(NEXSTAR) All the COVID-19 virus particles in the world could fit inside a can of soda, according to a British mathematician, demonstrating how much ruin even tiny particles can wreak on the planet.
Christian Yates, a senior lecturer in mathematical biology at the University of Bath in England, set out to calculate just how many COVID-19 virus particles are circulating in the world for the BBC and described his process in a piece for the Conversation.
Yates calculations led him to estimate that there are 200 million billion virus particles in the world at any given time a huge number, but given that a single COVID-19 particle is roughly 1,000 times thinner than a human hair, the total volume of virus particles in the world is minuscule.
Yates then went on to calculate the volume of a particle, using the equation V=4 r/3, and came to the conclusion that the total volume of all particles is about 160 ml easily small enough to fit inside about six shot glasses or a can of soda.
Its astonishing to think that all the trouble, the disruption, the hardship and the loss of life that has resulted over the last year could constitute just a few mouthfuls of what would undoubtedly be the worst beverage in history, Yates writes.
There are more than 107 million COVID-19 infections around the world, according to Johns Hopkins. More than 2.3 million people have died.
More than 50 Walmarts across the Houston area are scheduling COVID vaccines. Heres how to check for appointments.
HOUSTON Dozens of Walmarts and Sams Clubs in Texas are now scheduling coronavirus vaccinations for Texans in phases 1a and 1b.
You must have an appointment to get the vaccine. No walk-ins accepted.
If youre eligible, heres the step-by-step process.
Houston-area stores with vaccines
Here is a list of Walmart and Sams Club pharmacies administering vaccines in the Greater Houston Area. Being a Sam's Club member is not required to receive the free COVID-19 vaccine.
BAY CITY
BAYTOWN
CROSBY
CYPRESS
11425 BARKER CYPRESS ROAD
FRIENDSWOOD
HOUSTON
9460 W SAM HOUSTON PKWY S
HUMBLE
9235 N SAM HOUSTON PKWY E
KATY
20903 HIGHLAND KNOLLS DRIVE
KINGWOOD
LA PORTE
MISSOURI CITY
PASADENA
RICHMOND
SPRING
24809 ALDINE WESTFIELD ROAD
STAFFORD
SUGAR LAND
TOMBALL
Welcome to the 39th installment of Coronavirus Contextualized, a recurring feature in which we explore some of the numbers swirling around in the time of coronavirus.
Through these stories, we hope to parse the numbers, including confirmed cases of COVID-19, people tested, number of hospitalizations and deaths, and provide some context to them. You can view the prior editions of Coronavirus Contextualized here on our coronavirus page.
These stories serve as a written roundup of the COVID-19 trends we kept our eyes on this week, with all graphs and charts living permanently on our COVID-19 data page, where they are updated multiple times a day with the latest numbers.
Were continuing to take suggestions for what kind of data, graphs and trends you would like to see analyzed in future versions of this story or included in a future update of our data page. Reach out to [emailprotected] with any feedback.
Below, we take a look at the latest COVID-19 trends as the number of new reported cases each day as Gov. Steve Sisolak on Thursday announced a new reopening plan that gradually loosens restrictions over the next two and a half months, at which point local jurisdictions will be responsible for putting in place their own COVID-19 health and safety measures.
Cases and test positivity
The good news continued for Nevadans this week: As of Thursday, an average of 677 cases were reported each day over the last seven days, down from 950 last week.
At the peak of the surge this fall, the seven-day average was 2,736, on Dec. 10. The low point before cases started to increase in mid-September was 267. That means that while cases are significantly down from the peak, theyre still more than double what they were before the surge.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in March, there have been 286,533 COVID-19 cases reported statewide. About a tenth of those cases, 36,039, have been diagnosed in the last month, and a little less than 2 percent, or 4,742 cases, have been reported in the last week.
One in 11 Nevadans has tested positive for the virus since the beginning of the pandemic. Nevada ranks 16th in the nation for COVID-19 cases per capita, the same as last week.
At the same time, Nevadas test positivity rate which looks at the percentage of tests or people coming back positive out of the total tested remains high, though it continues to decrease day over day. As usual, well look at two different methods of calculating test positivity below, using both individual people and a metric known as testing encounters.
