Tag: vaccines

Health

Dr. Anthony Fauci says speak of Covid booster photographs does not imply vaccines aren’t working

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Post date July 13, 2021

The Senior Medical Advisor to the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNBC on Tuesday that Covid booster vaccinations are currently unnecessary.

“The discussion about boosters is really adequate preparation on the part of the [drug] Company are working with the NIH and CDC and others to be prepared in the event you may need a boost, “Fauci said in the Squawk Box.

“But if you translate that into ‘We’re going to need a boost; everyone is going to get a boost’, that’s not appropriate. We still haven’t vaccinated enough people in the main part of it,” he added, emphasizing the booster discussion. ” has absolutely nothing to do with the effectiveness of the vaccine “.

With schools reopening in the fall and the spread of new coronavirus variants, questions are circulating about the need for booster vaccinations, even if the pace of primary vaccinations in the US has slowed since the spring.

On Monday, Pfizer officials met with federal health officials to advocate for the potential need for Covid boosters as the drug company prepares for US approval of a third dose of its current vaccine.

Pfizer announced last week that it is also developing a booster vaccine to combat the highly transmissible Delta variant – now the dominant strain of the virus in the US – and said the immunity was boosted by its Two, developed with German partner BioNTech Shot vaccine wears off.

However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration released a joint statement blaming Pfizer’s insistence on a third dose, saying that fully vaccinated Americans do not currently need a booster dose.

The officials’ conversation with Pfizer was mostly “a courtesy meeting,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, also told CNBC on Tuesday. He said the real question right now is how long protection against the vaccines will last and at what level of protection, a view shared by other health experts.

Former Obama administration official, Dr. Kavita Patel told CNBC on Monday ahead of the Pfizer meeting that booster shots seem like “inevitable” due to newer variations, but questioned when it will happen. She also stressed that when discussing boosters in the US, it is important to take into account the global impact on vaccine adoption in other parts of the world.

Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, told CNBC on Friday that he had “seen no evidence yet of anyone needing a third injection”.

According to CDC data, the majority of Americans were vaccinated with Pfizer, followed by the two-shot Moderna vaccine and Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot course. More than 184 million people in the United States, or 55.5% of the population, have had at least one injection. Almost 160 million people, or 48% of the population, are fully vaccinated.

Fauci also told CNBC on Tuesday that he would be “amazed” if Pfizer, Moderna and J & J’s coronavirus vaccines don’t get full approval from US drug regulators. These three vaccines are the only ones approved by the FDA in the United States, and they were approved for emergency approval.

Tags Anthony, arent, booster, Covid, doesnt, Fauci, shots, Talk, vaccines, working

Health

5 vaccinated international locations with excessive Covid charges depend on China vaccines

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Post date July 8, 2021

Covid-19 vaccines from Chinese companies Sinopharm (left) and Sinovac arrived at Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia on June 8, 2021.

Sovannara | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

Among the countries with both high vaccination rates and high Covid-19 infection rates, most rely on vaccines made in China, a CNBC analysis shows.

The results come as the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines comes under increasing scrutiny, compounded by a lack of data on their protection against the more transmissible Delta variant. CNBC found that weekly population-adjusted Covid cases have remained elevated in at least six of the world’s most heavily vaccinated countries – and five of them rely on vaccines from China.

CNBC identified 36 countries with more than 1,000 weekly new confirmed cases per million people on July 6, using figures from Our World in Data, which compiles information from sources such as the World Health Organization, governments and Oxford University researchers. CNBC then identified countries among those 36 where more than 60% of the population had received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine.

There were six countries, and five of them use Chinese vaccines as an essential part of their national vaccination programs: United Arab Emirates, Seychelles, Mongolia, Uruguay, and Chile. The only country among them that does not rely on Chinese vaccines is the United Kingdom.

The UK has now approved vaccines from Moderna, AstraZeneca-Oxford, Pfizer-BioNTech and Janssen. Covid cases in the UK have increased in recent weeks as the more transmissible Delta variant has spread there.

Sinopharm and Sinovac did not respond to CNBC requests for comment.

Several factors can lead to an increase in Covid cases in countries with high vaccination rates. Vaccines do not offer one hundred percent protection, so those who are vaccinated can still get infected. At the same time, new variants of the coronavirus might prove better at overcoming vaccines.

The best option for many countries

Countries shouldn’t stop using Covid-19 vaccines from China, epidemiologists say, especially when vaccine supplies are limited in low- and middle-income countries.

Many of the countries and territories that have approved Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines are developing countries that cannot compete with wealthier countries for vaccines developed in the United States and Europe.

Ben Cowling, a professor in the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health, said countries could choose to use certain vaccines depending on their long-term goals.

“Some countries may accept low prevalence as long as there are relatively few serious cases and deaths from COVID-19,” Cowling, who heads the school’s epidemiology and biostatistics department, told CNBC in an email. “That should be achievable with a high coverage of all available vaccines.”

However, some countries avoid vaccines in China. Costa Rica turned down shipments of vaccines developed by Sinovac last month after it concluded they were not effective enough.

WHO approval

The World Health Organization has approved Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines for emergency use.

The two Chinese vaccines are less effective than Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both of which have shown greater than 90% effectiveness.

Sinopharm’s vaccine is 79% effective against symptomatic Covid infections, the WHO says, but its effectiveness in certain groups – such as people over 60 – is not clear. The effectiveness of Sinovac’s shot ranges from around 50% to over 80%, depending on the country in which the trials took place.

Experts say that the results cannot be directly compared between clinical trials because each study is structured differently. However, a study in Hong Kong found “significantly higher” antibody levels in people who received the BioNTech injection compared to those who received the Sinovac vaccine, the South China Morning Post reported.

Some experts suggest that the technology behind the various Covid vaccines could explain differences in their effectiveness.

Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines trigger an immune response by exposing the body to a weakened or “inactivated” virus – a proven method that vaccines have used for decades. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna based their vaccines on a technology called messenger RNA, which instructs the body to make viral proteins that trigger an immune response.

“Inactivated vaccines are easy to make and are known for their safety, but tend to have a weaker immune response compared to some other vaccine types,” wrote Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow on Global Health at the University of Southampton in the UK, in an article, published on The Conversation website.

Still, large phase three clinical trials showed that inactivated vaccines were “highly effective against serious illness and death” from Covid, Cowling said.

The professor told CNBC that the spikes in Covid cases in some countries using Chinese vaccines “are typically an increase in mild infections with very few severe cases in fully vaccinated people”.

‘Herd Immunity’

When vaccines are less effective, more people need to be vaccinated to achieve “herd immunity”. This happens when the virus stops being transmitted quickly because most people are immune to vaccination or have recovered from an infection.

Some countries decided to try to achieve herd immunity at the beginning of the pandemic, but are not known to have succeeded. Some who said they would achieve herd immunity, like Sweden, have been hit much harder by Covid than neighboring countries that have taken the vaccination route.

A study by the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney claimed that in the Australian state of New South Wales, herd immunity could be achieved if 66% of the population were given vaccines that were 90% effective against all infections.

The percentage of the population who needs to be vaccinated increases to 86% when vaccine effectiveness is 70%, and herd immunity is not achievable when vaccine effectiveness is below 60%, the study showed.

Tags China, Countries, Covid, high, rates, rely, Vaccinated, vaccines

Health

Beforehand contaminated individuals would profit from vaccines

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Post date July 6, 2021

Dr. Scott Gottlieb believes people who have previously been infected with coronavirus would still benefit from receiving Covid vaccines.

In Tuesday’s interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner acknowledged that some individuals may think their antibodies generated from having the disease offer enough protection against future infection or illness and, as a result, forgo getting the Covid inoculation.

The reason to still receive the vaccine is “two-fold,” contended Gottlieb, who serves on the board of vaccine maker Pfizer.

“One, we believe the vaccine provides a more durable and broader immunity, so it’s going to protect you better against the variants,” he said, alluding to the highly transmissible delta variant, which is causing concern for public health officials.

“Two, if you’ve been previously infected and even if you get a single dose of the vaccine — forget getting both doses of the vaccine, just a single dose of the vaccine — you get a very robust immune response,” Gottlieb said.

Pfizer’s vaccine requires two shots for fully immunity protection, as does Moderna’s vaccine. Johnson & Johnson makes a single-dose vaccine. Those are the only three vaccines approved for emergency use in the U.S.

“It’s sort of the best of both worlds if you’ve been previously infected and you get vaccinated,” said Gottlieb, who led the FDA from 2017 to 2019 in the Trump administration. “At least with one dose, you do develop a broad, very deep, very durable immunity based on the data that we’ve seen so far, so there’s still a lot of compelling reasons why you’d want to get vaccinated even if you’ve been previously infected.”

More than 157 million people in the U.S., or 47.4% of the population, have been fully vaccinated against Covid, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Around 182.4 million people, or nearly 55% of the population, have received at least one dose.

After an aggressive push this spring to deliver the Covid shots to Americans, the pace of uptake slowed. In response, state and local officials — and businesses, too — launched various promotional efforts to encourage vaccination.

Nevertheless, among some people, hesitancy remains. According to the CDC, as of last week, about 1,000 counties in the U.S. had less than 30% of residents vaccinated.

The increasing presence of the delta variant, in both the U.S. and across the globe, adds urgency to calls for more people to get vaccinated. The variant, first discovered in India, has shown to make the vaccines slightly less effective, but still provide protection against severe disease, especially.

“We expect to see increased transmission in these communities unless we can vaccinate more people,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday, referring to those roughly 1,000 U.S. counties with low vaccination rates.

“Preliminary data over the last six months suggest 99.5% of deaths from Covid-19 in the states have occurred in unvaccinated people,” she added. “The suffering and loss we are now seeing is nearly entirely avoidable.”

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion Inc. and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ and Royal Caribbean’s “Healthy Sail Panel.”

Tags Benefit, Infected, people, previously, vaccines

Health

Australia’s combined messages on Covid vaccines sow confusion

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Post date July 4, 2021

The introduction of vaccines in Australia has been slow and chaotic, with leaders and health advisers sending mixed messages.

The country’s top medical association recommends that people follow guidelines from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization when deciding which Covid vaccine to take. ATAGI advises the Minister of Health in Australia on vaccination issues.

“We recommend following expert advice, but at the end of the day people can make their own decisions as these are all safe and effective vaccines,” said Omar Khorshid, president of the Australian Medical Association, on CNBC’s “Squawk” on Thursday Box Asia. “

While Australia has been comparatively successful in controlling infection, it has faced some constraints on vaccine supplies. Currently, only the Pfizer BioNTech and Oxford AstraZeneca syringes are approved for use, and both require two doses for complete immunization.

Mixed news from the Australian government and ATAGI has created confusion – and hesitation – about the vaccines available and their safety.

What do experts say?

ATAGI says people between the ages of 16 and 59 should preferably get Pfizer shots, while the government says those people can choose AstraZeneca after consulting their doctors.

Pfizer shots are scarce in the country and reports say the majority of the cans might not arrive until the third quarter.

The recommendation of the advisory group came afterwards Data showed higher risks and observed severity of an extremely rare bleeding disorder – known as thrombosis and thrombocytopenia syndrome – associated with the use of AstraZeneca vaccines observed in Australian adults aged 50 and over.

June 2021, people are standing in front of a vaccination center in Sydney, as residents have largely been banned from leaving the city in order to stop a growing outbreak of the highly contagious Delta-Covid-19 variant in other regions.

SAEED KHAN | AFP | Getty Images

For those 60 years old and older, the group said the benefits of taking the AstraZeneca dose outweighed the risks of blood clots forming.

