Tag: Variants

Janet Yellen Warns That Coronavirus Variants Threaten World Restoration

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Post date July 11, 2021

VENICE – Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said Sunday she was concerned that coronavirus variants could slow global economic recovery and called for urgent efforts to accelerate vaccine use around the world.

Your comments on the conclusion of a meeting of Finance Ministers of the Group of 20 Nations came when the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus triggered outbreaks among unvaccinated populations in countries like Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Portugal. Delta is now also the dominant variant in the USA.

“We are very concerned about the Delta variant and other variants that are emerging that could threaten recovery,” said Ms. Yellen. “We are a networked global economy. What happens in any part of the world affects all other countries. “

Many cities and countries have begun declaring victory over the pandemic, easing restrictions and returning to normal life. But Ms. Yellen warned that the public health crisis was not over.

She said the world’s top economic officials spent much of the weekend in Venice discussing how they could improve vaccine distribution with the goal of vaccinating 70 percent of the world by next year. Ms. Yellen noted that many countries have successfully funded vaccine purchases but lack the logistics to get them into people’s arms.

“We have to do more and be more effective,” she said.

The proliferation of variants has begun to dampen optimism about the course of the recovery.

Capital Economics analysts announced this week that they intend to cut their economic growth outlook for the year to below 6 percent.

The proliferation of new varieties of coronavirus has “raised doubts about the pace of real economic growth in the second half of this year and beyond,” wrote Paul Ashworth, chief economist for North America at Capital Economics, in a research note.

The International Monetary Fund said it was sticking to its 6 percent global growth forecast this year, but warned that growth would be stifled in developing countries where infection rates are skyrocketing.

“The divergence between economies is worsening,” said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Saturday. “Essentially, the world is facing a two-pronged recovery.”

Some finance ministers also raised concerns over the weekend that variants and slow vaccine uptake could turn the recovery on its head. This concern was highlighted in the Group’s joint statement as a downside risk to the world economy.

“The only hurdle on the way to a quick, solid economic recovery is the risk of a new wave of pandemics,” said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. “We all need to improve our vaccination performance.”

The IMF Executive Board last week approved a plan to provide $ 650 billion in reserve funds that countries could use to buy vaccines and fund health initiatives.

Ms. Yellen said she urged her group of 20 colleagues to expedite the “fair” delivery and distribution of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics to ensure that low- and middle-income countries could fight the virus flare-up.

Policy makers at the weekend’s meeting also spent time focusing on new investments in preparation for future pandemics. Ms. Yellen said that while this is important, more needs to be done in the short term.

“Variants certainly pose a threat to the entire globe,” she said.

Tags coronavirus, global, Janet, recovery, threaten, Variants, warns, Yellen

Health

Masks Once more? Delta Variant’s Unfold Prompts Reconsideration of Precautions.

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Post date June 29, 2021

Throughout the pandemic, masks were among the most controversial public health measures in the United States, symbolizing a bitter partisan divide over the role of government and individual freedoms.

Now, with a new variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly around the world, masks are once again the focus of conflicting views and fears about how the pandemic will unfold and the constraints needed to cope with it.

The renewed concerns follow forest fire growth of the Delta variant, a highly infectious form of the virus first discovered in India and later identified in at least 85 countries. It now accounts for one in five infections in the United States.

In May, federal health officials said fully vaccinated people no longer need to mask themselves, even indoors. The council marked a fundamental change in American life and set the stage for a national reopening that continues to gain momentum.

But that was before the delta variant spread. Concerned about a global surge in cases, the World Health Organization reiterated its long-standing recommendation last week that everyone – including those who have been vaccinated – wear masks to contain the spread of the virus.

Los Angeles County health officials followed on Monday, recommending that “everyone, regardless of vaccination status, should wear masks as a precaution in public places indoors.”

Barbara Ferrer, the county’s public health director, said the new recommendation was because of the increase in infections, an increase in cases due to the worrying Delta variant, and the continued high numbers of unvaccinated residents, especially children, black and Latin American residents, and important workers.

About half of Los Angeles County’s residents are fully vaccinated, and about 60 percent have received at least one dose. While the number of positive tests in the county is still below 1 percent, the rate has increased, added Dr. Ferrer added, and the number of reinfections in residents who were previously infected and not vaccinated has increased.

As far as Los Angeles County has managed to control the pandemic, it was due to a multi-faceted strategy that combined vaccinations with health restrictions to curb new infections, said Dr. Ferrer. Natural immunity among those already infected has also kept transmission low, she noted, but it is not clear how long the natural immunity will last.

“We don’t want to go back to lockdown or disruptive mandates here,” said Dr. Ferrer. “We want to stay on the path we are currently on, which keeps the transmission by the community very low.”

Health officials in Chicago and New York City said Tuesday that they had no plans to re-examine masking requirements. Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declined to comment but did not signal any intention to revise or re-examine the masking recommendations for fully vaccinated individuals.

“When the CDC made the recommendation To stop masking, it didn’t anticipate that we might be in a situation where we might need to recommend masking again, ”said Angela Rasmussen, researcher at the Vaccines and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada .

“Nobody will want to do it. The people understandably accuse them of having moved the goal posts. “

But the Delta variant’s trajectory outside of the United States suggests that concerns are likely to increase.

Even Israel – which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and aggressively immunizes young adolescents and teenagers who qualify – has reintroduced the mask requirement in indoor public spaces and at large outdoor public gatherings after hundreds of new Covid-19 cases were discovered in the past few days, including in people who received both doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.

This isn’t the first time the world has been consumed by a more contagious variant of the coronavirus. The alpha variant rolled over the UK and brought the rest of Europe to a standstill earlier this year. Alpha quickly became the dominant variety in the United States by late March, but the rapid pace of vaccination slowed its spread and saved the nation a huge surge in infections.

But Delta is considered even more terrifying. Much of what is known about the variant is based on its distribution in India and the UK, but early evidence suggests it is perhaps twice as contagious as the original virus and at least 20 percent more contagious than Alpha.

Updated

June 29, 2021 at 5:38 p.m. ET

In many Indian states and European nations, Delta has quickly overtaken Alpha and has become the dominant version of the virus. It is well on its way to do the same in the United States.

Among the many mutations in the variant are some that can help the virus to partially evade the immune system. Several studies have shown that while the current vaccines are effective against Delta, they are slightly less effective than most other variants. In people who received only one dose of a two-dose regimen, protection against the variant is significantly reduced compared to effectiveness against other forms of the virus.

The WHO rationale for keeping masking is that while vaccines are very effective at preventing serious illness and death, it is not known to what extent vaccines prevent mild or asymptomatic infections. (CDC officials disagree and say the risk is minimal.)

The WHO claims that vaccinated people should wear masks in crowded, narrow and poorly ventilated areas and take other preventive measures like social distancing.

“What we are saying is, ‘Once you are fully vaccinated, keep playing it safe because you could end up being part of a chain of transmission. You may not be fully protected, ‘”said Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser to WHO, at a news conference last week.