Starting with the number of new reported people who tested positive for COVID-19 out of the total number of new reported people tested each day, the states seven-day average test positivity rate was about 22.4 percent as of Thursday, down from a recent high of 45.9 percent on Dec. 13 but still significantly higher than the recent low point before the surge this fall, 9.2 percent on Sept. 17.
One of the drawbacks, however, of looking at test positivity using individual people is that some people are tested repeatedly. Someone who tested negative four times but tested positive on their fifth time would be counted as a new positive person but not a new person tested. (In other words, they would be counted in the numerator but not the denominator.) Thats why the test positivity rates calculated this way look so high.
Another way of looking at test positivity, as we have noted each week, is to examine test encounters, or the number of individual people tested each day. This method of looking at test positivity excludes duplicate samples collected the same day but accounts for people who are tested repeatedly on different days.
It is not possible to independently calculate the test positivity rate based on test encounters because the state only reports the number of positive cases, not the number of positive test encounters. However, the state does provide this number, calculated as an average over a 14-day period with a seven-day lag. As of Wednesday, that number was 14.3 percent, down from a high of 21.7 percent on Jan. 13. In September, before cases started to increase, the test positivity rate was 6.1 percent.
Whichever calculation you use to look at test positivity, the trends are generally the same. Test positivity had been increasing fairly steadily from September through mid-January and is now decreasing.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, about 1.4 million people about one in 2.3 Nevadans have been tested for COVID-19, and there have been nearly 2.6 million individual testing encounters.
Vaccinations
Since vaccinations started in December, 379,077 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Nevada, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That includes 299,502 first doses and 77,555 second doses.
(Gov. Steve Sisolak, during a press conference Thursday afternoon, provided slightly more up-to-date, though rounded, figures from the states data: 307,000 first doses administered and 82,000 second doses, totaling more than 390,000 doses.)
That means that just a little bit less than 10 percent of Nevadans have been either fully or partially vaccinated. In total, Nevada has been distributed 533,800 doses of the vaccine by the federal government.
According to the CDC, Nevada is receiving the third fewest number of doses per capita from the federal government of any state up from second last week at 17,330 per 100,000 residents. State officials continue to seek clarity from the federal government about why the state is receiving fewer doses on a per population basis than other states.
Nevada has administered the 10th fewest doses per capita of any state though Nevada ranks 19th for most doses administered as a percentage of doses received, at 71.0 percent, down from 11th last week.
For more on these numbers, check out this explainer published by The Nevada Independent last week.
Among the counties, Mineral County has administered the most doses per capita, at 30,855 vaccines administered per 100,000 residents, followed by White Pine at 26,868 and Eureka at 19,271. Clark County ranks ninth at 11,142, while Washoe ranks fifth at 15,998.
For more on the vaccination process in the state, read our vaccine Q&A here.
Deaths
Nevada is still seeing a high number of new deaths reported each day, though the numbers are down from the peak in January.
As of Thursday, 30 deaths were being reported on average each day over the last seven days, down from a high of 44.9 on Jan. 14. Over the last seven days, 210 new COVID-19 deaths have been reported across the state, including:
In the last month, 1,138 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported statewide, a quarter of the 4,640 total COVID-19 deaths reported statewide since the beginning of the pandemic.
Pershing County has the number of deaths per capita in Nevada, with 28 deaths per 10,000 residents, followed by Carson City and Churchill County, each at 20, and Nye County at 19.
Nevada ranks 21st in the nation for deaths per capita, the same as last week.
Hospitalizations
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Nevada continue to decrease, though they continue to remain at high levels.
There were 879 people hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Wednesday, the last day for which data is available, down from 1,121 last week. The record, 2,025 hospitalizations, was set on Dec. 13. The low point in September was 417.
Nevada now has the sixth highest number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 per capita at 29.9 per 100,000, behind New York, Arizona, Georgia, Texas and New Jersey.
Nevada hospitals are currently staffing 7,044 beds, more than the 6,660 they are normally licensed to operate, to keep up with the demand. As of Wednesday, 75 percent of staffed hospital beds and 66 percent of ICU beds were occupied. Those numbers were 79 percent and 72 percent, respectively, in Southern Nevada and 70 percent and 53 percent in Northern Nevada.
County by county
Ten of the states 17 counties are considered at elevated risk for the spread of COVID-19 according to state criteria as of Thursday. Those counties not considered at risk are Storey, Churchill, Humboldt, Lander, Eureka, White Pine and Lincoln.
