If a student tests positive, like I said, a provider would reach out to them and talk to them about their history, could they identify someone theyve been in close contact with, are they having any symptoms, said Wesner-Harts. If we have to, we could do a confirmatory PCR test, but its going to depend on their own history.
AUSTIN (KXAN) Dr. Valentina Hoyos Velez didnt realize she was an artist until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Hoyos Velez, a breast oncologist and assistant professor at the Baylor College of Medicine, typically treats cancer patients and is a researcher who focuses on immunotherapies in her laboratory.
I always thought we need to get better treatments, treatments that dont have so much toxicities, that are better tolerated, and that actually can cure cancer, Hoyos Velez said. The more I learned about it, the more I, in my opinion, thought that immunotherapy is the way of the future for that.
Trying to simplify explanations about immunotherapies to patients, paired with spending more time at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hoyos Velez tried to get creative with cartoons.
I realized that many people were refusing to get the vaccine because they didnt really understand how it worked, and there was a lot of misconceptions about it that I found online, and my patients would ask me things that really just made no sense, Hoyos Velez said. So I said, Well, maybe Ill just put a pause on the explaining cancer for now and just focus on explaining the vaccines to patients.'
She recorded explanations to go along with her illustrations and launched a YouTube channel, called Immune Cartoons, where she uploaded videos in English and Spanish explaining how COVID-19 vaccines work.
What I tried to do is to get the information in an easy way so that people can go towards the right the correct information, Hoyos Velez said.
Its our responsibility the scientists, the doctors, the people that know that all these things that people are saying are not accurate to ourselves put the right information out there, she said.
Other medical professionals are catching on to her efforts.
I stumbled upon the video with the cartoon, said Delores Vandegrift, a pediatric nurse practitioner in Edison, New Jersey. The pictures with the illustrations, its very easy to understand. I found it to be very useful.
Not everybody understands medical terminology, Vandegrift said. We talk in medical terms, and the average person that is especially not in health care or in medicine, they dont know what those big words mean, and what happens? They get more afraid of it.
Vandegrift has forwarded the videos to some of her patients, one of which said it helped influence their decision to get vaccinated when eligible.
Thats encouraging, according to state officials involved in the pandemic response.
Anything we can do to simplify the messages about COVID-19, and the the serious effects that it has on individuals, and then what we can all do, to protect ourselves and protect our loved ones, I think is a great thing to do, Seth Christensen, chief of media and communications for the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said.
TDEM is involved in coordinating shipments of personal protective equipment and hospital supplies, as well as medical personnel. The agency also works alongside local, state and federal partners to organize aspects of COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
Simplifying that message, not speaking like were coming out of a scientific textbook, I think is something that Ive tried to do so that everyone has the ability to understand the negative effects of the disease, and the positive effects of what we can do to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, said Christensen, who had not seen the cartoons.
Perhaps most surprising for Hoyos Velez was the popularity of her Spanish videos.
The Spanish version took off a lot more than the English one, which I was surprised about, Hoyos Velez said, noting that friends in other countries have talked about adding other foreign subtitles.
Ashley Miznazi contributed to this report.
(Reuters) - The United States reported a 25% drop in new cases of COVID-19 to about 825,000 last week, the biggest fall since the pandemic started, although health officials said they were worried new variants of the virus could slow or reverse this progress.
New cases of the virus have now fallen for four weeks in a row to the lowest level since early November, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports. The steepest drop was in California, where cases in the week ended Feb. 7 fell 48%. Only Oregon, Puerto Rico, Arkansas and Vermont saw cases rise. (Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser to see a state-by-state graphic.)
At least three new variants of the novel coronavirus are circulating in the United States, including the UK variant B.1.1.7 that is 30% to 40% more contagious, according to researchers.
Im asking everyone to please keep your guard up, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday. The continued proliferation of variants remains a great concern and is a threat that could reverse the recent positive trends we are seeing.
The average number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals fell by 15% to 88,000 last week, also a record percentage drop, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the volunteer-run COVID Tracking Project. It was the lowest average number in hospitals since late November.