Even in countries with relatively high vaccination rates, there has been an increase in infections from the delta variant. Great Britain, where around two-thirds of the population have received at least one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca vaccine and almost half two doses, is still struggling with a sharp increase in infections from the variant.

It is not certain which course the delta variant will take in the USA. The coronavirus infections have been falling for months, as have been hospital admissions and deaths. But dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease doctor, has described the variant as “the greatest threat” to eliminating the virus in the United States.

When CDC officials lifted masking recommendations in May, they cited research showing that fully vaccinated individuals are unlikely to become infected with the virus, even with asymptomatic infections.

But the partial immune evasion variant’s talent makes researchers nervous, as it suggests that fully vaccinated people sometimes get asymptomatic infections and unwittingly pass the virus on to others, even if they never get the disease.

The Delta variant can infect people who have been vaccinated, although its ability to do so is very limited, said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. “If you’re in a fall-climbing place, wearing a mask indoors in crowded public spaces is a way to keep yourself from contributing to the spread of Delta,” he said.

Other scientists do not recommend that fully vaccinated people always wear masks indoors, but some are now suggesting that this may be appropriate depending on local circumstances – for example, anywhere the virus is circulating in high numbers or vaccination rates are very low.

“Masking in closed public spaces must continue after vaccination until we can all be vaccinated or get a new vaccine that is more effective against delta transmission,” said Dr. Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Even now, around half of Americans are not vaccinated, and much of the country remains vulnerable to outbreaks of the virus and its variants. Vaccinations for children under the age of 12 are expected to be approved in autumn at the earliest.

In Saskatchewan, Canada, the reopening took place in stages tied to the vaccination rates of the population and the percentage of people vaccinated in specific age groups.

The province moves to step 3 of re-entry on July 11, but can maintain indoor mask requirements and congregation size restrictions, said Dr. Rasmussen from the University of Saskatchewan. The strategy “makes a lot more sense than just saying, ‘When you are fully vaccinated, take off your mask,'” she said.

However, some scientists fear that it will be nearly impossible to reintroduce masking requirements and other precautions, even in places where it might be a good idea.

“It’s hard to get that back,” said David Michaels, an epidemiologist and professor at the George Washington School of Public Health, referring to the CDC advice. But with the advent of the delta variant, it is also “extremely dangerous to continue the cultural norm that nobody wears a mask”.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, vice president of global initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, said introducing the variant should lead to a reconsideration of the mask requirement.

He still wears a mask in public places like grocery stores and even on crowded sidewalks. “We don’t even know the long-term consequences of a slight infection,” he said, referring to so-called long Covid. “Is it worth a little more insurance by wearing a mask? Yes.”

Monroe Harmon, 60, had coffee outside the Whole Foods Market in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday morning and said he thought a step back on masking requirements for everyone is a good idea.

“There are so many people who say they just want their lives back,” said Mr. Harmon, who works for a security company. “I think you kind of roll the dice if you decide, ‘I want my life back, I won’t wear a mask, I won’t distance myself.'”

Jill Cowan and Ana Facio-Krajcer contributed the coverage from Los Angeles.

Tags Delta, Masks, precautions, prompts, Reconsideration, Spread, Variants

Health

Moderna says Covid vaccine exhibits promise in a lab setting towards variants, together with delta

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Post date June 29, 2021

A healthcare worker prepares a dose of Moderna Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday February 9, 2021 at the Pacheco Vaccination Center in Brussels, Belgium.

Geert Vanden Wijngaert | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Moderna said Tuesday that its Covid-19 vaccine showed promise against coronavirus variants, including the highly contagious Delta variant, first identified in India in a laboratory setting.

The two-dose mRNA vaccine produced neutralizing antibodies against Delta as well as Beta and Eta, variants that Moderna said were first found in South Africa and Nigeria, respectively.

The company said the results were based on blood serum from eight participants one week after receiving the second dose of the vaccine. The data has not yet been reviewed by experts. The results, while promising, may not reflect how the vaccines actually perform against the variants in real-world scenarios.

Moderna shares rose more than 4% in intraday trading after the lab results were announced.

“We continue to strive to investigate new variants, generate data and share them as they become available,” said Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, in a press release. “These new data are encouraging and reinforce our belief that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine should continue to protect against newly discovered variants.”

Moderna’s update comes days after World Health Organization officials urged fully vaccinated people to continue wearing masks, maintain social distance, and practice other pandemic safety measures as the delta spreads rapidly across the world.

Delta, now present in at least 92 countries including the United States, is expected to become the predominant variant of the disease worldwide. In the US, the prevalence of the variant doubles about every two weeks.

WHO officials said Friday that they are urging fully vaccinated people to continue to “play it safe” as much of the world remains unvaccinated and highly contagious variants like Delta spread in many countries and cause outbreaks.

The comments were a departure from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said fully vaccinated Americans can be maskless in most environments.

“People can’t feel safe just because they got the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” said Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO Deputy Director General for Access to Medicines and Health Products, during a press conference.

Approved vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Johnson & Johnson have been shown to be highly effective in preventing Covid, particularly against serious illness and death.

Some variants, including Delta, have shown the vaccines to be slightly less effective, and WHO officials said they fear people vaccinated could become part of the chains of transmission.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that about half of the adults infected in a Delta variant outbreak in Israel were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, prompting the local government to reintroduce indoor masking and other measures.

In the United States, President Joe Biden warned that unvaccinated people are particularly at risk of contracting Delta.

He said the number of Covid deaths would continue to increase across the country due to the spread of the “dangerous” variant, calling this a “serious concern”.

“More than six hundred thousand Americans have died, and with this variant of the Delta, you know there will be others too. You know it will happen. We need to vaccinate young people,” Biden said Thursday at a community center in Raleigh, NC

Tags Covid, Delta, including, lab, Moderna, Promise, Setting, Shows, Vaccine, Variants

Health

With Vaccination Aim in Doubt, Biden Warns of Variant’s Risk

Post author By
Post date June 20, 2021

WASHINGTON – With the United States failing to meet its self-imposed deadline of 70 percent of adults being partially vaccinated against the coronavirus by July 4th, President Biden stepped up efforts to inject Americans on Friday, warning that those who refuse to risk becoming infected with a highly contagious and potentially fatal variant.

In an afternoon appearance at the White House, Biden avoided mentioning the 70 percent target he set in early May and instead trumpeted about another milestone: 300 million shots in his first 150 days in office. But even as he was celebrating the success of the vaccination campaign, he sounded gloomy about the worrying Delta variant, which is spreading in states with low vaccination rates.

“The best way to protect yourself against these variants is to get vaccinated,” said the president.

His remarks came as his government made one final push over the next two weeks to meet the July 4th goal. Vice President Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra, Minister of Health and Human Resources, were both out on Friday to inspire enthusiasm for the vaccine. Ms. Harris went to Atlanta, where she found that less than half of the people in Fulton County, where the city is located, had at least one chance, and Mr. Becerra went to Colorado.