Counties are considered at risk for elevated spread of COVID-19 if they meet two of the following three metrics:
Mineral County continues to have the highest case rate in the state at 1,579 cases per 100,000 residents in the last 30 days. Clark County comes in second at 1,068 and Pershing County comes in third at 704.
In recent weeks, scientists have sounded the alarm about new variants of the coronavirus that carry a handful of tiny mutations, some of which seem to make vaccines less effective.
But it is not just these small genetic changes that are raising concerns. The novel coronavirus has a propensity to mix large chunks of its genome when it makes copies of itself. Unlike small mutations, which are like typos in the sequence, a phenomenon called recombination resembles a major copy-and-paste error in which the second half of a sentence is completely overwritten with a slightly different version.
A flurry of new studies suggests that recombination may allow the virus to shapeshift in dangerous ways. But in the long term, this biological machinery may offer a silver lining, helping researchers find drugs to stop the virus in its tracks.
Theres no question that recombination is happening, said Nels Elde, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Utah. And in fact, its probably a bit underappreciated and could be at play even in the emergence of some of the new variants of concern.
The coronavirus mutations that most people have heard about, such as those in the B.1.351 variant first detected in South Africa, are changes in a single letter of the viruss long genetic sequence, or RNA. Because the virus has a robust system for proofreading its RNA code, these small mutations are relatively rare.
Recombination, in contrast, is rife in coronaviruses.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center led by virologist Mark Denison recently studied how things go awry during replication in three coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid. The team found that all three viruses showed extensive recombination when replicating separately in the laboratory.
Scientists worry that recombination might allow for different variants of the coronavirus to combine into more dangerous versions inside of a persons body. The B.1.1.7 variant first detected in Britain, for example, had more than a dozen mutations that seemed to appear suddenly.
Dr. Elde said that recombination may have merged mutations from different variants that arose spontaneously within the same person over time or that co-infected someone simultaneously. For now, he said, that idea is speculative: Its really hard to see these invisible scars from a recombination event. And although getting infected with two variants at once is possible, its thought to be rare.
Katrina Lythgoe, an evolutionary epidemiologist at the Oxford Big Data Institute in Britain, is skeptical that co-infection happens often. But the new variants of concern have taught us that rare events can still have a big impact, she added.
Recombination might also allow two different coronaviruses from the same taxonomic group to swap some of their genes. To examine that risk more closely, Dr. Elde and his colleagues compared the genetic sequences of many different coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 and some of its distant relatives known to infect pigs and cattle.
Using specially developed software, the scientists highlighted the places where those viruses sequences aligned and matched and where they didnt. The software suggested that over the past couple of centuries of the viruses evolution, many of the recombination events involved segments that made the spike protein, which helps the virus enter human cells. Thats troubling, the scientists said, because it could be a route through which one virus essentially equips another to infect people.
Through this recombination, a virus that cant infect people could recombine with a virus like SARS-CoV-2 and take the sequence for spike, and could become able to infect people, said Stephen Goldstein, an evolutionary virologist who worked on the study.
Feb. 12, 2021, 12:20 p.m. ET
The findings, which were posted online on Thursday but have not yet been published in a scientific journal, offered fresh evidence that related coronaviruses are quite promiscuous in terms of recombining with each other. There were also many sequences that cropped up in the coronaviruses that seemed to come out of nowhere.
In some cases, it almost looks like theres sequence dropping in from outer space, from coronaviruses we dont even know about yet, Dr. Elde said. The recombination of coronaviruses across totally different groups has not been closely studied, in part because such experiments would potentially have to undergo government review in the United States because of safety risks.
Feng Gao, a virologist at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China, said that although the new software from the Utah researchers found unusual sequences in coronaviruses, that doesnt provide ironclad evidence for recombination. It could simply be that they evolved that way on their own.
Diversity, no matter how much, does not mean recombination, Dr. Gao said. It can well be caused by huge diversification during viral evolution.
Scientists have limited knowledge about whether recombination could give rise to new pandemic coronaviruses, said Vincent Munster, a viral ecologist with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who has studied coronaviruses for years.
