6.55pm EDT 18:55
US NFL player Cole Beasley leaned into the sharp backlash from statements he has made critical of the coronavirus vaccine on Friday, disclosing that he is not vaccinated and pledging to live my one life like I want to regardless.
I will be outside doing what I do, he wrote in a statement posted to social media.
Ill be out in the public. If your (sic) scared of me then steer clear, or get vaccinated. Point. Blank. Period. I may die of covid, but Id rather die actually living.
6.26pm EDT 18:26
Almost two-thirds of workers in England seeking grants to help them self-isolate are being refused help, sparking warnings from trade unions that a key policy to limit Covid-19 is failing in the face of rising infections.
Councils are continuing to refuse more than six out of 10 applications despite the government increasing funding for the vital anti-Covid system in March to 20m a month, freedom of information requests by the Trades Union Congress found.
6.07pm EDT 18:07
Workers in the UK must be given a right to do their jobs from home, Labour has demanded as it piled pressure on the UKs government not to let its consultation on flexible working be kicked into the long grass.
In the first major announcement made by Angela Rayner since gaining the portfolio of shadow cabinet minister for the future of work, she said employers should not be able to dictate terms to staff when the guidance urging people to work from home is expected to be lifted next month.
A right to disconnect, meaning workers would have a reasonable expectation of not having to work or check calls and emails outside their normal hours, is also being supported by Labour, to ensure homes do not become round-the-clock offices.
The announcement comes as attention turns to how to hold on to some of the positive benefits experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic, which for some have included home working saving time and money on commuting and being able to spend longer with their families.
5.12pm EDT 17:12
Brazil had 98,832 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours and 2,495 deaths, the health ministry said on Friday, Reuters reports.
The South American country has now registered 17,801,462 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 498,499, according to ministry data.
4.54pm EDT 16:54
Canada extending a ban on non-essential travel with the US and the rest of the world until July 21 has triggered frustration from businesses and US legislators. The inability of the U.S. and Canadian governments to reach an agreement on alleviating border restrictions ... is simply unacceptable, said U.S. Representatives Brian Higgins and Bill Huizenga, co-chairs of the Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Group.
Harley Finkelstein, president of Canadian e-commerce company Shopify Inc, tweeted the extended border closure was the wrong decision.
We need to open the border for fully vaccinated travellers immediately, Reuters reports.
4.35pm EDT 16:35
US president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris have urged Americans to get Covid-19 vaccines on Friday, as the country looks likely to miss the White Houses goals for vaccination next month. At the current pace, the US seems unlikely to hit Bidens goal of 70 percent of adults receiving at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by July 4, the Independence Day holiday. As of Friday, around 65.1 percent of people had gotten at least one jab and that mark has increased by less than one percentage point over the past two weeks, Reuters reports.
3.46pm EDT 15:46
Ugandas president Yowreri Museveni has introduced sweeping new anti-coronavirus measures including a ban on all vehicular movement except for essential workers to help curb a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reports. The country has seen a more aggressive and sustained growth of the Covid-19 pandemic, Museveni said. He said the daily number of people testing positive has jumped to over 1,700 from less than 100 just three weeks ago. We are experiencing very high hospitalization rates and deaths for COVID-19 patients among all age categories. In new measures to curb the pandemic, he banned movement of both public and private vehicles except those transporting patients and those used by essential workers like health workers. An existing curfew that began at 9 p.m. was brought forward to 7 p.m. while venues like busy shopping centers, churches and sports arenas were closed. The new restrictions will last 42 days, Museveni said. To date, Uganda has registered a total of 68,778 Covid-19 cases and 542 deaths.
Updated at 5.35pm EDT
3.33pm EDT 15:33
Bolivia striker Marcelo Martins has been banned for one game and fined $20,000 by the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) after criticising the organisation for hosting the Copa America in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic.
Martins was one of three Bolivia players who tested positive for COVID-19 on the eve of their 3-1 opening loss to Paraguay, Reuters reports.
He missed the game and posted some sharp words on social media about CONMEBOL*s last-minute decision to host the tournament in Brazil, a nation that has seen almost 500,000 people die from the virus.
Thanks for this CONMEBOL, Martins wrote on Instagram. All the blame is totally yours. If someone died what are you going to do??? The only thing that*s important to you is MONEY. Is a player*s life worth nothing?
He took down the comments and apologised but CONMEBOL banned the 34-year old from Bolivias next game against Chile on Friday.
Since Martins made the comments two more Bolivia players have tested positive for Covid-19.
Brazils health ministry said 27 players and officials have tested positive for coronavirus so far.
Updated at 3.46pm EDT
3.13pm EDT 15:13
German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron have urged caution in allowing fans to crowd Euro 2020 stadiums while the coronavirus pandemic still posts major risks, AFP reports.
We cant act as if corona were over despite dropping infection rates in much of Europe, Merkel told reporters when asked about plans for the upcoming matches.