Mr Biden took office in January warning of a “dark winter” as deaths were near the peak and vaccinations barely underway, and he has generally tried to portray the virus as a withdrawal while he was out for six months approaching in office.

A leaflet distributed by the White House ahead of Friday’s statements found that in 15 states and the District of Columbia, 70 percent or more of adults had received at least one injection. “The results are clear: America is starting to look like America again and is entering a summer of joy and freedom,” the document reads.

But vaccination and infection rates are inconsistent across the country.

And while those who have taken a “wait and see” stance are becoming more open to vaccination, 20 percent of American adults still say they definitely won’t get the vaccine or will only get vaccinated when needed, according to a poll published last month by Kaiser Family Foundation.

State health officials are trying to convince the hesitation. In West Virginia, where just over a third of the population is fully vaccinated, Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s coronavirus tsar, said that young people are particularly difficult to attract.

“Back in the pandemic there was a narrative that really haunts us, namely that young people are really protected,” he said. “There is a false belief that many young people who are otherwise healthy still have relatively free travel and that if they get infected they are fine.”

In Louisiana, where only 34 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and only 37 percent are receiving at least a single dose, state officials on Thursday announced a new lottery for anyone in the state who received a dose, with a grand prize of $ 1 million.

And in Wyoming, with vaccination rates almost identical to Louisiana, Kim Deti, a health department spokeswoman, said “politicization is a problem” as officials try to increase the number of people vaccinated. But she said there were other reasons for the rate slowdown in her state as well.

“We have had relatively low Covid 19 illnesses nationwide for some time, which has an impact on the perception of threats,” Ms. Deti wrote in an email. “Since schools are open all school year and most companies have almost everything open for the past year, some people may find it more difficult to identify the personal need for a vaccination.”

Speaking to students at a vaccination mobilization event at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia on Friday, Ms. Harris warned of the dangers of misinformation and formulated the decision to get vaccinated to regain power from the virus.

Updated

June 20, 2021, 4:23 p.m. ET

“Let’s arm ourselves with the truth,” she said. “When people say that it looks like this vaccine was made overnight – no, it didn’t. It is the result of many years of research. “

When setting the July 4th goal in early May, Mr Biden said the meeting would show that the United States has taken “a serious step towards a return to normal,” and for many people it already seems to be to be. This week California and New York lifted virtually all of their pandemic restrictions on businesses and social gatherings.

But the time frame is tight. Analysis by the New York Times shows that if the adult vaccination rate continues at the seven-day average, as 67.6 percent of American adults have at least one vaccination, the country will just miss Mr. Biden’s 70 percent target received by July 4th.

According to the CDC, 65 percent of adults had received at least one injection by Friday. But the number of Americans getting their first injection has steadily declined to about 200,000 a day since Mr. Biden announced that June would be a “month of action” to achieve his goal.

“I don’t see any intervention that could really bring back an exponential increase in demand to get the kind of numbers we probably need to get to 70 percent,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the Association of State’s chief medical officer and area health officer.

Experts say the difference between 67 percent and 70 percent is insignificant from a disease control perspective. But from a political point of view, it would be the first time that Mr Biden has set a pandemic-related goal that he has not achieved. He has always set and exceeded relatively modest goals, including his pledge to have 100 million shots in the arms of Americans by his 100th day in office.

“The 70 percent target is not a fixed number; not getting it right doesn’t mean the sky is falling, ”said Jen Kates, director of global health and HIV policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation. “On the other hand, it has symbolic meaning. Much effort has been put into reaching this point and not hitting it, a reminder of how difficult the remaining distance will be. “

In the White House, Mr Biden’s aides are now saying they are less concerned with meeting the 70 percent target than they are in making the nation feel the sense of normalcy the president promised. Just a few months ago he was talking about small family barbecues on July 4th, and now large gatherings are possible.

To prove it, the White House is also planning a grand celebration of “independence from the virus” on July 4th with fireworks on the National Mall here in Washington and a gathering of more than 1,000 military personnel and key workers who will join Mr. Biden . Ms. Harris and her spouses watch the festivities from the South Lawn.

When the 70 percent target was announced on May 4th, Mr Biden made a personal appeal to all those who had not been vaccinated: “That is your decision. It’s about life and death.”

A month later, in early June, he attempted to win the nation over by proclaiming a “Month of Action” and suggesting incentives, including offering free childcare for parents and carers while they receive their shots. He also promised a national advertising campaign that resembled an election campaign.

Since then, White House officials say, nonprofit and community groups across the country have held testing and vaccination events, particularly in black churches. Planned Parenthood has invested in paid phone banking, and the Service Employees International Union has partnered with the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials to run vaccination clinics and promotions.

When asked about the July 4th deadline this week, Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s Coronavirus Response Coordinator, specifically avoided saying the nation would break the 70 percent threshold by that date would achieve.

“We have made tremendous progress,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of people continue to get their first shots every day, and we’re going to get 70 percent, and we’re going to go beyond 70 percent in the summer months.”

Annie Karni contributed the coverage from Washington and Amy Schoenfeld Walker from Trumbull, Conn.

Tags Biden, doubt, goal, Threat, Vaccination, Variants, warns

Health

5 years earlier than vaccine can maintain line towards Covid variants

Post author By
Post date June 19, 2021

Covid vaccinator, Petra Moinar, prepares syringes with the AstraZeneca vaccine before it is administered at Battersea Arts Centre on March 8, 2021 in London, England.

Chris J Ratcliffe | Getty Images News | Getty Images

LONDON — England’s top medical officer has warned that the coming winter will continue to be difficult for the country’s health system despite the country’s successful coronavirus vaccination program.

A further easing of lockdown restrictions in England was delayed this week due to a surge in cases of the delta variant first discovered in India.

In a speech to the NHS Confederation Thursday, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said the current wave of Covid infections due to the delta variant would likely be followed by another surge in the winter.

He said that Covid-19 “has not thrown its last surprise at us and there will be several more [variants] over the next period,” according to Sky News. He added that it would likely take five years before there are vaccines that could “hold the line” to a very large degree against a range of coronavirus variants.

And until then, he said that new vaccination programs and booster shots would be needed.

In the U.K., where the delta variant is now responsible for the bulk of new infections, cases have spiked among young people and the unvaccinated, leading to a rise in hospitalizations in those cohorts.

It’s hoped that Covid-19 vaccination programs can stop the spread of the delta variant and so the race is on to protect younger people who might not be fully vaccinated.

Analysis from Public Health England released on Monday showed that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective against hospitalization from the delta variant.

But some vaccines are reported to be less effective against other strains. For example, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said earlier this month that it has started commercial negotiations with AstraZeneca to secure a variant vaccine — which has been adapted to tackle the variant first discovered in South Africa.