Still, that evidence is growing. In a study released in July and formally published today, Dr. Munster and his collaborators suggested that recombination is likely how both SARS-CoV-2 and the virus behind the original SARS outbreak in 2003 both ended up with a version of the spike protein that allows them to deftly enter human cells. That spike protein binds to a particular entry point in human cells called ACE2. That paper calls for greater surveillance of coronaviruses to see if there are others that use ACE2 and may thus pose similar threats to people.
Some scientists are studying recombination machinery not only to fend off the next pandemic, but to help fight this one.
For example, in his recent study on the recombination of three coronaviruses, Dr. Denison of Vanderbilt found that blocking an enzyme known as nsp14-ExoN in a mouse coronavirus caused recombination events to plummet. This suggested that the enzyme is vital to coronaviruses ability to mix-and-match their RNA as they replicate.
Now, Dr. Denison and Sandra Weller, a virologist at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, are investigating whether this insight could treat people with Covid.
Certain antiviral drugs such as remdesivir fight infections by serving as RNA decoys that gum up the viral replication process. But these medications dont work as well as some had hoped for coronaviruses. One theory is that the nsp14-ExoN enzyme chucks out the errors caused by these drugs, thereby rescuing the virus.
Dr. Denison and Dr. Weller, among others, are looking for drugs that would block the activity of nsp14-ExoN, allowing remdesivir and other antivirals to work more effectively. Dr. Weller likens this approach to the cocktail therapies for H.I.V., which combine molecules that act on different aspects of the viruss replication. We need combination therapy for coronaviruses, she said.
Dr. Weller notes that nsp14-ExoN is shared across coronaviruses, so a drug that successfully suppresses it could act against more than just SARS-CoV-2. She and Dr. Denison are still at the early stages of drug discovery, testing different molecules in cells.
Other scientists see potential in this approach, not only to make drugs like remdesivir work better, but to prevent the virus from fixing any of its replication mistakes.
I think its a good idea, Dr. Goldstein said, because you would push the virus into whats known as error catastrophe basically that it would mutate so much that its lethal for the virus.
During a Thursday press conference, Gov. Greg Abbott said that more announcements are likely coming soon about relaxing COVID-19 restrictions in Texas as cases and hospitalizations continue to drop.
Abbott spoke at a roundtable discussion in Dallas with small business owners about the states role in supporting small businesses during the pandemic. As more Texans continue to get vaccinated and COVID-19 hospitalizations trend downward, Abbott said, he plans to lift statewide restrictions if trends continue.
We know there are businesses that need to get back to work. There are employees that have bills to pay. There are jobs that must be opened, Abbott said. I was visiting with the people around the table today to expect that things economically will be picking up very rapidly.
On Thursday, 8,933 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas the first time the number has dropped below 9,000 since December, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. The state also reported 9,936 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,332 new probable cases.
We want to make sure that the numbers do continue along the same trend, Abbott said. And if they do continue on the same trend, we are already evaluating ways that we can begin to lift restrictions.
While average new COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases are trending downward, the numbers are higher than when Abbott initially announced restrictions on businesses.
Under an October order from Abbott, bars are allowed to reopen at 50% capacity and businesses like movie theaters can operate at 75% capacity. However, if the percentage of COVID-19 patients exceeds 15% of hospital capacity in a region for a week, restaurant occupancy must be reduced to 50% and bars must be shut down. On Oct. 14, the day the order took effect, the state reported 4,131 hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
An Abbott spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about which restrictions would be lifted if trends continue or what threshold would prompt reopenings.
As of Tuesday, 3.5 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in Texas, and 3.1% of Texas population is fully vaccinated.
When Abbott initially closed bars and restaurants on March 19, there were 161 confirmed coronavirus cases and three reported deaths in the state. He allowed businesses to reopen in a limited capacity in April, but later closed bars and scaled restaurant capacity down in late June after the state reported 5,102 hospitalizations, which was a record at the time, and 5,707 daily confirmed cases.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) A new report says the coronavirus has taken its toll on Wisconsins transportation fund, the states primary source for road and infrastructure projects. The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum reported the top two revenue sources for the fund, fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees, fell short of projections by more than $116 million in fiscal year 2020. Travel plans changed last year for many Wisconsinites who opted to stay at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. A federal package passed in December could provide relief for the fund. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimates the package will provide Wisconsin with about $188 million in transportation funding.