What is the government saying?

On Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said people under the age of 60 can get the AstraZeneca vaccine if they wish, provided they have discussed it with their doctors. The country will introduce a new “no mistake compensation system” for general practitioners who administer Covid-19 vaccines, he added.

“The ATAGI Council speaks of a preference for AstraZeneca to be available and made available as preferred for people over 60. But the council is not ruling out the possibility of people under the age of 60 receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, ”said Morrison, according to an official transcript from his press conference.

“So if you want to get the AstraZeneca vaccine we would encourage you to … go and have this conversation with your GP,” he said.

Vaccine progress

Khorshid of the Australian Medical Association said the vaccine rollout is progressing relatively well, despite the mixed messages and political tactics. He said about two-thirds of Australia’s most vulnerable population have already received at least one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine and are expected to receive their second dose.

Still, statistics compiled by Our World in Data showed just over 23% of the population to have at least one dose of the vaccine, and only about 6% were fully vaccinated.

An aerial view of Sixty Martin Place, Sydney, Australia.

Mark Syke | View pictures | Universal picture group | Getty Images

Authorities are also making efforts to contain outbreaks in Australia as the country seeks to contain the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus delta variant, which was first discovered in India.

According to reports, seven cities with around 12 million people are now on lockdown, including Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

Khorshid told CNBC that the medical association wants the national cabinet to be strengthened on broader issues such as agreements on border closings and hotel quarantine regulations.

Tags Australias, confusion, Covid, messages, Mixed, sow, vaccines

Health

Pfizer and Moderna Vaccines Prone to Produce Lasting Immunity, Research Finds

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Post date July 3, 2021

The vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna trigger a sustained immune response in the body that can protect against the coronavirus for years, scientists reported on Monday.

The results add to the growing evidence that most people immunized with the mRNA vaccines may not need a booster dose as long as the virus and its variants do not progress much beyond their current forms – which is not guaranteed. People who have recovered from Covid-19 before they were vaccinated may not need a booster vaccination, even if the virus goes through a significant transformation.

“It’s a good sign of how persistent our immunity to this vaccine is,” said Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis who led the study, which was published in the journal Nature.

The study did not take into account the coronavirus vaccine manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, but Dr. Ellebedy said he believed the immune response was less permanent than that of mRNA vaccines.

Dr. Ellebedy and colleagues reported last month that in people who survived Covid-19, immune cells that recognize the virus remain dormant in the bone marrow for at least eight months after infection. A study by another team showed that so-called memory B cells continue to mature and strengthen for at least a year after infection.

Based on these results, the researchers suggested that immunity in people infected with the coronavirus and later vaccinated could last for years, possibly a lifetime. However, it was unclear whether vaccination alone could have a similar long-lasting effect.

Dr. Ellebedy addressed this question by examining the source of memory cells: the lymph nodes, where immune cells train to recognize and fight the virus.

After an infection or vaccination, a specialized structure forms in the lymph nodes, the germinal center. This structure is sort of an elite school for B cells – a boot camp in which they become increasingly sophisticated and learn to recognize a multitude of viral genetic sequences.

The greater the range and the longer these cells have to practice, the more likely they are to thwart any virus variants that may appear.

“Everyone is always focused on developing the virus – this shows that the B cells are doing the same,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “And it will protect against the continued development of the virus, which is really encouraging.”

After an infection with the coronavirus, the germinal center forms in the lungs. But after the vaccination, the cells are formed in the lymph nodes in the armpits that researchers can reach.

Updated

July 2, 2021, 5:06 p.m. ET

Dr. Ellebedy and colleagues recruited 41 people – including eight with a history of infection with the virus – who were immunized with two doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. The team collected lymph node samples from 14 of these people three, four, five, seven and 15 weeks after the first dose.

This meticulous work makes this a “heroic study,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale. “This kind of careful time history analysis in humans is very difficult.”

Dr. Ellebedy found that 15 weeks after the first dose of the vaccine, the germinal center was still highly active in all 14 participants and that the number of memory cells that recognized the coronavirus had not decreased.

“The fact that the reactions lasted almost four months after the vaccination – that’s a very, very good sign,” said Dr. Ellebedy. Sprouting centers typically peak one to two weeks after vaccination and then decrease.

“Usually there isn’t much left after four to six weeks,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona. But germinal centers that are stimulated by the mRNA vaccines “still go in, months, and most people don’t go back much”.

Dr. Bhattacharya noted that most of what scientists know about the persistence of germinal centers is based on animal studies. The new study shows for the first time what happens to people after vaccination.

The results suggest that the vast majority of those vaccinated will be protected in the long term – at least against the existing coronavirus variants. But older adults, people with weak immune systems, and those taking drugs that suppress immunity may need boosters; People who survived Covid-19 and were later vaccinated may not need it at all.

It is difficult to predict exactly how long protection against mRNA vaccines will last. In the absence of variants that bypass immunity, immunity could theoretically last a lifetime, experts said. But the virus is clearly evolving.

“Anything that would actually require a refresher would be variant-based, not immunity waning,” said Dr. Bhattacharya. “I just don’t see it.”

People who have been infected with the coronavirus and then immunized see a sharp spike in their antibody levels, likely because their memory B cells – which produce antibodies – had many months to develop before vaccination.

The good news: a booster vaccine is likely to have the same effect on people who have been vaccinated as a previous infection, said Dr. Ellebedy. “If you give them another chance to get involved, they’ll have a massive response,” he said, referring to memory B cells.

In terms of boosting the immune system, vaccination is “probably better” than recovering from the actual infection, he said. Other studies have shown that the repertoire of memory B cells produced after vaccination is more diverse than that produced by infection, suggesting that the vaccines protect against variants better than natural immunity alone.