Meanwhile, trials of booster shots are already underway in Britain and there are reports that the population will receive a third shot before winter this year.

Over 42 million people have had a first dose of a vaccine in Britain — that’s about 80% of the adult population — and over 30 million people have had their second dose.

—CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this article.

Tags Covid, Hold, Line, Vaccine, Variants, years

World News

Covid-19 Stay Updates: The Newest on Circumstances, Vaccines and Variants

Post author By
Post date June 17, 2021

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The U.S. government will invest $3.2 billion to develop antiviral pills for Covid-19, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Thursday. Such a treatment could keep people out of the hospital and potentially save many lives in the years to come, as the virus becomes a perennial threat despite the distribution of effective vaccines.

A number of other viruses, including influenza, H.I.V. and hepatitis C, can be treated with a simple pill. But despite more than a year of research, no such drug exists for the coronavirus. Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s program for accelerating Covid-19 research, invested far more money in the development of vaccines than of treatments, a gap that the new program will try to fill.

The new influx of money will speed up the clinical trials of a few promising drug candidates. If all goes well, some of those pills might become available by the end of this year. The Antiviral Program for Pandemics will also support research on entirely new drugs — not just for the coronavirus, but for viruses that could cause future pandemics.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key backer of the program, said he looked forward to a time when Covid-19 patients could pick up antiviral pills from a pharmacy as soon as they tested positive for the coronavirus or develop Covid-19 symptoms. His support for research on antiviral pills stems from his own experience fighting AIDS three decades ago.

At the start of the pandemic, researchers began testing existing antivirals in people hospitalized with severe Covid-19. But many of those trials failed to show any benefit from the antivirals. In hindsight, the choice to work in hospitals was a mistake. Scientists now know that the best time to try to block the coronavirus is in the first few days of the disease, when the virus is replicating rapidly and the immune system has not yet mounted a defense.

Many people crush their infection and recuperate, but in others, the immune system misfires and starts damaging tissues instead of viruses. It’s this self-inflicted damage that sends many people with Covid-19 to the hospital, as the coronavirus replication is tapering off. So a drug that blocks replication early in an infection might very well fail in a trial on patients who have progressed to later stages of the disease.

So far, only one antiviral has demonstrated a clear benefit to people in hospitals: remdesivir. Originally investigated as a potential cure for Ebola, the drug seems to shorten the course of Covid-19 when given intravenously to patients. In October, it became the first — and so far, the only — antiviral drug to gain full F.D.A. approval to treat the disease.

Yet remdesivir’s performance has left many researchers underwhelmed. In November, the World Health Organization recommended against using the drug.

Remdesivir might work more effectively if people could take it earlier in the course of Covid-19 as a pill. But in its approved formulation, the compound doesn’t work orally. It can’t survive the passage from the mouth to the stomach to the circulatory system.

Researchers from around the world are testing other antivirals already known to work in pill form. One such compound, called molnupiravir, was developed in 2003 by researchers at Emory University and has been tested against viruses including influenza and dengue.

Credit…Prakash Mathema/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Sri Lanka is tapping Japan. Nepal has asked Denmark. Bangladesh has appealed to its diaspora in the United States.

South Asian countries are looking to the rest of the world to jump-start inoculation campaigns that have stalled since India halted vaccine exports to deal with its catastrophic second coronavirus wave this spring.

The ad hoc approach shows how the decision by India, the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer, left poorer countries with few options for vaccines as richer countries hoarded much of the global supply. Even as the United States and other global powers pledge to donate a billion doses to poor nations, the World Health Organization says 11 billion doses are needed to defeat the pandemic.

Countries in South Asia and elsewhere — many battling outbreaks — continue to scramble for vaccines. Health officials say the vaccine pledge by the Group of 7 industrialized nations is too vague to incorporate into real planning, and does little to address the immediate needs of the millions of people awaiting doses.

India’s neighbors began vaccinations this year with a combination of doses donated by India and purchased from the Serum Institute of India, which is producing the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, branded locally as Covishield.

But as coronavirus cases rose sharply in India in March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government blocked exports, forcing Serum to renege on bilateral agreements and commitments to Covax, the global program aimed at distributing vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.

In Nepal, about 1.4 million people age 65 and older have been awaiting a second shot after receiving a first AstraZeneca dose in March. Nepal’s government has appealed to diplomats in Britain, Denmark, South Korea and the United States for help.

“Efforts are on,” said Dr. Taranath Pokhrel, a director at the Nepalese Health Ministry, “but no substantive progress has been achieved so far.”

Of the first 25 million vaccine doses pledged as donations by the Biden administration, seven million are earmarked for Nepal and other countries in Asia, but in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, it’s not clear when, what kind or how many will arrive.

Even after a weekslong nationwide lockdown, nearly one in three of Nepal’s coronavirus tests has been coming back positive. Less than 1 percent of the Himalayan country’s 30 million people are fully vaccinated.

Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all received donations from China of its Sinopharm vaccine. But Sri Lanka, like Nepal, is angling for more AstraZeneca shots to provide a second dose to tens of thousands of people, some of whom have been waiting for nearly four months.

Sri Lanka’s president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, met with Japan’s ambassador to appeal for 600,000 AstraZeneca doses, and officials said that the Japanese government was receptive.

Japan, which has announced plans to donate doses across Asia, has “given a bit of a green light” to Sri Lanka, Gen. Shavendra Silva, the head of a Sri Lankan Covid task force, told The New York Times.

Sri Lanka’s government plans to inoculate the rest of its population with the donated Sinopharm doses and Sputnik V shots it has purchased from Russia.

Bangladesh, where infections and deaths from a second wave of the coronavirus continue to rise, is counting on its U.S. diaspora to raise pressure on the Biden administration for help obtaining more AstraZeneca doses, said Shamsul Haque, secretary of the country’s Covid vaccine management committee.

“We are short roughly 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca for second shots,” Mr. Haque said.

China has donated 1.1 million Sinopharm doses, and Bangladesh is negotiating bulk buys of more vaccines from China, and Sputnik V doses from Russia. Only about 4.2 million of Bangladesh’s 168 million people are fully vaccinated.

— Emily Schmall, Aanya Wipulasena, Bhadra Sharma and Julfikar Ali Manik

Credit…Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed economic and social fault lines around the globe, but Covid-19 vaccines have made the divides even starker: While some poor countries are pleading for doses to save their people, a few rich ones are awash in shots and lacking takers.

A handful of U.S. states, for example, have tried incentives to get more people vaccinated. But in Moscow, as Covid hospitalizations surged this week, the city government took a harder line, mandating vaccinations for many workers in public-facing jobs.

Some other governments have also attempted to require vaccines. A province in Pakistan has said it will stop paying the salaries of civil servants who are not inoculated, starting next month. And Britain, which is seeing a surge attributed to the spread of the Delta variant of the virus, is weighing whether to make shots obligatory for all health care workers.