Posted: Feb 11, 2021 / 08:14 PM CST / Updated: Feb 11, 2021 / 08:14 PM CST
Floridas total cases: 1,806,805, 8,525 case increaseFlorida Residents: 1,774,013, 8,354 case increaseResident Hospitalizations: 75,454, 292 case increaseFlorida Resident Deaths: 28,382, 174 case increaseNon-Resident Deaths: 489, 6 case increase
Total confirmed cases globally: 107,749,090, 569,750 case increaseTotal deaths globally: 2,366,158, 17,281 case increaseTotal recovered globally: 60,257,869
Total confirmed cases in the U.S.: 27,389,196, 139,610 case increaseTotal deaths in the U.S.: 475,221, 5,021 case increase
To find the most up-to-date information and guidance on COVID-19, please visit the Department of Healths dedicatedCOVID-19 webpage. For information and advisories from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), please visit theCDC COVID-19 website.
For any other questions related to COVID-19 in Florida, please contact the Departments dedicated COVID-19 Call Center by calling1-866-779-6121.The Call Center is available 24 hours per day.Inquiries may also beemailed toCOVID-19@flhealth.gov.
Ohio reopens salad bars, buffets, drink stations
Ohio Department of Health Director Stephanie McCloud signed an amendment to a health order that will allow restaurants, bars and grocery stores to reopen self-serve food and drink stations, so long as they follow certain rules. These include customers wearing masks and employees serving and customer not able to do so.
The number of new coronavirus cases reported by Ohio schools has finally dropped statewide and in the Dayton area, after staying mostly flat through the month of January. New school-reported cases statewide was 14% lower during the first week of February than it was in the week prior. In the Dayton area, the drop was 27% percent compared to the week before.
Even ifyouhavethe circulation of a variant in a country, there is no reason that we see for now,not to use the AstraZeneca vaccine as indicated, to be able to reduce the levels of severe disease in that population,saidDr AlejandroCravioto, Chair of theStrategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE).
The development follows therecentrelease of data from a study in South Africa indicatingthat theAstraZeneca jab providedlittleprotection againstavariant of the new coronavirusamong older people.
At a press conference in Geneva,SAGEExecutive Secretary,Dr JoachimHombach,described thatstudy asrelativelymodest, whileDrCraviotoadded thatfew over 65shad takenpartin it.
Dr Kate OBrien,WHOshead of immunization,said thatthe South African studysfindings were inconclusive, albeit demonstrating a low efficacyagainst mild and moderate disease.
Most important was theabsence ofevidence from that trial over whether the AZ product hasefficacy against severe disease, hospitalisation and death,she said,and that is the outcome of most interest andmost impact for early roll-out of vaccines.
From researchintothe new coronaviruss response to vaccines in trials so far, Dr OBrien explainedthatthe highestimpacthad beenamongthe mostpoorlypatients.
For all of the vaccines there is a gradient of response,she said. The highest response is against the most severe disease and somewhatlower efficacy for moderate and then further down for milder diseasethis is not unique to coronavirus vaccine.
The vaccine should beadministeredin two dosesto people over18 yearsoldwithout any upper age limit,DrCraviotosaid,addingthatthebest interval between the first and second doses waseight to 12 weeks,to ensureanincreasedimmune response.
Although the vaccine is safe,the SAGE Chair said thatowing to a lack of available data,it was notyetpossible to make a recommendation aboutwhether the vaccine should be given toallpregnantor breastfeedingwomen.
That decision should be taken on an individual basis by a general practitioner, he added.
And because of a lack of available vaccinesand the need to continue limiting the potentialfor the virus tospread,Dr.Craviotoadvisedthat international travellers shouldnot be given thejab.
Urging countries to use the AstraZeneca vaccine particularly those for whom it would be their sole protection against the virus -WHO Chief Scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, insisted thatthere was no time to lose.
The vast majority of countries that are still waiting to introducea vaccine - and this vaccine may be the first one - certainly the benefits will far outweigh the risks.
DrSwaminathanalso issued a call forgreatergenomicmonitoring ofCOVID-19 transmissionin initiatives including theAfricaPathogenGenomics Initiative.
In manyothercountriesthe situation may be that with very limited sequencing theyve been able to detect this variant, but they dont know the spread.And therefore,theyre very cautious in making decisions based on very limited data.