You can see based on the example of Lisbon how quickly things can change, referring to a recent resurgence of Covid-19 cases in the Portuguese capital.
She noted that fully vaccinated people were still in the minority in most European countries which is why caution is still necessary.
Merkel said that applied in particular to big events.
In Munich for example you had 14,000 fans (for the Germany-France match on Tuesday) under strict hygiene rules, she said.
But when I see fully packed stadiums in other European countries, I am a little sceptical whether that is the right thing in the current situation.
Updated at 3.18pm EDT
2.59pm EDT 14:59
Prime minister Mario Draghi has urged Italians to get fully vaccinated against coronavirus, acknowledging that a government decision to ban AstraZeneca doses for people aged over 60 had created confusion.
The government unexpectedly restricted the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week following the death of a teenager who had developed blood clots after receiving a first dose, Reuters reports.
Italys medicine agency AIFA said on Monday that those aged under 60 who had received a first dose of AstraZeneca could be given a different vaccine when they got their second dose.
However, officials have said the vaccination campaign saw a drop off in numbers over the past week, with many people apparently worried about mixing shots.
Draghi said he himself would be getting a different type of vaccine next week after tests showed that he had developed few antibodies after receiving an initial AstraZeneca shot in March.
2.44pm EDT 14:44
Face masks will mostly no longer be required across the Netherlands and other restrictions will ease from next week, after a drop in Covid-19 cases, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. Most limits on group sizes will also be lifted from June 26, as long as people can keep at least 1.5 metres (5 ft) apart, he told a news conference. Reuters reports. No new limits will be set on the number of guests allowed in stores, bars and restaurants, Rutte said, as long as they keep their distance, or show that they have been vaccinated or have a negative test. People will still need to wear masks on public transport and in airports, where distancing is not possible.
2.29pm EDT 14:29
The Palestinian Authority (PA) cancelled a deal on Friday to receive soon-to-expire Covid-19 vaccines from Israel after an initial Israeli shipment showed an expiration date sooner than had been agreed, the PA health minister said.
Israel and the PA announced a vaccine swap deal earlier on Friday that would have seen Israel send up to 1.4 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses to the PA, in exchange for receiving a reciprocal number of doses from the PA later this year, Reuters reports.
The doses were due to expire soon, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennetts office said in a statement announcing the deal. The PA said they had been approved in order to speed up the vaccination process in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
They told us the expiration date was in July or August, which would allow lots of time for use, PA Health Minister Mai Alkaila said.
But (the expiration) turned out to be in June. Thats not enough time to use them, so we rejected them, she said.
The PA cancelled the deal over the date issue, a PA spokesman said, and sent the initial shipment of around 90,000 doses back to Israel.
The global tally for the coronavirus-borne illness headed above 177.4 million on Friday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, while deaths climbed above 3.8 million. The U.S. continues to lead the world in total cases at 33.5 million, while deaths total 600,934. The number of fully vaccinated Americans rose to 147.8 million, or 44.5% of the total population, up from 44% on Thursday, according to the latest data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the number of U.S. adults receiving at least one dose increasing to 65%. The U.S. is devoting $3.2 billion to speed development of antiviral pills to treat COVID-19 and other dangerous viruses that could turn into pandemics, the Associated Press reported.The new program will invest in "accelerating things that are already in progress" for COVID-19 but also would work to come up with treatments for other viruses, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert. He announced the investment Thursday at a White House briefing.On a global basis, India is second in total cases at 29.8 million and third by fatalities at 383,490, although those numbers are expected to be undercounted given a shortage of tests. Brazil has the third-highest caseload at 17.7 million, according to JHU data, and is second in deaths at 496,004. Mexico has fourth-highest death toll at 230,792 and 2.5 million cases. The U.K. has 128,209 fatalities and 4.6 million cases, the highest number of deaths in Europe and fifth-highest in the world.
In the United States, there is a growing feeling that we are reaching the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than 50 percent of all Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
States such as New York, where vaccination rates have reached 70 percent, have now lifted virtually all their pandemic restrictions. Likewise, in California.
But worldwide, the picture is quite different.
There have already been more COVID-19 deaths in 2021 than in all of 2020. And many countries, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, have less than 5 percent of their populations fully vaccinated.
That could spell trouble for containing COVID-19 and putting the pandemic in the rearview mirror.
The reality is as long as it is raging elsewhere, COVID-19 is still a threat to people in the U.S., said Elizabeth Beatriz, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Bureau of Community Health and Prevention as well as public health and COVID-19 adviser at Parenting Pod.
The most obvious reason is that not all people in the U.S. have been vaccinated, and some of the unvaccinated people are not able to be vaccinated because of preexisting medical conditions, Beatriz told Healthline. As people travel in and out of these areas, the virus can spread rapidly, particularly among unvaccinated people and/or people who are not taking protective measures.
In other words, even in places with high vaccination rates, COVID-19 could still pose a threat, and in areas of low vaccination within the United States, that risk is even more so.