Dr. Ellebedy said the results also suggest that these signs of sustained immune response could be caused by mRNA vaccines alone, as opposed to those made by more traditional means like Johnson & Johnson’s.

But that’s an unfair comparison because the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is given as a single dose, said Dr. Iwasaki: “If the J&J had a booster, they might get the same kind of reaction.”

Tags Finds, immunity, lasting, Moderna, Pfizer, Produce, Study, vaccines

Health

Zoo Animals Are Getting Experimental Coronavirus Vaccines

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Post date July 2, 2021

The Oakland Zoo in California started this week with bears, mountain lions, tigers and ferrets, the first of about 100 animals to receive an experimental vaccine against the coronavirus this summer.

Zoetis, a veterinary drug company, is donating 11,000 doses of the vaccine to approximately 70 zoos, sanctuaries, universities, and other wildlife sanctuaries in 27 states, and Oakland Zoo is one of the first to benefit. The vaccine is only intended for animals, is going through a different approval process than for humans and cannot be used to protect humans.

“It means a lot more safety for our beautiful animals,” said Dr. Alex Herman, vice president of veterinary services at Oakland Zoo. “Our very first animals to be vaccinated in the zoo were two of our beautiful and older tigers.”

There were no cases of animals infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid in humans, at the Oakland Zoo. But the zoo has taken extraordinary precautions, said Dr. Herman, by asking the zookeepers to keep a safe distance from the animals and to wear protective equipment.

However, big cats and other endangered animals such as gorillas have been infected in zoos in the United States and elsewhere. The San Diego Zoo vaccinated monkeys in February with the Zoetis vaccine, which was first tested on minks.

The New Jersey-based company made the same experimental vaccine available to Oregon mink farmers after the state ruled this spring that all mink it farms must be vaccinated. The US Department of Agriculture approved the vaccine for experimental use “on a case-by-case basis,” said Christina Lood, senior communications director at Zoetis.

The vaccine donation is the latest development in the patchwork response to animals infected with the virus.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, pet owners, zookeepers, fur keepers and scientists all have had their own specific concerns about animal infections. Pet owners have been concerned about the health of beloved cats and dogs, while epidemiologists and public health officials have warned that some species – domestic or wild – could become reservoirs where the virus can live and mutate, even if the world tries to fight it In people.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has not considered vaccine candidates for cats or dogs, and veterinarians have consistently found that there is no evidence that pets can transmit the virus to humans. However, the virus was transmitted to humans from the cultured mink.

Updated

July 2, 2021, 5:06 p.m. ET

However, scientists continue to determine that both cats and dogs get the virus from their owners. Cats are more susceptible, and although most have mild symptoms, several studies have reported cats with severe symptoms. A cat in the UK had to be euthanized.

Dr. Dorothee Bienzle, a veterinarian and immunologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who recently completed a study of cats and dogs in households with people with Covid, found several cases of cats with severe symptoms. However, she said that all other diseases should have been ruled out in order to definitively assign the symptoms to the coronavirus; this was not possible in their study, which depended on blood samples and descriptions of symptoms from the owners.

Dr. Karen Terio, a veterinarian and pathologist at the University of Illinois Veterinary School at Urbana-Champaign, repeated that sentiment, saying, “I have heard of cats with severe clinical symptoms but have not seen any cases where they could confirm the signs were on SARS-CoV-2. “

At the latest online meeting of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, Dr. Bienzle preliminary research that she and her colleagues had conducted.

They first tested cats and dogs in households where people tested positive for the coronavirus. “We focused on a likely positive population group,” said Dr. Bienzle.

They found that, as expected, more cats than dogs tested positive, 67 percent versus 43 percent. In cats, too, the time they spent with their owners, especially sleeping in the same bed, increased the risk of infection. This was not the case with dogs.

The researchers then tested cats that were taken to animal shelters and cats that were taken to inexpensive clinics for neutering. These cats, not known to have lived with infected humans, had a remarkably lower rate of infection, 9 percent in cats in shelters and only 3 percent in cats brought to clinics.

Dr. Bienzle said the advice to pet owners has remained consistent throughout the pandemic. If you have Covid, isolate yourself from your pets as you would from a human. Neither the United States nor Canada endorses vaccination of pets. Dr. Bienzle said that human transmission to the animals could be prevented through social distancing and masks.

Researchers in protected areas and those who work with endangered species like bats have taken stricter measures to keep the animals safe from infection.

For zoos, the question is not whether to vaccinate, but how to approach the patient if it is a tiger. “With a lot of positive reinforcement,” said Dr. Herman. The zoo trains its animals by giving them rewards so that they can voluntarily be stung. It’s pretty much the same idea as getting a lollipop after a shot, though animals are more willing to volunteer than humans.

“The tiger is leaning against the fence,” said Dr. Herman. “The thousand-pound grizzly bear is leaning against the fence.”

Good tiger. Good bear.

Tags Animals, coronavirus, Experimental, vaccines, Zoo

World News

Covid Reside Updates: Vaccines, Delta Variant and Circumstances

Post author By
Post date July 2, 2021

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators on Friday cleared a batch of vaccine that could furnish up to 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot coronavirus vaccine, deciding they can be safely distributed despite production failures at the vaccine-making factory that ruined 75 million other doses.

The move brings the total number of Johnson & Johnson doses made at the Baltimore facility and cleared by the Food and Drug Administration for distribution in the United States to roughly 40 million. But Johnson & Johnson remains far from its goal of delivering 100 million doses to the federal government by the end of June. European Union officials have said the firm is missing its delivery targets there, as well.

The vaccine cleared on Friday is not yet bottled, and the Biden administration’s plans for it remain unclear. But with the pandemic abating and the country awash in vaccines from the two other authorized manufacturers, any new Johnson & Johnson doses produced in the United States are likely destined mostly for export.