To date, there have beenthere have been 106,555,206 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,333,446 deaths, reported to WHO.
In a related development, the heads of the WHO and UN Childrens Fund UNICEF on Wednesday made an urgent appeal for vaccine solidarity.
TedrosAdhanom Ghebreyesus and Henrietta Forecalled on leaders to look beyond their borders and employ a vaccine strategy that can actually end the pandemic and limit variants.
Of the 128million dosesadministered so far, more than three quarters of vaccinations have been in just 10 of the wealthiest nations, they said.
This is a self-defeating strategy that will cost lives and livelihoods, the UN officials said, before warning that it would also give the virus the chance to mutate and evade vaccines, while also undermining economic recovery.
So that vaccine rollouts can begin in all countries of the world in the first 100 days of 2021, the WHO and UNICEF chiefs said it was imperative that health workers who have been on the frontlines of the pandemic in lower and middleincome settings should be protected first.
They also called for the COVID response initiative known as Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT) to be fully funded, to help developing countries to deploy vaccines.
If fully funded, the ACT Accelerator could return up to $166 for every dollar invested, the UN officials maintained.
The WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) has issued interim recommendations for use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine (AZD1222).
This article provides a summary of the interim recommendations; you may access the guidance document here.
While vaccine supplies are limited, it is recommended that priority be given to health workers at high risk of exposure and older people, including those aged 65 or older.
Countries can refer to the WHO Prioritization Roadmap and the WHO Values Framework as guidance for their prioritization of target groups.
Vaccination is recommended for persons with comorbidities that have been identified as increasing the risk of severe COVID-19, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and diabetes.
Although further studies are required for persons living with HIV or auto-immune conditions or who are immunocompromised, people in this category who are part of a group recommended for vaccination may be vaccinated after receiving information and counselling.
Vaccination can be offered to people who have had COVID-19 in the past. But individuals may wish to defer their own COVID-19 vaccination for up to six months from the time of SARS-CoV-2 infection, to allow others who may need the vaccine more urgently to go first.
Vaccination can be offered to breastfeeding women if they are part of a group prioritized for vaccination. WHO does not recommend discontinuation of breastfeeding after vaccination.
While pregnancy puts women at higher risk of severe COVID-19, very little data are available to assess vaccine safety in pregnancy.
Pregnant women may receive the vaccine if the benefit of vaccinating a pregnant woman outweighs the potential vaccine risks.
For this reason, pregnant women at high risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 (e.g. health workers) or who have comorbidities which add to their risk of severe disease, may be vaccinated in consultation with their health care provider.
People with a history of severe allergic reaction to any component of the vaccine should not take it.
The vaccine is not recommended for persons younger than 18 years of age pending the results of further studies.
The recommended dosage is two doses given intramuscularly (0.5ml each) with an interval of 8 to 12 weeks.
Additional research is needed to understand longer-term potential protection after a single dose.
While this vaccine has yet to be recommended for an Emergency Use Listing by WHO, it has undergone review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and consequently meets WHOs criteria for SAGE consideration.
The EMA has thoroughly assessed the data on the quality, safety and efficacy of the vaccine and has recommended granting a conditional marketing authorisation for people aged 18 and above.
The Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety, a group of experts that provides independent and authoritative guidance to the WHO on the topic of safe vaccine use, receives and assesses reports of suspected safety events of potentially international impact.
The AZD1222 vaccine against COVID-19 has an efficacy of 63.09% against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Longer dose intervals within the 8 to 12 weeks range are associated with greater vaccine efficacy.
SAGE has reviewed all available data on the performance of the vaccine in the settings of variants of concern. SAGE currently recommends the use of AZD1222 vaccine according to the WHO Prioritization Roadmap, even if virus variants are present in a country. Countries should assess the risks and benefits taking into consideration their epidemiological situation.
Preliminary findings highlight the urgent need for a coordinated approach for surveillance and evaluation of variants and their potential impact on vaccine effectiveness. As new data become available, WHO will update recommendations accordingly.
No substantive data are available related to impact of AZD1222 on transmission or viral shedding.
In the meantime, we must maintain and strengthen public health measures that work: masking, physical distancing, handwashing, respiratory and cough hygiene, avoiding crowds, and ensuring good ventilation.