The other issue, experts say, is the potential for dangerous and contagious COVID-19 variants to emerge while the novel coronavirus is spreading unchecked in much of the world.
As long as COVID-19 is circulating in any country, it has the opportunity to mutate into a variant that is more transmissible, causes more severe disease, fails to respond to treatment, evades immune response, or fails to be diagnosed by standard tests, Aimee Ferraro, PhD, MPH, a faculty member for Walden Universitys PhD in Public Health and Master of Public Health program in Minnesota, told Healthline. Brazil, India, South Africa, and the United Kingdom have experienced higher rates of infection, hospitalization, and mortality due to more virulent and deadly variants of COVID-19.
And while India or Brazil might seem far away, without strict lockdowns, theyre closer than you think.
With global travel and commerce what it is today, the virus truly has few, if any, geographical boundaries, said Dr. Jonathan Leizman, the chief medical officer at Premise Health. Ultimately, COVID-19 is a global pandemic, and we need to overcome it globally in order to truly move forward.
Mass global vaccination provides a potential way out of this scenario, but it will require a concerted effort to produce and distribute vaccines to places where theyre needed most.
Fewer than 20 countries have more than 30 percent of their populations fully vaccinated, with the vast majority of countries having a small percentage of their populations vaccinated, Beatriz noted.
Ferraro notes that countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Russia, Canada, Australia, and China produced and used most of the early batches of vaccines.
In addition, many low- and middle-income countries were blocked out of buying the most effective vaccines, such as Pfizer and Moderna, and ended up making deals for unapproved vaccines with lower than 50 percent efficacy, she said. That means less than half of the vaccinated population in these countries are protected against COVID-19. Once low- and middle-income countries receive enough vaccines, the biggest hurdle is poor public health infrastructure that significantly slows distribution, especially to the most rural parts of each country.
Beatriz agreed.
Vaccine access has been very inequitable worldwide and we are currently feeling and will continue to feel the repercussions of that lack of vaccine access in many parts of the world, she said.
Some countries are taking steps to combat this. The Biden administration recently announced that it would buy and donate a half-billion doses of Pfizers COVID-19 vaccine as part of a global effort to contain the pandemic.
Morally speaking, we should all care about the continued loss of human life due to COVID-19, Ferraro said. Its a miracle that an effective vaccine was developed so quickly. Its a tragedy that vaccines are sitting unused because of vaccine hesitancy and refusal in high-income countries while people are dying as they desperately wait for vaccines to arrive in middle- and low-income countries.
The UK has reported 10,321 new coronavirus cases and 14 more deaths, according to official daily figures.
Cases have now been above 10,000 for three consecutive days.
Today's figures compare with 10,476 infections and 11 deaths yesterday, and 7,738 cases and 12 deaths last Saturday.
Another 218,636 people also had a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine and 188,858 had a second dose.
It means 42,679,268 (81% of adults) have had a first jab, while 31,087,325 (59%) are fully vaccinated.
Total UK deaths since the start of the pandemic - within 28 days of a positive test - stand at 127,970.
Latest average daily deaths are 10.6 and have remained flat over the past few months - much lower than the winter peak in mid-January when the figure was more than 1,200.
Meanwhile, there are 1,316 people in hospital with COVID-19, according to latest figures from 17 June.
Hospitalisations have increased as the more transmissible Delta variant has established dominance in the UK.
At the start of June the figure was 928, but health officials say patients are now much younger than previous waves and that most are unvaccinated.
It comes as ministers are considering allowing fully vaccinated people to avoid self-isolation and instead take daily tests.
Experts say the government may allow them to avoid the 10 days' isolation even if they've had contact with an infected person.
With all over-18s now able to book a vaccine, large "pop-up" clinics have opened in London at Chelsea Football Club, West Ham United's ground - the former Olympic Stadium - as well as at Tottenham and Charlton's stadiums.
Chelsea said it had 6,000 Pfizer vaccines to administer on Saturday.
Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, tweeted: "This is an incredible effort by the whole London team.
"Happening across the City at Spurs, Arsenal, Charlton and West Ham too. Come on London let's get vaccinated!"
Novavax says its vaccine is 100% effective against the original strain of the coronavirus and had 93% efficacy against more worrisome variants. Alastair Grant/AP hide caption
Novavax says its vaccine is 100% effective against the original strain of the coronavirus and had 93% efficacy against more worrisome variants.
The first results from a large efficacy study of a new kind of COVID-19 vaccine are now out, and they are good. Very good.
According to Novavax, the vaccine's manufacturer, it had a 100% efficacy against the original strain of the coronavirus and 93% efficacy against more worrisome variants that have subsequently appeared.
In addition to efficacy, the PREVENT-19 (the PRE-fusion protein subunit Vaccine Efficacy Novavax Trial COVID-19) trial showed the Novavax vaccine was safe for users. Like other COVID-19 vaccines, it caused headaches, chills and muscle aches after injection, but few of these side effects were considered serious or severe.