Death fell 2.5% last week to 22,193. Excluding a backlog of deaths reported by Indiana, fatalities were down 9.5% last week. Deaths are a lagging indicator and usually fall several weeks after cases and hospitalizations drop.
Cumulatively, nearly 464,000 people have died from the virus in the United States, or one in every 704 residents.
Nationally, 7.3% of tests of tests came back positive for the virus, down from 8.5% the prior week, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
Graphic: GRAPHIC-COVID-19 global tracker: here
Graphic by Chris Canipe, writing by Lisa Shumaker, editing by Tiffany Wu
FILE PHOTO: Health workers administer a COVID-19 vaccine at a drive-thru vaccination centre at Batchwood Hall, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in St Albans, Britain, February 5, 2021. REUTERS/Paul Childs
LONDON (Reuters) - A COVID-19 booster in the autumn and then annual vaccinations are very probable, Britains vaccine deployment minister said on Sunday as countries race to administer injections in the face of new variants.
Britain has already injected over 12 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines and is on track to meet a target to vaccinate everyone in the top most vulnerable groups by mid-February.
Among coronavirus variants currently most concerning for scientists and public health experts are the so-called British, South African and Brazilian variants, which appear to spread more swiftly than others.
We see very much probably an annual or a booster in the autumn and then an annual (vaccination), in the way we do with flu vaccinations where you look at what variant of virus is spreading around the world, Nadhim Zahawi told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show.
AstraZeneca said on Saturday its vaccine developed with the University of Oxford appeared to offer only limited protection against mild disease caused by the South African variant of COVID-19, based on early data from a trial.
Britain reported on Sunday a further 15,845 cases and 373 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to official figures.
The success of the UKs vaccine rollout, however, is spurring debate about how soon the government can ease broader lockdown restrictions, amid plans to reopen schools in England in March.
As some nations consider a vaccine passport to enable the easing of travel measures, Zahawi said Britain would not introduce such a system but people could seek proof from their doctor if needed.
Thats not how we do things in the UK. We do them by consent, he said. We yet dont know what the impact of vaccines on transmission is and it would be discriminatory.
Reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Susan Fenton
When Drew Weissman and Katalin Karik got their COVID-19 vaccine jabs before Christmas at the University of Pennsylvania, the cameras were rolling.
Three decades of persistence and painstaking research into mRNA vaccine science had paid off.
They'd proved the sceptics and naysayers wrong. What started out as a wild idea was suddenly a world-changing, lifesaving technology.
"We were incredibly excited when we saw the results of the Phase 3 trial that our vaccine worked, it was safe, and had 95 percent efficacy," Professor Weissman says.
The COVID-19 vaccines developed at unprecedented speed by Pfizer and Moderna use technology licensed from the University of Pennsylvania team.
Professor Karik is now also a senior vice-president of BioNTech, the German company behind the Pfizer vaccine.
But Professor Weissman isn't resting on his laurels.
"My family always yells at me because I'm not excited enough, and they're right," he says.
"I'm already moved on to the next thing, the next vaccine, the next gene therapy."
The promise of mRNA vaccines and therapeutics for other diseases could be explosive.
"We have five clinical trials set up ready to do, and they've been delayed [by] the coronavirus," Professor Weissman says.
"We've probably made 30 different vaccines against different pathogens.
"Influenza, HIV, malaria, norovirus a whole bunch.
"In just about every animal model, we had 100 percent efficacy. The vaccine is incredibly potent, and it gives very strong protective responses."
But Australia is at risk of missing out on the full fruits of mRNA vaccine technology due to lack of investment and foresight.
The Federal Government plans to start distributing COVID-19 vaccines at the end of the month, initially prioritising high-risk groups.
It leapt out of the gate early in the pandemic to secure doses of Pfizer's mRNA vaccine, the first to be approved by our drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
Last week, an additional 10 million doses were procured, taking the total to 20 million.
Tell us a bit about yourself and we'll tell you where you are in the queue for the COVID-19 jab.