Johnson & Johnson has been unable to produce much vaccine since regulators shut down the Baltimore factory, operated by Emergent BioSolutions, nearly three months ago because of major production errors. Johnson & Johnson had been relying on Emergent, its subcontractor, to produce vaccine for use in the United States as well as to meet its commitments overseas while it expanded its own plant in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Even with the newly cleared batch, Johnson & Johnson remains nearly 40 million doses short of its 100-million-dose pledge for U.S. use. The F.D.A. did not disclose the precise number of doses cleared Friday, but multiple people familiar with Emergent’s operation said the batch amounted to as many as 15 million doses.

Also on Friday, European regulators approved the reopening of Johnson & Johnson’s Dutch plant, a piece of good news for the firm amid its supply woes. “Today’s approval represents progress in expanding our global manufacturing network to supply our Covid-19 vaccine worldwide,” the company said in a statement.

And on Thursday, Johnson & Johnson reported that early results of unpublished studies showed that its vaccine is effective against the highly contagious Delta variant, even eight months after inoculation. That was a reassuring finding for the those who have gotten the company’s shot.

The Baltimore factory is expected to remain shuttered for several more weeks while Emergent tries to bring it up to standard, according to people familiar with its operation who spoke on condition of anonymity. The F.D.A. said in a statement Friday that it was not yet ready to certify that the plant was following good manufacturing practices.

Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

The highly contagious Delta variant has gained ground in New York City in recent weeks, though overall case counts remain low, according to a recent analysis by the city’s Health Department.

Since mid-June, there has been a steady daily average of about 200 new Covid-19 cases detected in New York City, the lowest since the early days of the pandemic and an indication that there is relatively little virus circulating there.

“The stability in terms of the daily numbers of cases is quite reassuring,” said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

The city’s daily Covid deaths are usually in the single digits now, and the number of new hospitalizations has been relatively steady for a couple of weeks — about 171 Covid patients were in area hospitals at the start of July.

In England, where the Delta variant now accounts for most cases, epidemiological data released on Thursday showed that it was not driving any surge in the rate of hospitalizations.

Dr. Torian Easterling, the first deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said that “young adults” made up most of the new cases involving the Delta variant.

For now, Delta’s growing presence has not prompted any dramatic shifts in Covid-19 guidance from City Hall, and more and more people are shedding their masks.

The variant was first identified in India and is now causing a new surge of cases in many places around the world, including a handful of places in the United States. It was detected in New York in March. At that point, the city’s vaccination campaign was gaining momentum, but the long second wave that began last fall had yet to recede. Research shows that a full regimen of the vaccines in use in New York offer a high degree of protection against the Delta variant.

By the end of May, the city’s genome sequencing program suggested that the Delta variant made up about 8 percent of overall new cases in the city, even as case counts were plummeting. New data released on Thursday, based on genome sequencing of just 54 case samples, suggested that by mid-June, Delta could have accounted for 44.4 percent of new cases. (The data is reflected in a chart near the bottom of this page on the Department of Health’s website.)

The city’s sequencing program has been robust in recent months, with more than 10 percent of confirmed cases tested for variants in some weeks. The latest sample of cases to be sequenced was unusually small, involving only about 5 percent of confirmed cases.

Public health experts have said Delta’s gains should motivate New Yorkers to get vaccinated. About 49 percent of the city’s population has not been fully vaccinated — about four million people, including children not yet eligible.

And vaccination rates are uneven across the city, leaving pockets at risk. Vaccinations are lagging generally among Black New Yorkers, and, geographically, in northern Manhattan, the Bronx, and parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

“We need to always emphasize the fact that even though the percentage of Delta cases is going up, the total number of people getting Covid continues to go down and the vaccines continue to be very effective,” Dr. Jay Varma, a senior adviser for public health to Mayor Bill de Blasio, said at a news conference earlier this week.

GLOBAL ROUNDUP

Credit…Jens Schlueter/Getty Images

In a bid to provide effective coverage against the Delta variant, German health authorities broadened their recommendation that those who received a first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine get a second dose with either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines.

This “is one of the best available vaccine combinations currently available,” Jens Spahn, the country’s health minister, said on Friday, after agreeing to formally adopt a recommendation from the country’s vaccination expert panel with state lawmakers.

Studies have shown that while mixing vaccines may increase the odds of mild and moderate side effects, including fever, fatigue and headache, the protection is at least on par with two jabs of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

Germany had already been advising people under 60 to take the mixed regimen after worries about rare but severe side effects were observed in younger women receiving AstraZeneca shots. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 66, was inoculated with a Moderna vaccine last month after receiving an AstraZeneca shot earlier this year.

Now, authorities believe the combination can help protect all vaccine recipients in the fight against the Delta virus, which is currently estimated to make up 50 percent of new cases across the country.

Mr. Spahn also said that doctors and nurses could give the second shot just four weeks after the first, significantly shortening the period between shots that was initially recommended for a full AstraZeneca treatment, when the wait between shots could be as long as 12 weeks.

“The more vaccinations in the summer, the better the autumn,” said Mr. Spahn.

Currently 56 percent of Germans have received at least one dose and 38 percent are fully vaccinated. Nearly 17 percent of all vaccines delivered to Germany come from AstraZeneca, which for a while was the jab of choice for people who were not high on any priority list.

Despite the spread of the Delta variant, the number of new cases is at the lowest level in about a year.

Here’s what’s happening around the world:

Portugal is imposing a curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. in Lisbon, Porto and other popular tourism spots to fight a Delta-driven surge, reversing course after it had reopened its economy to prepare for summer travelers. The measure is designed to discourage gatherings of younger people at night, said Mariana Vieira da Silva, a cabinet minister. The country reported almost 2,500 new cases on Thursday, the highest daily rise since mid-February, although cases have remained far below its January peak of more 16,000 per day.