The study involved 29,960 volunteers in the United States and Mexico. In the study, two-thirds of the volunteers received two shots of the vaccine and one-third received two shots of a placebo.
A total of 77 cases of COVID-19 occurred during the study: 63 in the placebo group and 14 in the vaccine group. According to the Novavax statement describing the results, none of the cases of COVID-19 in the vaccine group were related to the original strain of the virus, hence the 100% efficacy against the original strain.
The breakthrough cases were all caused by the newer, more worrisome variants, and all of the breakthroughs in the vaccine group were mild. By contrast, 10 in the placebo group were considered moderate and four severe. Novavax's statement did not specify which variants in particular were prevented.
The company says it intends to file for authorization from regulators in the U.S., Europe and the United Kingdom later this summer. Novavax says it will be able to deliver 100 million doses per month by the end of September and 150 million doses per month by the end of the year.
The Novavax vaccine is what's known as a protein subunit vaccine. All COVID-19 vaccines are based on something called the coronavirus spike protein. That's the protein that prompts the immune system to make antibodies to the virus.
The vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech deliver the genetic instructions for the spike protein in the form of messenger-RNA, and the cells of the person receiving the vaccine make the spike protein. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine delivers those instructions using a viral vector, again relying on the vaccine recipient's cells to make the protein.
Novavax, on the other hand, makes the protein in cell cultures grown in giant bioreactors in manufacturing facilities and delivers the fully formed vaccine along with a substance for priming the immune system in its vaccine.
The Novavax vaccine was one of the vaccines chosen for development as part of Operation Warp Speed. The U.S. government is providing $1.75 billion to the company to support the vaccine's development.
It's not clear at this point whether the Food and Drug Administration is prepared to continue to grant emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines. The FDA may require Novavax to go through the standard licensure process, which can take considerably longer than an EUA.
As coronavirus vaccination rates rise and the United States opens up after a lengthy pandemic, one of the emerging flashpoints involves elite sports.
The questions sports teams and leagues are facing are the same types of questions that are puzzling businesses, schools, shops and restaurants as the United States continues to open back up. But with world class athletes young, healthy and, in some cases vaccinated should the rules be different or more relaxed?
In recent weeks, at least two prominent athletes playing in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus and were required, by league rules, to quarantine despite being involved in major events. Their vaccination status also became subject to debate.
In the National Basketball Association, Phoenix Suns star Chris Paul tested positive, sidelining him during the late stages of the playoffs. Paul has not discussed his vaccination status, but ESPN analyst Jalen Rose has reported that Paul has been vaccinated.
And Jon Rahm of the Professional Golfers Association was forced to withdraw from the Memorial Tournament, which he was easily leading, with just one round left. Rahm has said he was vaccinated, but not quite out of the two-week period after the final shot that marks full vaccination.
Rahm experienced no coronavirus symptoms, and only knew he tested positive because of PGA Tour rules that require testing for players not considered fully vaccinated.
"To all the people criticizing the PGA Tour, they shouldn't," Rahm said. "We are in a pandemic, and even though this virus has very different forms of attacking people, you never know what reaction you're going to get. So PGA Tour did what they had to do ... I've heard a lot of different theories: I should have played alone, I shouldn't have that's nonsense. The rules are there, and it's clear."
Meanwhile, outside the United States, the coronavirus has spread among players at the Copa America soccer tournament in Brazil. In addition, officials are grappling with how to control the virus at the Olympics in Japan in July, since infections passed among participants could spark infection "brush fires" in their home countries once they return after the Games are over.
Here, well take a closer look at the challenges that elite sports are trying to navigate at this point in the pandemic.
If youre an athlete who is vaccinated, what are the risks from the coronavirus?
Scientists say that for fully vaccinated people, the risk of COVID-19 is significantly reduced, but not zero.
"All the vaccines produce several levels of immunity a few antibodies that can block infection lead the way, followed by a range of antibodies and white blood cells that are very good at mopping up infections," said Benjamin Neuman, a virologist at Texas A&M University. "Those front-line, infection-blocking antibodies are trying to hit a very small and difficult target, and sometimes miss. So not every vaccinated person starts with the same protection."
However, even if a virus gets through and causes infection in a vaccinated person, "nearly everyone who has a normally functioning immune system will make enough other defenses to prevent serious illness," Neuman said. "And new research shows that if a vaccinated person does become infected, the virus stimulates whatever anti-COVID immunity a person already has, to make even higher amounts of protective immunity."
Athletes, given their younger ages and general state of health, should fare even better than the average in a "breakthrough infection" scenario, said Babak Javid, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco.
"Severe outcomes in this population, once they are immunized, should be vanishingly rare, Javid said. "High-quality data from the United Kingdom suggests that severe COVID-19 in fully immunized individuals is very rare, and even then, it is mostly confined to the elderly."
Should athletes get vaccinated?