The Moscow Times quoted the city’s mayor, Sergei S. Sobyanin, as saying on Wednesday, “When you go out and come into contact with other people, you are an accomplice of the epidemiological process — a chain in the link spreading this dangerous virus.” The mandate he announced focuses on the education, entertainment, health care, and hospitality sectors and will continue until at least 60 percent of employees have been vaccinated, the newspaper reported.

In Britain, officials said that requiring health care workers to be vaccinated would help stop the spread of the virus in hospitals. Nadhim Zahawi, the British vaccine minister, said that there was a precedent for such a requirement. “Obviously, surgeons get vaccinated for hepatitis B, so it’s something that we are absolutely thinking about,” he told Sky News last month.

Many universities in the United States now require at least some students and employees to be vaccinated, and federal officials have repeatedly made clear that most companies with at least 15 employees have the right to require that workers are inoculated.

But vaccine requirements continue to face resistance from some.

In 15 American states, not a single college had announced any type of vaccine requirement as of last month. Days ago, 178 employees of Houston Methodist Hospital who refused to get a coronavirus shot were suspended. And on Saturday, protesters are expected at the offices of the New York State Bar Association in Albany, where officials will be discussing a report that recommends mandating a coronavirus vaccine for all New Yorkers, unless they are exempted by doctors.

But for the undecided who are open to persuasion, incentives to get the vaccine remain common: There are lotteries in California, college scholarships in New York State and free drinks in New Jersey.

The giveaways have spurred some to action. This week, both New York and California announced that they were lifting virtually all coronavirus restrictions on businesses and social gatherings.

Credit…Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York Times

Warmer weather and low coronavirus case numbers are raising hope in some countries in Europe that vaccine rollouts could usher in a more normal summer after an erratic year of lockdowns.

France announced on Wednesday, sooner than expected, that it was ending a mandate on mask wearing outdoors and lifting a nighttime curfew that has lasted for months — an increasingly unpopular measure as days grew longer and cafes reopened.

“The health situation in our country is improving, and it is improving even faster than what we had hoped,” Jean Castex, the French prime minister, said in making the announcement, which some political opponents noted came a few days before regional elections.

In addition, tourists from the United States may be allowed back into European Union countries as early as Friday — a move crucial to lifting Europe’s battered economies. On Wednesday, ambassadors of the European Union indicated their support for adding the United States to a list of countries considered safe from an epidemiological point of view, a bloc official confirmed, though no official announcement is expected until Friday.

The traffic will be one-way, however, unless the United States lifts its ban on many European travelers, which was first announced over a year ago. The U.S. barred noncitizens coming from many countries around the globe, including those in the Schengen area of Europe, Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

In Europe, however, low infection numbers in many countries in recent weeks have been taken as an optimistic sign. But that is not the case everywhere. In Britain, officials are keeping watch for the Delta variant, which has spurred a rise in cases, and on Monday delayed by a month a much-anticipated reopening that had been heralded as “freedom day.”

And in Moscow, a surge of cases prompted a shutdown, leaving Russian officials pleading with residents to get vaccinated.

Still, the move to open up E.U. countries to tourists coming from the United States signaled a wider hope that the bloc was on a pathway to normalcy.

Health policy in the European Union is ultimately the province of member governments, so each country has the right to decide whether to reopen and how to tailor the travel measures further — by adding requirements for PCR tests or quarantines, for example.

Travel from outside the bloc was practically suspended last year to limit the spread of the coronavirus, with the exception of a handful of countries that fulfilled specific criteria, such as a low infection rate and their overall response to Covid-19. Until Wednesday, the list contained a relatively small number of nations, including Australia, Japan and South Korea, but more are coming, including Albania, Lebanon, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Some countries heavily dependent on tourism, like Spain and Greece, have already reopened to external travelers. Germany also lifted more restrictions this month, announcing it would remove a travel warning for locations with low infection rates from July 1.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, recommended last month that all travelers from third countries who were fully vaccinated with shots approved by the European Medicines Agency or by the World Health Organization should be allowed to enter without restrictions.

The loosening of travel measures was enabled by the fast pace of vaccination in the United States and by the acceleration of the inoculation campaign in Europe, and bolstered by advanced talks between the authorities on how to make vaccine certificates acceptable as proof of immunity.

The European Union is also finalizing work on a Covid certificate system, which is supposed to be in place on July 1. Fifteen member countries already started issuing and accepting the certificate ahead of schedule this month. The document records whether people have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, recovered from Covid or tested negative within the past 72 hours, and it would eventually allow those who meet one of the three criteria to move freely across the bloc’s 27 member countries.

Travelers coming from outside the bloc would have the opportunity to obtain a Covid certificate from an E.U. country, the European Commission said. That would facilitate travel between different countries inside the bloc, but would not be required for entering the European Union.

Credit…Money Sharma/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The majestic Taj Mahal in India reopened its doors to visitors this week, part of a broad easing of restrictions by local governments hoping to revive a battered tourism industry.

The move to open up the economy comes even as the country is still in the midst of a devastating outbreak that has killed hundreds of thousands. Vaccination continues at a slow pace and some health experts have warned that easing restrictions too quickly could have deadly consequences.

While the number of new cases across the nation has dropped steadily in recent weeks, — with 67,208 new infections reported on Wednesday, the lowest number in two months — health officials in some regions, including Mumbai, have warned that a new deadly wave could come soon as cases there rise.

Still, local governments across the country are continuing to open up.

In Delhi, the capital, the authorities are also moving to reopen attractions, including the popular Red Fort.

The Taj Mahal is in the city of Agra in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where hundreds of dead bodies were buried on the banks of the Ganges as coronavirus deaths spiked in April and May.

The Taj Mahal, built in the 17th century by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is a major tourist attraction and is normally thronged by more than seven million visitors annually, or an average of about 20,000 people per day.

The authorities closed the monument on April 17, the first time that had happened since 1978, when a river snaking out of Agra flooded the area. It was previously closed during World War II in 1942, and when India and Pakistan were at war in 1971.

Officials in Agra said that visitors wanting to go to the Taj Mahal had to book tickets online and that tourists would be allowed to enter the premises only if they were wearing a mask.

“No one is allowed to touch the wall of the monuments,” said Vasant Kumar Swarnkar, an official with the Archaeological Survey of India, a government body, adding, “The monument is being sanitized three times a day.”

Kamlesh Tiwari, a guide at the Taj Mahal, said that most of those who had visited the monument since it had reopened were local tourists and that the crowds had been relatively modest so far.

“We don’t expect a major rush because foreign tourists are missing,” he said. “We are jobless since last April because there is no tourism.”

VideoMughal emperor Shah Jahan built a mausoleum in memory of his wife, Mumtaz, in Agra, India.CreditCredit…Jeremy Woodhouse/Getty ImagesCredit…Charly Triballeau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The government in Japan said on Thursday that it would relax emergency measures in Tokyo and other areas as the country’s latest coronavirus outbreak recedes, and with the Olympic Games scheduled to begin in just over five weeks.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga made the announcement at a meeting of the government’s coronavirus task force, saying that new infections had declined over the past month and that the strain on the nation’s hospitals had eased.