But to meet ongoing demand, Australia is backing a different horse with local manufacturing.
Australian biotech giant CSL is only licensed to make the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, a DNA-based vaccine which doesn't need to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius, unlike mRNA vaccines.
It's proved effective against COVID-19 in clinical trials, but less so than the mRNA vaccines 62 per cent to 90 per cent effective (depending on dosing) versus Moderna and Pfizer's 94 per cent and 95 per cent respectively.
However, CSL has not announced any plans to make mRNA vaccines in the future.
"Part of it is commercial decision-making," says Colin Pouton, professor of pharmaceutical biology at Monash University.
"Obviously they've already agreed and are making deals with AstraZeneca's vaccine, and that's going to be a big effort for them."
But there are mounting calls for Australia to manufacture mRNA vaccines as a matter of vaccine security and savvy investment.
"It's just the sort of high-tech industry that Australia is well suited to get into," Professor Pouton says.
"We have a very good scientific base, very good technical experience and we have the sort of infrastructure already which fits well with this sort of technology."
Importantly, it might also help pave a faster path out of this pandemic.
Like the rest of the world, we are wholly reliant on just two pharmaceutical companies, with operations in the US and Europe, to meet demand.
"We are at their mercy. And that that's not an ideal situation," says Archa Fox, an RNA biologist at the University of Western Australia.
Battles over shortfalls have already erupted, with the European Union introducing export controls to shore up its own supplies.
In late October, Federal Minister for Industry, Science, and Technology Karen Andrews said CSL (which makes our seasonal flu jabs) could make protein-based vaccines relatively quickly.
Determining the facilities needed to manufacture mRNA vaccines would "take significantly longer to do, but the work is underway," she said.
"I would hope that we would be able to do it in about the nine-month to 12-month time frame."
Professor Pouton believes it could happen quicker.
"I don't actually agree with that assessment," he says.
"Australia is very capable of making an mRNA vaccine we can utilise facilities that we already have."
Ms Andrews said an audit identified "some companies in Australia with mRNA production capability.
"We are currently working with them to explore if that capability could be scaled up into the future," she said.
How mRNA vaccines went from a wild idea to a reality
But the Government is yet to confirm any details on funding, logistics or a timeline for action.
Its Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) statement in December mentioned funding to "develop a business case to inform future investments in onshore mRNA platform-based vaccine manufacturing capability and capacity".
Again, no dollars were attached, citing "commercial sensitivities".
"Producing mRNA vaccines at scale is a brand new challenge the entire world is grappling with and will take time to develop," Ms Andrews said.
Professor Pouton says scaling up production is feasible because of the low amounts of mRNA required by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines 30 micrograms and 100 micrograms per dose, respectively.
"30 micrograms means that if you make 30 grams [of mRNA], you have a million doses," he says.
Professor Pouton's team are working on two mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 in collaboration with the Doherty Institute in Melbourne.
"Interestingly, it's not actually that difficult," he says.
"Making the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is actually much more challenging from a pharmaceutical point of view."
Until COVID-19, mRNA vaccines had never been tested in large-scale clinical trials before or approved for use in humans.
"It's the new kid on the block with vaccine technology," Dr Fox says.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted just how effective these vaccines were.
"Sometimes it is hard to break through with a new technology. But this really has proved the naysayers wrong."
mRNA, or messenger RNA vaccines, borrow a mechanism that all of your cells use to make all the proteins in your body. It helps translate the message in your DNA's genetic code into proteins.
mRNA vaccines work by injecting a particular molecule of mRNA into your cells that makes the spike protein found on the surface of the SARS-CoV2 virus.
This trains your immune system to "remember" the virus spike and make antibodies against it, so that if it ever meets the real virus, it ready to pounce and mount an immune response.
"Instead of using the old-fashioned vaccines where they use a deactivated virus or sometimes even an attenuated virus, with all the other complexities that involves, here you're using a very clean presentation of a single protein," Professor Pouton says.
A few main steps are involved in making mRNA vaccines. Simply put, they include:
"Once the RNA is made, the vaccine is essentially done," vaccine inventor Professor Weissman says.