Unless theres some known health reason not to, experts said they would strongly urge athletes, as well as almost anyone else, to get vaccinated.
"If anyone is going unvaccinated by choice into competitions where there will be close contact with other potentially unvaccinated people, that is a really bad idea," Neuman said. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes."
There may be some variation in risk depending on the type of sport being played, Neuman said. Basketball features lengthy, close-up, person-to-person action, while golf doesnt (and, in theory, could be made even more socially distanced through changes to the timing of play on the course).
Some experts go so far as to suggest that at least for competitions within the United States, where vaccines are widely available for free vaccinated athletes shouldnt be punished for testing positive just to protect opponents who have chosen not to be vaccinated.
"If someone has been vaccinated with the extraordinarily safe and effective vaccines available in the U.S., their risk of getting seriously sick is almost non-existent, said Rebecca Wurtz, the director of public health administration and policy at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. "So we dont need to protect someone who is vaccinated by testing them or the people around them."
To Wurtz, "it is unfair to disqualify someone from attending, playing, or participating if they have been vaccinated even if they are shedding virus according to a positive test."
How many precautions can safely be rolled back?
Some experts say that testing in elite sports may not be necessary any more.
"The CDC does not recommend asymptomatic testing after vaccination, since the chance for false positives or a low-level virus in the nose that cant transmit or cause infection is high," said Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco. "Unfortunately, many sports teams have still not adopted updated CDC guidance on testing protocols after vaccination and are seeing these test results of positivity that may lead to a player being out or a team not being able to play for concern of a positive test."
However, other experts urged caution before phasing out testing, at least for now.
"People lie about their vaccination status," said Arthur Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. "Some of them just got one shot, and one shot of a two-shot vaccine is not likely to work well against new variants."
Caplan, who has advised the National Collegiate Athletic Association on coronavirus control practices, said the second-best course if mandatory vaccinations for athletes is impossible is to insist on public transparency.
"I dont like it when someones waffling or saying its none of your business," Caplan said. "Vaccination status isnt personal in the middle of a pandemic. It may be for getting a shingles vaccine, because that doesnt affect other people. But in a full-blown pandemic thats already killed 600,000 Americans, you want to be transparent, not to mention that you want athletes to be role models."
Caplan said that for now, its also wise to continue basic infection controls such as hand-washing and mask-wearing when coming into contact with the general public.
"We have to realize that the threat of the virus is not just to the athlete its also (to) the support people, transportation workers and others," Caplan said.
Should athletes be required to be vaccinated?
In an ideal world, experts said, mandatory vaccination would be desirable. "Any policy short of requiring vaccination is going to be much less effective than blanket vaccination," Neuman said.
Theres also an imperative for the team owners and leagues: They have a lot of equity invested in the health of their players.
"If I were a team owner, I would protect my investment by requiring everyone to be vaccinated," Wurtz said.
In the real world, however, its not so easy.
Federal law does allow companies to require employees to provide confirmation of vaccination, although some states have enacted laws that prevent this.
However, in the sports world, players typically belong to labor unions, so requirements on vaccination would likely need to be negotiated. (Paul, as it happens, is president of the NBA Players Association.)
"Its important for a team owner to have a conversation with their players to get it right," Caplan said. "Its such a hot-wired issue."
Ultimately, given the misconceptions about vaccine safety that are currently floating around, its important to establish two-way communications between players and management, Caplan said.
Caplan said that in his research, hes found that vaccine hesitancy falls into several categories, each of which needs to be addressed on its own terms. Some female athletes are worried about the vaccines effect on fertility, he said, while other athletes are concerned about the long-term effects. Still others think they dont need a vaccine if theyve already become sick from the virus.
Through direct dialoguing, health professionals can address each of these concerns effectively, Caplan said.
"You want to address peoples fears," he said. "You want to see it linked to an education campaign. Mandates work better when people are willing to go along."
While we may be looking forward to the end of thecoronavirus crisis, health experts warn there may be more pandemics ahead of us.
Within the last 20 years alone, we've"dodged five bullets" withSARS, MERS, Ebola, avian influenza and swine flu.
But despite the knowledge gained from those experiences, we were still largely unprepared for thecoronavirus crisis. And the speed of its spread highlightsthe dangers posed by a hyper globalised world in a pandemic.
With more signs that things are ramping up, senior health officials from the World Health Organization warned last year thatalthough the coronavirus pandemic has been "very severe,"it is "not necessarily the big one".
While many years ago, a disease might have emerged in one area of the world and then have "died out before it spread anywhere else having global trade and travel means that the disease finds new human hosts really quickly," says Victoria Brookes, a senior lecturer in population health at Charles Sturt University.
AP:Emilio Morenatti
Globalisation has also caused profound changes in the conditions that help shape infectious diseases, particularly those that originate in wildlife.
As our population increases, cities are encroaching further and further on wildlife habitats, disrupting living patternsand causing stress to animals.