On Sunday, the state of emergency will be lifted in nine prefectures, but some restrictions will remain in place in Tokyo and in six other areas until at least July 11, the government said. Emergency measures in Okinawa will remain in effect for three more weeks, officials said.

The announcement comes as new daily cases reported in Japan have fallen by 48 percent over the past two weeks, to an average of 1,625 a day, according to a New York Times database. More than 684,000 vaccine doses were administered on Wednesday, twice as many as a month ago, based on government data.

Still, Japan’s vaccination drive remains one of the slowest among richer nations: About 26 million vaccine doses have been administered, with 15 percent of the population having received at least one shot, Times data shows.

Tokyo has been under a state of emergency since late April, the third since the start of the pandemic. Under the rules that go into effect on Monday, alcohol sales will be allowed to resume, but only until 7 p.m., while dining establishments will still be asked to close by 8 p.m.

The chief medical adviser to Japan’s government, Shigeru Omi, said that officials must remain vigilant and “take strong measures without hesitation” if cases begin to rise again.

With the Games set to begin in Tokyo on July 23 — and officials reportedly considering allowing up to 10,000 domestic spectators at some events — experts warn that infections could resurge. But John Coates, a vice president of the International Olympic Committee who is currently visiting Japan and under quarantine, said at a news conference last month that the Games could go on even if another state of emergency were declared.

Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

New York City plans to move about 8,000 homeless people out of hotel rooms and back to barrackslike dorm shelters by the end of July so that the hotels can reopen to the general public, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday.

When the pandemic lockdown began last spring, New York City moved the people out of the shelters, where in some cases as many as 60 adults stayed in a single room, to safeguard them from the coronavirus. Now, with social distancing restrictions lifted and an economic recovery on the line, the city is raring to fill those hotel rooms with tourists.

“It is time to move homeless folks who were in hotels for a temporary period of time back to shelters where they can get the support they need,” Mr. de Blasio said at a morning news conference.

The mayor said the city would need the state’s approval to remove the homeless people from 60 hotels, but a spokesman for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that as long as all shelter residents — even vaccinated ones — wore masks, the state had no objections to the plan.

On Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo announced that the state was lifting nearly all remaining coronavirus restrictions and social distancing measures, after more than 70 percent of the state’s adults had received at least a first dose of a vaccine.

The hotels, many of them in densely populated parts of Manhattan, have been a source of friction with neighbors who have complained of noise, outdoor drug use and other nuisances and dangers from the hotel guests.

Wednesday’s announcement signals the end to a social experiment that many homeless people gave high marks to, saying that having a private hotel room was a vastly better experience than sleeping in a room with up to 20 other adults, many of them battling mental illness or substance abuse or both. Some people said they would sooner live in the street.

“I don’t want to go back — it’s like I’m going backward,” said Andrew Ward, 39, who has been staying at the Williams Hotel in Brownsville, Brooklyn, after nearly two years at a men’s shelter. “It’s not safe to go back there. You’ve got people bringing in knives.”

Credit…Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA, via Shutterstock

On the night of March 26, 2020, as the coronavirus was engulfing Britain and its leaders were struggling to fashion a response, Prime Minister Boris Johnson ridiculed his government’s health secretary, with a profanity, as totally “hopeless,” according to a text message posted by his former chief adviser.

The WhatsApp message, one of several texts shared on Wednesday by Mr. Johnson’s former aide, Dominic Cummings, reignited a debate over how Britain handled the early days of the pandemic — a period when Mr. Cummings said it lurched from one course to another and failed to set up an effective test-and-trace program.

In riveting testimony before Parliament last month, Mr. Cummings pinned much of the blame for the disarray on the health secretary, Matt Hancock, whom he accused of rank incompetence and serial lying. Mr. Hancock denied the accusations before lawmakers last week. He said it was “telling” that Mr. Cummings had not provided evidence to back up his most incendiary claims.

The WhatsApp messages, and an accompanying 7,000-word blog post, are the former aide’s attempt to do so. They depict a government under relentless stress, racing to secure ventilators and protective gear, scale up a testing program, and settle on the right strategy to prevent the nation’s hospitals from collapsing.

In the text exchange with Mr. Johnson on March 26, Mr. Cummings noted that the United States went from testing 2,200 people a day to 100,000 in two weeks. He said Mr. Hancock was “skeptical” about being able to test even 10,000 a day, despite having promised two days earlier to reach that goal within a few days.

The exchange prompted Mr. Johnson’s profane description of Mr. Hancock. Later, Mr. Johnson was severely ill with Covid-19 and hospitalized, forcing his foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to lead in his absence. Mr. Cummings said Mr. Raab did a far better job leading the government’s response to the pandemic, than Mr. Johnson, with whom he helped elect but has since had a bitter falling out.

Credit…Katherine Taylor for The New York Times

The pandemic has put a spotlight on parosmia, a once little-known condition that distorts the senses of smell and taste, spurring research and a host of articles in medical journals.

Membership has swelled in existing support groups, and new ones have sprouted. A fast-growing British-based parosmia group on Facebook has more than 14,000 members. And parosmia-related ventures, including podcasts and smell training kits, are gaining followers.

A key question remains: How long does Covid-19-linked parosmia last? Scientists have no firm answers.

Parosmia is one of several Covid-related problems associated with smell and taste. The partial or complete loss of smell, or anosmia, is often the first symptom of the coronavirus. The loss of taste, or ageusia, can also be a symptom.

In 2020, parosmia became remarkably widespread, frequently affecting Covid-19 patients, who lost their sense of smell and then largely regained it, before a distorted sense of smell and taste began.

Credit…Illustration by Brian Rea

Last fall, as academics and public-health experts in the United States puzzled over how to make all schools safe for full-time, in-person learning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was advising everyone to wear masks and remain six feet apart at all times.

But most schools could not maintain that kind of distance and still accommodate all their students and teachers. The C.D.C’s guidance also left many questions unanswered: How did masks and distancing and other strategies like opening windows fit together? Which were essential? Could some measures be skipped if others were followed faithfully?

The C.D.C. seemed incapable of answering these questions. From the pandemic’s earliest days, the agency had been subject to extreme politicization, and its advisories on mask-wearing, quarantine and ventilation had been confusing, inconsistent and occasionally wrong. While the agency has made clear improvements under the Biden administration and a new director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, its messaging is still deeply muddy and communities across the country — and school districts, especially — are still struggling with next steps.

As the rest of the nation is learning, the former president was not the C.D.C.’s only — or even its biggest — problem.

Tags cases, Covid19, latest, Live, Updates, vaccines, Variants

Health

CureVac’s Covid Vaccine Carried out Badly in Trial, In Half As a result of Variants

Post author By
Post date June 16, 2021

German company CureVac on Wednesday delivered disappointing preliminary results from a clinical trial of its Covid-19 vaccine, tarnishing hopes of meeting the world’s great needs.