France warned on Friday that the Delta variant now accounted for a third of all new cases. Olivier Véran, France’s health minister, said that while the virus was under control, the decline in new cases has slowed, and that the variant was a “real threat” that could “ruin” summer holidays. Mr. Véran said authorities would not make vaccination mandatory for the general population but were debating doing so for health workers.
Three guests and one firefighter died in a blaze at a quarantine hotel in Taiwan, and more than 20 people were injured. Some guests had worried that leaving their rooms would violate Covid rules, and the owner at first thought it was a false alarm and urged people to stay in their rooms. The fire renewed debate over the use of hotels as quarantine facilities.

Credit…Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

With just a few days to go, there is no longer much doubt that the United States will fall just short of President Biden’s goal to have 70 percent of adults at least partly vaccinated against the coronavirus by Independence Day.

It was always more of a rhetorical deadline than a practical one: It doesn’t make much difference exactly what the national figure will be on July 4 (probably 67 or 68 percent) or which day the national odometer will roll past 70 percent (perhaps around mid-month). The point was to give the public something to shoot for, to keep up the pace of progress.

That progress has hardly been uniform. Some parts of the country have embraced vaccination avidly, others diffidently and some grudgingly — just as happened with precautions like mask-wearing, social distancing, and school and business closures.

Here is a rundown of which states have led the way and which have lagged, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data tracked by The New York Times:

Over the goal line

Twenty states, Washington, D.C., and two territories exceeded the 70 percent threshold by Thursday, three days ahead of Mr. Biden’s target date.

Twelve are in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region, including Vermont, the national leader, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

California, Oregon and Washington have surpassed 70 percent, as has Hawaii.

The other four states that have cleared 70 percent are Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New Mexico, along with the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam.

Close but not quite

Fourteen states, mainly in the Midwest and Southwest, were between 60 and 65 percent on Thursday. Two of the nation’s most populous states are in this group: Florida at 65 percent and Texas at 61 percent.

The remaining 16 states, including nearly the whole South, were below 60 percent, with Mississippi in last at 46 percent.

Credit…Carl Court/Getty Images

Denis McDonough, the secretary of veterans affairs, said this week that he was considering a move to compel workers at V.A. hospitals to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, fearing that centers with low inoculation rates were risking the health of veterans seeking care.

The military is struggling to fully vaccinate more troops across all service branches. While the Army and Navy are outpacing the civilian population in vaccine uptake, the Air Force and the Marine Corps have faced greater challenges. About 68 percent of active-duty members have had at least one dose of a vaccine, officials said.

President Biden could legally require members of the military to get vaccinated, but he has declined to exercise that power even as the highly contagious Delta variant has become an increasing threat to unvaccinated Americans.

The military has worked hard to combat vaccine misinformation in its ranks since the shots first became available. More than 80 percent of active-duty service members are under 35, a group that often views itself as impervious to coronavirus infections. Many worry that the vaccines are unsafe, were developed too quickly or will affect fertility.

A lack of vaccine acceptance among hospital workers who care for veterans could be more worrisome; because of their average age and service-related injuries and illnesses, veterans can be more vulnerable to infection. Nearly 12,500 veterans have died from coronavirus-related complications since the pandemic began.

Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York Times

President Biden’s plan to celebrate “independence from the virus” on the Fourth of July is running into an unpleasant reality: Less than half the country is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, and the highly contagious Delta variant is threatening new outbreaks.

Mr. Biden will visit Traverse City, Mich., on Saturday as part of what the White House calls the “America’s Back Together” celebration. On Sunday, he and Jill Biden, the first lady, have invited 1,000 military personnel and essential workers to an Independence Day bash on the South Lawn of the White House.

But public health experts fear that scenes of celebrations will send the wrong message when wide swaths of the population remain vulnerable and true independence from the worst public health crisis in a century may be a long way off.

On Friday, Mr. Biden urged those who have yet to get vaccinated to “think about their family” and get a shot as the Delta variant spreads. At a news conference mainly focused on the strong jobs report from the Labor Department, he said he wasn’t worried about another major coronavirus outbreak, but instead wanted to make sure next year’s July 4 holiday was even better than this year’s.

“I am concerned that people who have not gotten vaccinated have the capacity to catch the variant and spread the variant to other people who have not been vaccinated,” he said. “To those of you who haven’t been vaccinated, it doesn’t hurt. It’s accessible. It is free. Don’t just think about yourself. Think about your family.”

Dr. Thomas Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other experts said they feared that if the Delta variant continued to circulate, it would mutate in a way that left even the vaccinated vulnerable. That already seems to be happening elsewhere in the world; South Korea and Israel, where the virus seemed to be in check, have new clusters of disease.

“Compared to many other countries, we are in a much more secure situation,” said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University. But, she added, “I really do worry that as America enjoys its freedoms, we forget about the rest of the world, and that could come back to bite us.”

Credit…Joel Carrett/EPA, via Shutterstock

SYDNEY, Australia — Three days after the emergence of a rare Covid case in Sydney, around 40 friends gathered for a birthday party. Along with cake and laughter, there was a hidden threat: One of the guests had unknowingly crossed paths with that single Covid case.

Two weeks later, 27 people from the party have tested positive, along with 14 close contacts. And the seven people at the gathering who were not infected? They were all vaccinated.

For Australia and every other nation pursuing a so-called “Covid zero” approach, including China and New Zealand, the gathering in western Sydney amounts to a warning: Absent blanket vaccinations, the fortress cannot hold without ever more painful restrictions.

The Delta mutation has already raced from Sydney across Australia. Half of the country’s 25 million people have been ordered to stay home as the caseload, now at around 200, grows every day. State borders are closed, and exasperation is intensifying.

It’s a sudden turn in a country that has spent most of the past year celebrating a remarkable achievement. With closed borders, widespread testing and efficient tracing, Australia has quashed every previous outbreak, even as almost every other country has lived with the virus’s unceasing presence, often catastrophically.