Professor Pouton believes most of this can already done by Australian scientists and facilities.
"Not necessarily in one location, but [with] a bit of teamwork and cooperation, it can be done," he says.
"The step that they're less familiar with is taking the DNA code and producing mRNA from it.
"But it's actually a very simple thing to do once you've got the ingredients. A one pot, if you like, a test tube process.
"It doesn't require a human or mammalian cells or anything like that, it's just mechanics involved here. It's not something that requires a massive plant."
Legal agreements over licensing the technology take time to negotiate, however.
"We're not alone in having this inability to have the sovereign manufacturing of RNA vaccines," Dr Fox says.
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed his country had negotiated with Moderna and Pfizer to enable local production in French labs.
The Thai Government has also made headway.
"I've been working with Thailand for years on making RNA vaccines for diseases that were Thailand-specific," Professor Weissman says.
"[They] made the really correct decision that if the [COVID-19] vaccine was made in the West, it would be years before Thailand, the rest of South-East Asia, Africa and other [developing] countries would ever get access."
The Thai Government will fund a manufacturing facility to help supply vaccines to their own population and surrounding low-moderate-income countries.
"To them, it was obvious that RNA was the way to go," Professor Weissman says.
But what will convince Australian companies to put their oar in something so new?
"They see it as a risk will this investment that they make be useful to them in the future?" Professor Pouton says.
Initial government investment would help kickstart industry, he adds.
"We have people who understand good manufacturing practice for human use, and the technology once they get their head around it. It's not as difficult as some of the things that they're already doing," Professor Pouton says.
mRNA vaccines have had a baptism of fire during the COVID-19 pandemic, and their impressive clinical trial results have surprised even their inventor.
"Anybody who does research knows that when you work in mice and even in monkeys, the results are always or usually much better than what you see in people," Professor Weissman says.
"I was relieved and just incredibly happy."
Get the latest health news and information from across the ABC.
But it's what's waiting in the wings that is turning Australia's small community of RNA biologists into lobbyists.
"We know that we can make it at the scale that is required there is this huge untapped potential for all sorts of future applications. It is definitely a game changer," Dr Fox says.
She points to local scientists doing frontier work in mRNA therapeutics ranging from cancer immunotherapies including for childhood cancers, therapeutic vaccines, protein replacement therapies, regenerative medicine and other infectious disease vaccines.
"I hope we take a forward-looking approach and think about future pandemics or even developing vaccines against the variants," Dr Fox says.
"It makes a lot of sense to get this up and running in Australia."
To her, COVID is a prime example of how fundamental research over many years can be pivotal when we least expect it.
mRNA vaccines are unlikely to be a one-pandemic wonder.
A
lmost one in four adults in the UK have had their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, Matt Hancock has said.
The Health Secretary speaking at a Downing Street press briefing after new data showed that coronavirus deaths in the UK had hit a six-week low. A further 333 fatalities and 14,104 infections were reported on Monday.
On Monday it was reported that Britons could be required to have a third "booster" jab this year, after a major study found the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was less effective against the South African coronavirus variant.
Meanwhile, the public have said that they would rather Boris Johnson lead the pandemic response than Sir Keir Starmer, in an exclusive poll for The Evening Standard.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the rules were being tightened to prevent new variants entering the country.
Under the new measures, it is expected travellers will have to take tests after two and eight days into their 10-day quarantine period.
It follows the announcement last week that from February 15, UK nationals returning from high risk red list destinations will have to quarantine in Government-approved hotels where they will have to take two tests.
A DHSC spokesman said: Enhancing our testing regime to cover all arrivals while they isolate will provide a further level of protection and enable us to better track any new cases which might be brought into the country, and give us even more opportunities to detect new variants.
Some 10,000 extra tests will be rolled out in the region from Tuesday, after four people from two unconnected households were found to be infected with the mutation, Manchester City Council said.
Dr Cillian De Gascun, medical virologist and director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, told a National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) briefing that all the cases are directly linked to travel.