The study, which included 40,000 volunteers in Latin America and Europe, estimated that CureVac’s mRNA vaccine was only 47 percent effective, one of the lowest ever reported by any Covid vaccine manufacturer. The study will continue as researchers monitor volunteers for new cases of Covid, with a final analysis expected in two to three weeks.

“We’re going into full swing for the last reading,” said Franz-Werner Haas, CEO of CureVac, in an interview. “We are still planning to submit the permit.”

CureVac plans to first apply to the European Medicines Agency for approval. The European Union reached an agreement last year to purchase 405 million doses of the vaccine if the agency approves it.

However, independent experts said it would be difficult for CureVac to recover. Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, said the vaccine’s effectiveness could improve somewhat by the end of the study. However, since most of the data are already available, the vaccine is unlikely to offer high protection. “It’s not going to change dramatically,” she said.

And with such a low rate of efficacy – far less than the roughly 95 percent of competing mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna – the results aren’t a good sign that CureVac’s vaccines will be adopted.

“It’s pretty devastating for them,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a vaccine supply expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank.

The news was disappointing to experts who had hoped the company could provide vaccines to low- and middle-income countries that don’t have nearly enough. CureVac had several advantages over the other mRNA vaccines, such as the month-long shelf life in the refrigerator. In addition, CureVac’s vaccine uses fewer mRNA molecules per injection compared to its competitors, reducing its cost.

The study results published on Wednesday were based on data from 135 volunteers suffering from Covid. An independent panel compared the number of people who had received a placebo with those who had received the vaccine. Although the vaccine appeared to offer some protection, the statistical difference between the two groups was not great, giving an effectiveness rate of 47 percent.

In comparison, annual flu vaccinations can be 40 to 60 percent effective. Both the World Health Organization and the Food and Drug Administration set a threshold of 50 percent effectiveness for considering Covid vaccines for emergency approval. If CureVac ended up staying at 47 percent, it wouldn’t meet that standard.

The results surprised the scientists. CureVac’s recordings have shown promising results in animal studies and early clinical studies.

“This is a bit of a head scratch,” said Dr. Dean.

Dr. Haas blamed the disappointing results on the high number of virus variants in the countries where the vaccine was tested. Of 124 of the Covid-19 cases that the company’s scientists have genetically sequenced, only one was caused by the original version of the coronavirus.

More than half of the cases were caused by variants that have been shown to be more transmissible or can make vaccines less effective. CureVac volunteers have also been infected by variants that have yet to be carefully investigated. Lambda, which has dominated Peru for the past few weeks, made up 21 percent of the samples.

Dr. Haas said the results should serve as a wake-up call to the threat that new variants can pose to vaccine effectiveness. “It’s a new Covid reality, that’s for sure,” he said.

Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech were tested last year before variants emerged, which could partly explain their much higher rates of effectiveness. However, studies have shown that their effectiveness in practice falls only moderately in view of variants.

Dr. Kirkegaard predicted that it would be challenging for CureVac to compete with others Covid vaccine under development, manufactured by Novavax. Novavax reported Monday that its non-frozen vaccine was 90 percent effective in a study in the United States and Mexico.

“I suspect that it will be difficult for them to really get a significant market for developing countries,” said Dr. Kirkegaard.

Tags badly, Covid, CureVacs, due, part, Performed, trial, Vaccine, Variants

Health

High worldwide well being officers fear about new Covid variants that might be able to evade vaccines

Post author By
Post date June 9, 2021

A medical worker injects a man with a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a hospital in Accra, capital of Ghana, May 19, 2021.

Seth | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

Top health officials in Europe and Africa said Wednesday they are worried about the potential emergence of new Covid variants that could render current vaccines useless.

Dr. John Nkengasong, director of Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said he is “very concerned” about the emergence of a vaccine-resistant variant as the Delta variant first detected in India continues to spread around the world. Studies have shown that current vaccines work against the new variant, although not as well as they do against the original wild type virus.

“It is increasingly concerning that this pandemic will be driven by the cycle of occurrence and reoccurrence of different variants,” Nkengasong said at The Wall Street Journal’s Health Tech conference. “The speed at which these viruses overtake the existing viruses is amazing.”

The Delta variant was first identified by scientists in October has since spread to more than 62 countries, dominating the U.K. and now responsible for more new infections in the country than the Alpha variant — which was first detected in the U.K.

Dr. Sharon Peacock, executive chair of Covid-19 Genomics U.K. Consortium, said the Delta variant is about 40% to 50% more transmissible than the Alpha variant, formerly called B.1.1.7, a strain that emerged from the U.K. last fall and was more contagious than the original virus.

“So, given that level of transmissibility, I would anticipate that (the Delta variant) would’ve actually spread around the world,” she said at the conference. Peacock added the Delta variant is already present in most U.S. states, but the spread is at an early stage.

White House senior medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters yesterday that the U.S. needs to vaccinate more people before the Delta variant takes hold in the country.

The Alpha variant is currently the dominant variant in the U.S., but the Delta variant could soon take over like it did in the U.K. “We cannot let that happen in the United States,” Fauci said yesterday.

“I would be concerned … that this will be something that will be able to out-compete other circulating variants in the way that we’ve observed in the United Kingdom,” Peacock said. She also said that variants are more likely to emerge in partially vaccinated areas. Some states in the U.S. have vaccination rates higher than 70%, while others lag behind at 40%.

Scientists in the U.S. are currently sequencing just 1.6% of new infections, Peacocks said. She and Nkengasong agreed that increased genomic surveillance is an important way to track the spread of new variants before they take hold.

Tags Covid, evade, health, international, Officials, Top, vaccines, Variants, worry

Health

Rise in adolescent Covid hospitalizations is reflection of latest variants, Gottlieb says

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Post date June 5, 2021

Dr. Scott Gottlieb pointed on Friday to the highly transmissible Covid-19 variants as a potential cause behind an increase in adolescents being hospitalized with the virus in March and April.

“It’s concerning, the trends on hospitalizations” among teenagers, said Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration chief during the Trump administration. “I think it’s a reflection of the new, more contagious variants.”

“We are seeing that these variants are more contagious across all age groups, so they’re affecting adults more, but they’re also affecting kids more, so you’re seeing more kids contract symptomatic Covid and more kids get hospitalized, as a consequence of that, particularly B. 117,” Gottlieb told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”

The B. 117 variant is currently the most prevalent strain in the U.S., with 20,915 reported cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the first three months of the year, CDC researchers found that nearly one-third of adolescents hospitalized with Covid required admission into an intensive care unit. Meanwhile, 5% needed invasive mechanical ventilation. To be sure, CDC data shows no teenagers in the U.S. died of Covid in the first quarter of 2021.

CDC director Rochelle Walensky on Friday urged parents to vaccinate their teenagers against Covid, citing more teenagers being hospitalized with Covid.