As ecosystems are destroyed, animals are broughtintocloser contact with humans due to environmental degradation and deforestation, becoming a key driver of "spillover events".
These incidents occur when a virus mutates enough times to allow it to jump to another species and requires close contact between the host species and the species it's moving into. It is believed a spillover event is what sparked the coronavirus pandemic.
"One of the strongest drivers for the emergence of new diseases is the increased interaction between humans and animals,"Hassan Vally fromLa Trobe University'sDepartment of Public Health said, pointing to urbanisation, environmental degradation and deforestation as bringing animals in closer contact with humans.
"Climate change is another driver for the emergence of new diseases.
"These drivers combined with the fact that if a pathogen with pandemic potential does emerge, it can spread quickly due the highly mobile nature of people in the modern world, further exacerbates the risk these diseases pose."
It is estimated that more than 60 per cent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonoses.It's why researchers are particularly focused on the crossover between humans and wildlife.
"The populations that we expect to see these arising fromaremore likely to be species that live in large colonies, thattravel long distances," Dr Brookes said.
"They mix with other populations of the samespecies and also, because they fly, they have contact with lots of other species, [as well as] people."
Zoonosesare caused by the transmission of pathogens such as viruses, parasites, bacteria or fungi either by direct contact or indirect contact between animals and people. This can be through the environment with the help of vectors or carriers.
Reuters:Ueslei Marcelino
It's believed there are just over 250 known zoonotic virusesviruses that have previously spilled over from animals to humans and caused disease in people.
But while these viruses are of ongoing concern, it isthe yet to be identified viruses that "pose an equal if not more serious threat to humanitystudy" according the authors behind a research paper on ranking the risk of animal-to-human spillover for newly discovered viruses.
The WHO has even given this unknown threatits own classification:Disease X, and listed it alongside Ebola and SARS as a top priority for research.
We have no idea what it is or what it can do. But scientists argue without adequate surveillance and preparedness we are doomed to wait for Disease X to emerge.
Before COVID-19, there was the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-1) in 2003, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2013, and the Ebola virus disease in 2014.
Reuters: Zohra Bensemra
There have also been other, smaller outbreaks that havedemonstrated the risk that exists at the "interfaces" between human activity and wildlife. One example is Nipah virus disease which has been listed as one of the World Health Organization's top-10 priority diseases.
Dr Brookes said this was first observed in large numbers of pigs on farms in Malaysia.
"There were also bats living in that region as well. And then they plantedfruit trees around the pig farm and so thatencouraged bats to that pig farm inadvertently," she said.
While the bats were already carrying the virus, it wasn't causing the disease in them, so thefirst signs of the disease were actually identifiedin the pigs.
"And then that virus evolved in the pigs because there were many pigs sowhich gave the virusopportunityto multiply and from there it infected humans," she said.
Scientists have zeroed in on areas withhigh livestock density, wildlife encroachment and high human population density as posing ahigher risk of a crossover happening.
Dr Brookes says that's whySouth-East Asia has become an area of focus, "because it ticks those boxes".
But diseases can emerge anywhere.Mosquitoes in North America, camels in Africa, pigs in Europe and monkeys in South Americaalso have been identified as having potential pandemic pathogens.
Poultry too carries risks due to its linkto Influenza A viruses, according to Joerg Henning, an associate professor in veterinary epidemiology at the University of Queensland.
Denis Balibouse, file photo: Reuters
There have also been emerging infectious diseases closer to home in Australia. A 2013 review found at least 20 human diseases associated with disturbed natural environments in Australia alone between 1973 and 2010, including Hendra virus, West Nile virus and Australian bat lyssavirus.
"Australia has had an unusual number of emerging infectious diseases as well," Dr Brookes said.
"I think it might just be down to the fact that we have relatively good surveillance here."
Recent studies have suggested that infectious diseases are emerging a lot more quickly than before, with a reportpublished in 2005 finding that they were appearingin humans every eight months.
AP: Matilde Campodonico
"There is no doubt that there will be other pandemics ahead of us and, in fact, as far as most epidemiologists are concerned, this one was long predicted," Dr Vally said.
Just how devastating the next pandemic will be, however, remains unclear. It will depend on several factors, includingthe infectiousness and the severity of whatever disease is behind it.
"What we do know is that both the drivers for the emergence of new pathogens with pandemic potential are strong and getting stronger," Dr Vally said.
"And we also know that the characteristics of our modern world facilitate the rapid spread of these pathogens when they emerge."
Dr Henningalso said that outbreaks of animal-to-human transmissions have become "more frequent in the last decades", but added "the pandemic is multiplied by the absence of reliable early warning systems and weak public health systems".
The experiences of 2020 and 2021 have taught us ishow the world can better future-proof against other pandemics.
For example, thepandemic has exposed, in wealthy countries as well as poor, "gaps in disease surveillance and disease control,"Dr Vally said.