A variant first detected in Brazil has not been found in Ireland, where the so-called Kent variant is the most dominant.
The briefing heard that all variants are being monitored.
Deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn urged adherence to public health advice.
Viruses cant mutate if theyre not replicating, he said.
So the fewer the amount of virus we have in this country, the less chance there is of a mutation thats going to have a knock-on impact on vaccine effectiveness.
The Governments new education recovery tsar Sir Kevan Collins has said teachers will be asked to increase the learning time for children following school closures during the pandemic.
In a BBC interview, Sir Kevan suggested it was important to act quite quickly on arrangements for summer, adding that summer schools have promise.
The Government is said to be considering a number of options including summer schools, extended school days and shorter summer holidays as part of catch-up plans for pupils who have missed out on learning due to Covid-19.
Last week the Prime Minister appointed Sir Kevan as the education recovery commissioner to oversee the Governments catch-up programme.
In his first interview since taking up the role, Sir Kevan told the BBC: I think we need to think about the extra hours not only for learning, but for children to be together, to play, to engage in competitive sport, for music, for drama because these are critical areas which have been missed in their development.
He said teachers will need to be asked to increase learning time for children.
If youre going to secondary school in the next couple of years, its vital youre reading at the level you will need. We need to step in to support children in some of these critical areas of learning, the catch-up tsar told the BBC.
Englands deputy chief medical officer urged those who might be panicking after reading headlines on the impact vaccines have on coronavirus variants, to take comfort in the fact that scientists are carrying out major research on the variants from behind the scenes.
The areas targeted for additional testing are M14 4, M14 7, M15 5, M15 6, M16 7 and M16 8.
The DHSC said: Surge testing is in addition to existing extensive testing, and in combination with following the lockdown rules and remembering hands-face-space, will help to monitor and suppress the spread of the virus. Positive cases will be sequenced for genomic data to help understand Covid-19 variants and their spread within these areas.
People living in this targeted area within these locations are strongly encouraged to take a Covid-19 test this week, whether they are showing symptoms or not. People with symptoms should book a test in the usual way.
The South African strain of the coronavirus is unlikely to become dominant in the UK over the coming months, the deputy chief medical officer for England has said .
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said that unlike the strain which emerged last year in Kent, the South African mutation did not enjoy a transmissibility advantage over other variants.
Speaking at a No 10 news briefing, he said he believed it was likely that the existing vaccines would be effective in preventing serious illness in people who became infected with the new South African strain.
But he suggested that people in high risk groups may need booster jabs either annually or biennially as the vaccines were updated to cope with new mutations of the virus.
A question mark remains over summer holidays this year with Britons told it is still too soon to say whether or not they should start making plans.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, was asked about holidays and said he could not give a proper answer as the data is not yet available.
He said any easing of lockdown restrictions in England would have to take place gradually and that contemplating what will happen in summer is stepping into the realm of a guessing game.
Prof Van-Tam told a No 10 news briefing that it is just too early to say.
Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at Kings College London, has said the impact of the coronavirus pandemic is likely to be felt at large gatherings long after lockdown was over.
He told Times Radio: I cant see us suddenly having another Cheltenham Festival with no regulations again, I cant see us having massive weddings with people coming from all over the world. I think for the next few years those days are gone.
Giles Watling, the Conservative MP for Clacton, Essex, said the music industry is facing the double whammy of the impact of coronavirus and new post-Brexit restrictions on touring.
His comments came in a debate sparked by more than 280,000 people signing a petition calling for a cultural work permit deal to be reached.
Mr Watling told the Petitions Committee music is a great deployment of UK soft power.
He added: Our performers are now facing a double whammy of an industry devastated by Covid and the loss of an entire continent as a venue.
We must continue to raise this issue with our EU neighbours.
Former Labour Party deputy leader Harriet Harman told the committee the issue is so important in so many ways, culturally as well as financially.
It is not a Brexit teething problem, she told the Petitions Committee. It will be enduring unless it is sorted out.
