur and the capacity is high.

Companies have begun to form manufacturing partnerships that focus on this step in the process to increase production. Novartis announced on Friday that it has signed an initial vial fill agreement for BioNTech, Pfizer’s partner in Europe, for the Covid-19 vaccine.

“We expect this to be the first in a series of such agreements,” said Steffen Lang, head of technical operations at Novartis.

Tags additional, Asks, authorize, CNBC, Covid, Distribution, Doses, FDA, Moderna, Source, Speed, tells, Vaccine, vial