AP: Emilio Morenatti
Even now, more than a year later, many countries are still grappling with how to control the spread of the coronavirus, particularly in light of new variants.
Dr Brookes said that "as long as countries have massive spread events, we will keep seeing waves of infection".
This is why there's been such a focus on vaccinating populations such as Australia and other middle- to high-income countries.
But Dr Brookes has also raised an issue with this strategy: "We should actually be really thinking about low- to middle-income countries where they don't have the opportunity to quarantine and control the virus like high-income countries do. Vaccination of people in these countries is critical to prevent emergence of new variants."
To be prepared for possible future pandemics, Dr Vally says it is necessary to not only have systems in place ready to kick into action but also to work together across the globe to bring disease threats under control.
"The one shining light during the pandemic is the advances in vaccine development that have occurred and that will not only impact on our ability to combat future pandemics but should also have a significant impact on other diseases in future," he said.
Pupils attend a class as schools reopen after lockdown due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak at Tved School in Svendborg, on the island of Funen, Denmark February 8, 2021. Ritzau Scanpix/Tim Kildeborg Jensen via REUTERS /File Photo
COPENHAGEN, June 17 (Reuters) - Denmark will offer COVID-19 vaccines for children aged 12-15 after the adult population has been inoculated to boost its overall immunity against the virus ahead of the winter, health authorities said on Thursday.
Initially, Denmark will only offer Pfizer-BioNTech's (PFE.N), (22UAy.DE) COVID-19 vaccine for 12-15 year-olds, as it is the only vaccine approved by the EU's drug regulator for use in adolescents, the Danish Health Authority said in a statement. [nL2N2NF1IP]
The EU regulator expects to announce a decision on the use of Moderna's (MRNA.O) shot in adolescents sometime next month. read more
"An expansion of the target group to the 12-15-year-olds is necessary to ensure even greater immunity in the population, and thus ensure control of the epidemic in Denmark," the head of the Danish Health Authority, Soren Brostrom, said.
Vaccination of adolescents would begin after the last adults have been fully vaccinated in mid-September, Brostrom told a press briefing.
"We need the immunity of the population, especially before a winter season," he said.
In an optimal scenario, Brostrom estimated around 75% of Denmark's population will be immune against the virus after all adults have been inoculated. Vaccinating the adolescents would add another 4% to that number, he said.
Danish health authorities would continually review new data on the vaccine's safety, Brostrom said, and would keep a special eye on data from the United States, where he said over 3 million adolescents had already received a jab with the vaccine. read more
Denmark made waves when it announced in April and May it would cease to administer vaccines developed by AstraZeneca (AZN.L) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) to adults over a potential link to a rare but serious form of blood clot.
The Nordic country's government has since asked health authorities to reconsider the exclusion of those vaccines since new data on their effects and side-effects has been reported. read more
Almost half of Denmark's population have received a first vaccine shot while more than a quarter are completely inoculated.
Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard;Editing by Alison Williams
Reuters Breakingviews is the world's leading source of agenda-setting financial insight. As the Reuters brand for financial commentary, we dissect the big business and economic stories as they break around the world every day. A global team of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and other major cities provides expert analysis in real time.
Sign up for a free trial of our full service at https://www.breakingviews.com/trial and follow us on Twitter @Breakingviews and at www.breakingviews.com. All opinions expressed are those of the authors.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of June 17, 2021, there have been 2,960,825 total confirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 163,382 total cases and 2,863 deaths.
DHHR has confirmed the deaths of a 56-year old male from Barbour County and a 68-year old female from Raleigh County.
Each life lost to this disease is a tragedy, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. We send our thoughts and sympathies to the families and encourage all West Virginians ages 12 and older to schedule a COVID-19 vaccine.
CASES PER COUNTY: Barbour (1,513), Berkeley (12,802), Boone (2,172), Braxton (1,001), Brooke (2,246), Cabell (8,864), Calhoun (381), Clay (542), Doddridge (638), Fayette (3,544), Gilmer (881), Grant (1,307), Greenbrier (2,883), Hampshire (1,920), Hancock (2,839), Hardy (1,568), Harrison (6,147), Jackson (2,226), Jefferson (4,777), Kanawha (15,459), Lewis (1,279), Lincoln (1,592), Logan (3,274), Marion (4,627), Marshall (3,536), Mason (2,048), McDowell (1,612), Mercer (5,124), Mineral (2,971), Mingo (2,732), Monongalia (9,391), Monroe (1,207), Morgan (1,223), Nicholas (1,892), Ohio (4,303), Pendleton (724), Pleasants (958), Pocahontas (681), Preston (2,954), Putnam (5,316), Raleigh (7,062), Randolph (2,842), Ritchie (756), Roane (659), Summers (861), Taylor (1,272), Tucker (546), Tyler (740), Upshur (1,959), Wayne (3,181), Webster (543), Wetzel (1,385), Wirt (456), Wood (7,925), Wyoming (2,041).