VAN TAM: ONLY SMALL NUMBERS OF SOUTH AFRICA VARIANT PRESENT IN THE UK
Asked about keeping the variant suppressed, Mr Van Tamsaid: "We have small numbers of the South African variant in the UK at the present time.
"And as I've said, I'm not seeing, and the early modelling data do not suggest, a transmissibility advantage for this virus.
"So, that being the case, it's not going to kind of overrun or overtake the current B1.1.7 virus in the next few months, or that is the most likely scenario, that it won't happen.
"I don't think that this is something that we should be concerned about right at this point in time, and I agree with you that the stories and the headlines around variant viruses and vaccines are a bit scary. And I wish they weren't."
Prof Van-Tam said his work recently had been "thinking over the horizon" on preparations for a "a long-term resilient vaccine-orientated solution", adding: "And that includes the potential for variant vaccines for the autumn."
A healthcare worker administers a dose of the coronavirus vaccine to an elderly at a health center in the Cypriot coastal city of Limassol on February 8, 2021. Iakovos Hatzistavrou/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
A healthcare worker administers a dose of the coronavirus vaccine to an elderly at a health center in the Cypriot coastal city of Limassol on February 8, 2021.
Facebook is expanding its ban on vaccine misinformation and highlighting official information about how and where to get COVID-19 vaccines as governments race to get more people vaccinated.
"Health officials and health authorities are in the early stages of trying to vaccinate the world against COVID-19, and experts agree that rolling this out successfully is going to be helping build confidence in vaccines," said Kang-Xing Jin, Facebook's head of health.
Social media platforms including Facebook have played a big role in the spread of false claims, hoaxes and conspiracy theories about the pandemic over the last year, despite efforts by tech companies to clamp down on harmful content and promote authoritative sources.
In December, Facebook said it would remove claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts, such as posts saying, falsely, that the vaccines contain microchips.
Now the company is widening the list of banned claims to include posts falsely claiming the virus is man-made or manufactured and that face masks don't prevent the spread of COVID. It's also banning false claims about vaccines in general that have long been in circulation despite being repeatedly debunked: that vaccines are toxic, dangerous or cause autism, that they are not effective, and that it's safer to get a disease than the vaccine meant to prevent it.
Facebook says it will focus its enforcement on groups, pages and accounts that repeatedly violate this policy. Groups on the platform have been particularly potent sources of vaccine misinformation, which has spread widely during the pandemic, according to researchers and the company's critics.
Jin said Facebook takes a two-pronged approach to misinformation: cracking down on false claims that could lead to harm, and boosting information from credible sources, like health agencies and non-governmental organizations.
"We know that misinformation thrives in the absence of good information," he said. "So because of this, a core part of our strategy is actually partnering with health authorities and amplifying credible information to meet people's needs and get their questions answered where they are."
Jin said to help people find accurate information about vaccines and getting vaccinated, Facebook is building on the work it started last year with the COVID-19 information center, a part of its app that links to information from sources such as the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health agencies. The voting information center Facebook rolled out ahead of the 2020 presidential election, which connected people with information on how and where to cast ballots, is also a model, he said.
Facebook is also giving $120 million in ad credits to health ministries, United Nations agencies and other organizations to promote vaccine and health information.
Other tech companies are also highlighting information about vaccines. Google is putting locations of places to get vaccinated in Google Maps in some states, and has put information panels on searches about vaccines.
Editor's note: Facebook and Google are among NPR's financial supporters.
With an upsized production goal of 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses this year, Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech arent resting on their laurels now that their shot, Comirnaty, has emergency nods in the U.S., Europe and beyond. As the companies continueto build out capacity, manufacturing efficiency is getting its own boost, Pfizerrevealed.
The time it takes the companyto produce a COVID-19 vaccine batch could soon be cut from 110 days to an average of just 60, Chaz Calitri, vice president of sterile injectables, told USA Today. We call this Project Light Speed, and its called that for a reason, he said. Just in the last month, weve doubled output.
One element teed up for acceleration is DNA productionthe first step inPfizers vaccine manufacturing process, Calitri explained. Making that DNA originally took 16 days, but the process will soon take just nine or 10 days, he said.