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.

Tags adolescent, Covid, Gottlieb, hospitalizations, reflection, rise, Variants

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How the USA Beat the Coronavirus Variants, for Now

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Post date May 16, 2021

How the United States Beat the Coronavirus Variants, for Now

On December 29, a National Guard in Colorado became the first known case in the United States of a contagious new variant of the coronavirus.

The news was unsettling. The variant, named B.1.1.7, had upset Britain, began to grow in Europe, and threatened to do the same in the United States. And while scientists didn’t know it yet, other mutants began popping up across the country. These included variants that had ravaged South Africa and Brazil that appeared to bypass the immune system, as well as others that were native to California, Oregon, and New York.

This mixture of variants could not have come at a worse time. The nation was at the beginning of a spate of post-vacation cases that would dwarf any previous waves. And the spread of powerful vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech has been botched by chaos and misunderstandings. Scientists warned that the variants – and especially B.1.1.7 – could lead to a fourth wave and that the already strained health system could give way.

That didn’t happen. B.1.1.7 became the predominant version of the virus in the United States and now accounts for nearly three quarters of all cases. But the surge experts feared they were just a slip-up in most of the country. The nationwide total daily new cases began to decline in April and is now down more than 85 percent from horrific highs in January.

“It’s pretty humble,” said Kristian Andersen, a virologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.

Dr. Andersen and other virus watchers still see variants as a potential source of problems in the coming months – especially one that has ravaged Brazil and is growing rapidly in 17 US states. But they are also taking stock of the past few months to better understand how the nation has evaded the variant threat.

Experts point to a combination of factors – masks, social distancing, and other restrictions, and possibly a seasonal decline in infections – that gave tens of millions of Americans crucial time to vaccinate. They also attribute a good dose of serendipity as B.1.1.7 is powerless against the vaccines unlike some of its competitors.

“I think we were lucky to be honest,” said Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at Yale University. “We are saved by the vaccine.”

After B.1.1.7 appeared at the end of December, new variants with combinations of disruptive mutations came to light. Scientists worried about how competition between the variants might develop.

In January, researchers in California discovered a variant with 10 mutations that was becoming more common there and drifting to other states. Laboratory experiments suggested that the variant of antibody treatment that had worked well against previous forms of the virus could be evaded, and that it was possibly more contagious as well.

In the months that followed, the United States dramatically improved its surveillance for the mutation of the variants. Last week, more than 28,800 virus genomes, nearly 10 percent of all positive test cases, were uploaded to an international online database called GISAID. This clearer picture has allowed scientists to observe how the mutants compete with each other.

The California variant proved a weak competitor, and its numbers fell sharply in February and March. It’s still common in parts of northern California, but it has virtually disappeared from the southern parts of the state and never gained a foothold anywhere else in the country. As of April 24, it made up only 3.2 percent of all virus samples tested in the country, while B.1.1.7 rose to 66 percent.

“B.1.1.7 went to knockout and it’s like ‘Bye bye, California variant’,” said Dr. Andersen.

Across the country, researchers reported in February that a variant called B.1.526 spread quickly in New York and appeared to be a formidable opponent for B.1.1.7. By February, each of these variants was down to about 35 percent of the Dr. Grubaugh’s Connecticut laboratory has grown. But B.1.1.7 has the edge.

Updated

May 16, 2021, 6:13 p.m. ET

In fact, B.1.1.7 seems to have an advantage over almost every variant identified so far. At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that B.1.1.7 accounts for 72 percent of cases in the country.

“We really see how B.1.1.7 decisively pushes out other variants,” said Emma Hodcroft, epidemiologist at the University of Bern.

The variants identified in California and New York were found to be only moderately more contagious than older versions of the virus, and much of their initial success may have been luck. The general boom in cases last fall exacerbated what might otherwise have gone undetected.

It is unclear what gives B.1.1.7 an advantage over the others. “Is it the largest of all the variants? It’s hard to tell right now, ”said Angela Rasmussen, virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Organization. “We need more research to find out what all these combinations of mutations do.” Some of the answers may come from California, where researchers are holding a head-to-head competition in a laboratory and injecting mice with a cocktail of B.1.1.7 and six other variants.

“The idea is to see who will prevail,” said Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist at the University of California at San Francisco, who was the first scientist to discover the California variant.

In Michigan, one of the few states to see an increase in projected cases this spring, B.1.1.7 found a catch in younger people returning to school and engaging in contact sports.

“Because it’s more transmissible, the virus finds behavioral cracks that normally wouldn’t have been as problematic,” said Emily Martin, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan.

But in the rest of the country, of course, people became more cautious when faced with the terrible numbers of the virus after the holidays. B.1.1.7 is thought to be about 60 percent more contagious than previous forms of the virus, but the way it spreads is no different. Most states had at least partial restrictions on indoor eating and introduced mask mandates.

“B.1.1.7 is more transferable but cannot jump through a mask,” said Dr. Hodcroft. “So we can still stop its spread.”

However, other experts are still concerned about how much the virus appears to have defied predictions.

“I can’t necessarily attribute it to behavior,” said Sarah Cobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. Respiratory viruses sometimes go through seasonal cycles, but it’s not clear why the coronavirus cycle would have caused it to go back in the middle of winter. “That might make me even more ignorant,” she said.

It is also puzzling why variants that have beaten other countries have not yet become widespread in the United States. B. 1,351 rapidly dominated South Africa and several other African countries late last year. It was first reported in the US on January 28, but it still only accounts for 1 percent of the cases. This may be because it is not ahead of the rapidly expanding B.1.1.7.

“I think that’s because it doesn’t really have much of a transmission benefit,” said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

P.1, a variant that is devastating Brazil, got off to a sluggish start in the US but is now estimated to account for more than 10 percent of the country’s cases.

“I think it is a matter of time before the P.1 variant becomes one of the most widespread in the US,” warned Dr. André Ricardo Ribas Freitas, a medical epidemiologist at the Faculdade São Leopoldo Mandic in Brazil.

Still, Nels Elde, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Utah, said the events of the past four months had raised questions about whether it was worth fretting over different variations rather than focusing on the behaviors that can limit them all.

“We split the hair between a handful of mutations here and there, we lost perspective,” he said. “It’s catnip for an inquisitive mind.”

The United States also has a plethora of powerful vaccines that make variants an academic problem rather than a concern for the average person. The vaccines may be slightly less effective against the variants identified in South Africa and Brazil, but prevent serious illness in all known variants.

It is not impossible that the situation could get worse. Only about 35 percent of people in the United States are fully immunized, and protection from the vaccines could wear off by winter. Nobody knows how variants that appear in other parts of the world, like one that has grown in importance in India and is circulating at a low level in the US, will behave here. And even more variants will inevitably appear in places where the virus is widespread, warned Dr. Cobey: “There is still a lot to be done.”

Tags beat, coronavirus, states, United, Variants