Free pop-up COVID-19 testing is available today in Barbour, Berkeley, Calhoun, Hampshire, Jefferson, Lincoln, Mingo, and Morgan counties.
Barbour County
9:00 AM 11:00 AM, Barbour County Health Department, 109 Wabash Avenue, Philippi, WV
3:00 PM 7:00 PM, Junior Volunteer Fire Department, 331 Row Avenue, Junior, WV
Berkeley County
10:00 AM 5:00 PM, 891 Auto Parts Place, Martinsburg, WV
10:00 AM 5:00 PM, Ambrose Park, 25404 Mall Drive, Martinsburg, WV
Calhoun County
10:00 AM 4:00 PM, Calhoun Middle/High School, 50 Underwood Circle, Mt. Zion, WV
Hampshire County
10:00 AM 5:00 PM, Hampshire County Health Department, 16189 Northwestern Turnpike, Augusta, WV
Jefferson County
10:00 AM 6:00 PM, Hollywood Casino, 750 Hollywood Drive, Charles Town, WV
12:00 PM 5:00 PM, Shepherd University Wellness Center Parking Lot, 164 University Drive, Shepherdstown, WV
Lincoln County
Mingo County
10:00 AM 2:00 PM, Delbarton Fire Department, County Highway 65/12, Delbarton, WV
Morgan County
11:00 AM 4:00 PM, Valley Health War Memorial Hospital, 1 Health Way, Berkeley Springs, WV
Regenerons antibodies were studied in a clinical trial in outpatients in Arizona in 2020. Now, the Recoverystudy has found the therapy reduces mortality in some hospitalized patients with severe disease.
By Kai KupferschmidtJun. 16, 2021 , 1:00 AM
Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation.
The worlds largest trial of COVID-19 therapeutics has for the first time produced convincing evidence that a therapy that directly attacks the virus can save hospitalized patients from death. A combination of antibodies called casirivimab and imdevimab, produced by Regeneron, did not lower mortality when all patients in the study were taken together, investigators of the United Kingdoms Recovery trial announced todaybut it reduced deaths by one-fifth among those who did not produce antibodies themselves. A paper with the results will be made available on the medRxiv preprint server later today, the researchers say.
Here you have really the first direct SARS-CoV-2 drug, says Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. Two drugs previously shown to reduce mortality from COVID-19 were developed for other diseases and work by dampening an overactive immune response, which is kind of an indirect strategy, Topol says.
But Regenerons antibodies, which attach to the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein and prevent the virus from entering cells, are expensive and not widely available, and quickly identifying patients that benefit from it may be a challenge.
Researchers have developed several monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, with mixed results. Some, including Regenerons, have shown some positive effects on disease progression in outpatients, but none was demonstrated to save the lives of severely ill patients in the hospital. The Recovery trial started to evaluate Regenerons cocktail in mid-September 2020. By late May, 9785 patients had been randomly allocated to receive either the usual care in the United Kingdom or the usual care plus a one-time infusion of the two antibodies, a procedure that takes roughly 1 hour.
About one-third of the patients were seronegative when they entered the trial, meaning they did not produce antibodies themselves. That includes people with underlying health conditions that weaken their immune system, but also people who, for unclear reasons, are unable to produce antibodies early on. In this group, 30% of patients given standard care died, versus 24% of those who received the antibody cocktail. That translates to six lives saved for every 100 such patients treated with the drug.
The Regeneron cocktail received a lot of attention when former U.S. President Donald Trump received it during his bout with COVID-19 in October 2020. Although its not clear whether Trumps immune system produced antibodies, the new results suggest the treatment may have helped save his life, Topol says: Who knows what might have happened at his age, with his morbid obesity and all the other risk factors that he had.
Although itreceived an emergency use authorizationfrom the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in November 2020and theU.S. government bought 1.5 million doses Regenerons therapy has not been widely used in the United States, Topol says. This is just sitting on shelves, he says. I think [the Recovery trial] is going to wake people up as to the benefit.
But doctors will have to determine which patients fail to produce antibodies. I think this isnt a complicated test to run, it just needs to be done, says Martin Landray of the University of Oxford, one of Recoverys principal investigators.
A bigger challenge may be cost. We anticipate, but we dont know this, that they may be around 1000 or 2000 per treatment, Recovery co-investigator Peter Horby said at a press conference on Tuesday. That might put the therapy and many similar ones in the pipeline out of reach for most people living in developing countries, which also have far fewer COVID-19 vaccine doses than rich countries. Access to antibody drugs in general has been particularly unequal across the globe, says Lindsay Keir, a pediatrician who co-authoreda Wellcome Trust report on global access to such treatmentsreleased last year. Antibodies that we have benefited from in high-income countries for 20, 30 years, still arent available in many countries, Keir says.
The inequity is a scandal, Horby says. There really must be an initiative to make these drugs accessible, and that requires two things: They have to be available, which means we have to scale up manufacturing, and they have to be affordable, which means we have to reduce the prices.