In Australia, no one has died from Covid-19 in all of 2021. While New York and London sheltered last year from a viral onslaught, Sydney and most of the country enjoyed full stadiums, restaurants, classrooms and theaters with “Hamilton.”

That experience of normalcy — diminished only by a lack of overseas travel, occasional mask mandates and snap lockdowns — is what Australian politicians are so desperate to defend. To them, keeping Covid out, whatever it takes, remains a winning policy.

On Friday, Australia doubled down on this approach, announcing that the trickle of a few thousand international arrivals allowed each week (and quarantined) would be cut by half.

Tags cases, Covid, Delta, Live, Updates, vaccines, Variant

Health

Three Research, One End result: Coronavirus Vaccines Level the Manner Out of the Pandemic

Post author By
Post date June 29, 2021

Three scientific studies released on Monday offered fresh evidence that widely used vaccines will continue to protect people against the coronavirus for long periods, possibly for years, and can be adapted to fortify the immune system still further if needed.

Most people immunized with the mRNA vaccines may not need boosters, one study found, so long as the virus and its variants do not evolve much beyond their current forms — which is not guaranteed. Mix-and-match vaccination shows promise, a second study found, and booster shots of one widely used vaccine, if they are required, greatly enhance immunity, according to a third report.

Scientists had worried that the immunity conferred by vaccines might quickly wane or that they might somehow be outrun by a rapidly evolving virus. Together, the findings renew optimism that the tools needed to end the pandemic are already at hand, despite the rise of contagious new variants now setting off surges around the globe.

“It’s nice to see that the vaccines are recapitulating what we’ve also seen with natural infection,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, said, “Remember all that stuff at the beginning where people were panicking over antibodies vanishing?” With all the good news now, he said, “it’s hard for me to see how and why we would need boosters of the same thing every six to nine months.”

The coronavirus may be evolving, but so are the body’s defenders. In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers discovered that the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna set off a persistent immune reaction in the body that may protect against the coronavirus for years, in part because important immune cells continue to develop for longer than thought.

Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and his colleagues reported last month that immunity might last for years, possibly a lifetime, in people who were infected with the coronavirus and later vaccinated.

But it was unclear whether vaccination alone might have a similarly long-lasting effect.

In the new study, his team found that 15 weeks after the first vaccination, immune cells in the body were still organizing — becoming increasingly sophisticated and learning to recognize a growing set of viral genetic sequences.

The longer these cells have to practice, the more likely they are to thwart variants of the coronavirus that may emerge. The results suggest that the vast majority of vaccinated people will be protected over the long term — at least, against the existing coronavirus variants.

Older adults, people with weak immune systems and those who take drugs that suppress immunity nonetheless may need boosters. But people who survived Covid-19 and were later immunized may never need additional shots, because their immune responses seem to be particularly powerful.

The study looked at mRNA vaccines and did not consider the vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca. Dr. Ellebedy said he expected the immune responses produced by those vaccines to be less durable than those produced by mRNA vaccines.

New research suggests that a mix-and-match approach may work as efficiently. People who have had a dose of the Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca vaccines may do well to opt for an mRNA vaccine as the second dose.

In a British vaccine study published on Monday, volunteers produced high levels of antibodies and immune cells after getting one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and one dose of the AstraZeneca shot.

Updated

June 28, 2021, 9:05 p.m. ET

Administering the vaccines in either order is likely to provide potent protection, Dr. Matthew Snape, a vaccine expert at the University of Oxford, said at a news conference on Monday. “Any of these schedules, I think could be argued, would be expected to be effective,” he said.

Dr. Snape and his colleagues began the trial, called Com-COV, in February. In the first wave of the study, they gave 830 volunteers one of four combinations of vaccines. Some got two doses of either Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca, both of which have been shown to be effective against Covid-19. Others got a dose of AstraZeneca followed by one of Pfizer, or vice versa.

Those who got two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech produced levels of antibodies about 10 times greater than in those who got two doses of AstraZeneca. Volunteers who got Pfizer-BioNTech followed by AstraZeneca produced antibody levels about five times greater than in those who received two doses of AstraZeneca.

And volunteers who got AstraZeneca followed by Pfizer-BioNTech reached antibody levels about as great as in those who got two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech.

Another promising result came when the researchers looked at levels of immune cells primed to attack the coronavirus. Mixing the vaccines produced higher levels of the cells than two doses of the same vaccine.

Dr. Snape said it wasn’t clear yet why mixing brought that advantage: “It’s very intriguing, let’s say that much,”

Dr. Snape and his colleagues have begun another similar mixing trial, including vaccines from Moderna and Novavax on the list of possibilities. But he stopped short of recommending a routine mix-and-match strategy. For now, he said, the best course of action remains getting two doses of the same vaccine.

Large clinical trials have clearly demonstrated that this strategy reduces the chances of getting Covid-19. “Your default should be what is proven to work,” Dr. Snape said.

But for many people, that may not always be possible. Vaccine shipments are sometimes delayed because of manufacturing problems, for example. Younger people in some countries have been advised not to get a second dose of AstraZeneca, because of concerns about the small risk of developing blood clots.

In such situations, it’s important to know whether people can switch to another vaccine for a second dose. “This provides reassuring evidence that should work,” Dr. Snape said.

Despite the encouraging news that most people may not need boosters of mRNA vaccines, there may be some circumstances in which third shots are needed. So vaccine manufacturers have been testing booster doses that could be deployed just in case.

The results make for good news. Researchers reported on Monday that a third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine generated a strong immune response in clinical trial volunteers.

Ninety study volunteers in Britain were among the first to receive the shots in a clinical trial last year. This past March, they were given a third dose, roughly 30 weeks after their second. Laboratory analyses showed that the third dose raised antibody levels to a point higher than seen even a month after their second dose — an encouraging sign that a third shot should provide new protection even if the potency of the first two doses were to wane.

The study was posted online in a preliminary preprint form, but has not yet been peer-reviewed nor published in a scientific journal.

“We do have to be in a position where we could boost, if it turned out that was necessary,” Andrew Pollard, an Oxford University vaccine researcher, said at a news briefing on Monday. “I think we have encouraging data in this preprint to show that boosters could be used and would be effective at boosting the immune response.”

But if booster shots are deemed necessary in the coming months, availability could be severely limited, especially in poorer countries that are lacking enough supply to give even first doses to their most vulnerable citizens.

Earlier this month, the National Institutes of Health announced that it had begun a new clinical trial of people fully vaccinated with any of the three authorized vaccines in the United States. The goal is to test whether a booster shot of the vaccine made by Moderna will increase antibodies against the virus. Initial results are expected later this summer.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has won authorization in 80 countries since last December but is not approved for use in the United States, which already has more than enough doses of three other authorized vaccines to meet demand.

Tags coronavirus, Pandemic, point, Result, Studies, vaccines

Health

Mixing Pfizer, AstraZeneca Vaccines Provides Sturdy Covid Safety, Research Finds

Post author By
Post date June 28, 2021

Initial results from a UK vaccine study suggest that mixing different brands of vaccine can produce a protective immune response against Covid-19. In the study, volunteers produced high levels of antibodies and immune cells after receiving a dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and a dose of the AstraZeneca Oxford shot.

Giving the vaccines in any order will likely provide effective protection, said Dr. Matthew Snape, a vaccines expert at Oxford University, at a news conference Monday. “Any of these schedules I think could be argued and expected to be effective,” he said.

Dr. Snape and his colleagues began the study called Com-COV in February. In the first wave of the study, they gave 830 volunteers one of four vaccine combinations. Some received two doses from Pfizer or AstraZeneca, both of which have been shown to be effective against Covid-19. Others got a dose of AstraZeneca, followed by one from Pfizer, or vice versa.

With the first wave of volunteers, the researchers waited four weeks between doses. Studies have shown that the AstraZeneca vaccine offers greater protection when the second dose is delayed for up to 12 weeks. Therefore, the researchers are also conducting a separate 12-week study that should provide results over the next month.

The researchers found that volunteers reported more chills, headaches, and muscle aches than people who received two doses of the same vaccine. But the side effects were short-lived.

Dr. Snape and his colleagues then took blood samples to measure the immune response in the volunteers. They found that those who received two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech produced antibody levels about 10 times higher than those who received two doses of AstraZeneca. Volunteers who received Pfizer followed by AstraZeneca showed antibody levels about five times higher than those who received two doses of AstraZeneca. And volunteers who received AstraZeneca followed by Pfizer achieved antibody levels about as high as those who received two doses of Pfizer.

Dr. Snape said the differences would most likely decrease in the volunteers who received a second dose after 12 weeks when the AstraZeneca vaccine had more time to intensify its effects.

The study also found that using different vaccines produced higher levels of immune cells prepared to attack the coronavirus than when giving two doses of the same vaccine. Dr. Snape said it was not yet clear why mixing had this advantage. “It’s very fascinating, let’s say so much,” he said.

Dr. Snape and colleagues have started a similar study, adding Moderna and Novavax vaccines to their list of possibilities.

For now, he said, the best course of action remains to get two doses of the same vaccine. Large clinical studies have clearly shown that this strategy reduces the likelihood of developing Covid-19. “Your default should be what has been shown to work,” said Dr. Snape.

But there are many cases where that is not possible. Vaccine deliveries are sometimes delayed due to manufacturing issues, for example. Younger people in some countries have been advised not to receive a second dose of AstraZeneca due to concerns about the low risk of blood clots. In situations like this, it’s important to know if people can switch to another vaccine.

“This provides reassuring evidence that should work,” said Dr. Snape.

Tags AstraZeneca, Covid, Finds, mixing, Pfizer, Protection, Strong, Study, vaccines

Health

They Relied on Chinese language Vaccines. Now They’re Battling Outbreaks.

Post author By
Post date June 28, 2021

The reason for the surge in Mongolia, Mr. Batbayar said, is that the country reopened too quickly, and many people believed they were protected after only one dose.

“I think you could say Mongolians celebrated too early,” he said. “My advice is the celebrations should start after the full vaccinations, so this is the lesson learned. There was too much confidence.”

Some health officials and scientists are less confident.

Nikolai Petrovsky, a professor at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in Australia, said that with all of the evidence, it would be reasonable to assume the Sinopharm vaccine had minimal effect on curbing transmission. A major risk with the Chinese inoculation is that vaccinated people may have few or no symptoms and still spread the virus to others, he said.

“I think that this complexity has been lost on most decision makers around the world.”

In Indonesia, where a new variant is spreading, more than 350 doctors and health care workers recently came down with Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated with Sinovac, according to the risk mitigation team of the Indonesian Medical Association. Across the country, 61 doctors died between February and June 7. Ten of them had taken the Chinese-made vaccine, the association said.

The numbers were enough to make Kenneth Mak, Singapore’s director of medical services, question the use of Sinovac. “It’s not a problem associated with Pfizer,” Mr. Mak said at a news conference on Friday. “This is actually a problem associated with the Sinovac vaccine.”

Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates were the first two countries to approve the Sinopharm shot, even before late-stage clinical trial data was released. Since then, there have been extensive reports of vaccinated people falling ill in both countries. In a statement, the Bahraini government’s media office said the kingdom’s vaccine rollout had been “efficient and successful to date.”

Still, last month officials from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates announced that they would offer a third booster shot. The choices: Pfizer or more Sinopharm.

Reporting was contributed by Khaliun Bayartsogt, Andrea Kannapell, Ben Hubbard, Asmaa al-Omar and Muktita Suhartono. Elsie Chen and Claire Fu contributed research.

Tags Battling, Chinese, outbreaks, Relied, theyre, vaccines