RELATED:Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson balk at shareholders' push for COVID-19 vaccine pricing info
Production efficiencies aside, the company is also looking to dial up capacity with the addition of new manufacturing lines atall three of its U.S. plants, USA Today said.Demand for a functional shot meant Pfizer didnt have the span of several years typically required to refineits manufacturing process, so the company is improving as it goes, Calitri noted.We just went straight into commercial production," he said.
Engineers took an eye to improving manufacturing the moment vials started coming off production lines, which led the company to make a lot of really slick enhancements, he added.
A Pfizer spokesperson confirmed Calitris comments to Fierce Pharma via email.
RELATED:First-to-market Pfizer expects a whopping $15B from its COVID-19 shot in 2021
Pfizer and BioNTechs manufacturing network depends on six facilities split between Europe and the U.S. Stateside, the vaccine starts its life at Pfizers Chesterfield, Missouri, plant, where the DNA is produced. It then heads to the companys facility in Andover, Massachusetts, for transcription into mRNA, before finally making its way to Kalamazoo, Michigan for fill-finishwith lipid and lipid nanoparticle production and formulation taking place somewhere prior to that final step.Calitri heads up operations at the Kalamazoo plant.
Pfizer and BioNTechs mRNA-based vaccine last year became the first COVID-19 shot authorized in Europe and the U.S. On deck to supply hundreds of millions of doses to those two regions alone, BioNTechs CEO Uur ahin recently said the companies would boost their 2021 output target to 2 billion doses from a prior goal of 1.3 billion.
At the time, ahin pinned those production hopes on six global manufacturing sites tapped in the companies alliance, including a facility in Marburg, Germany, that he said was expected to go live by the end of February.
RELATED:Could combining Pfizer's and AZ's COVID-19 vaccines fill supply gaps? U.K. researchers aim to find out
A little more than a week later, the biotech won approval to start manufacturing itsvaccine at the Marburg site, which employs 300 people and is set to produce up to 750 million doses annually, German news outlet Hessenschau reported.
The announcement ran up against news that BioNTech was carrying out a factory upgrade in Puurs, Belgium that would allow itto deliver significantly more doses in the second quarterthough that production boost came with a catch: namely, a short-term disruption of supply in Europe, Canada and a few other countries.
Meanwhile, in a sign of the unconventional alliancesCOVID-19 has fostered, Pfizer and BioNTech recently got some added manufacturing muscle from two Big Pharma rivals. Sanofi in late January said it would produce more than 100 million Comirnaty doses in Europe in 2021, with the first deliveries from its site in Frankfurt, Germany, expected by August, a company spokesperson told Fierce Pharma.
Just a few days later, Swiss drugmaker Novartis said it would pitch in, too, agreeing to carry out fill-finish work at its facility in Stein, Switzerland, where production is pegged to start in the second quarter.
As the pandemic rages on, its increasingly clear that widespread vaccination is essential to help contain it. Physical distancing, universal face coverings, and frequent handwashing are effective, but not foolproof. And of course, these measures dont work if they are not followed.
So, the rapid development of mRNA vaccines and other vaccines to prevent COVID-19 is welcome some say miraculous news. But while many people are scrambling to get a vaccine, others are hesitating.
Its natural to wonder if brand new vaccines against a novel coronavirus, developed at unprecedented speed, are effective and safe to take. Lets review some of what we know.
Overall effectiveness has been reported in the range of 70% to 95%. Thats well above the average effectiveness of the flu vaccine, for example.
Not only do these vaccines appear to lessen risk of developing COVID-19, but they also appear to lessen the risk of severe disease.
In large clinical trials, most side effects have been minor. When side effects occur, they typically last just a few days. A side effect or reaction isnt necessarily all bad, by the way; it may indicate that the body is building protection against the virus.
For the four vaccines listed above, common side effects include
Its normal to feel cautious about any new treatment. But two common misconceptions may encourage people to avoid getting a COVID vaccine.
For example, rare cases of Bells palsy and other neurologic disease have been reported after COVID vaccination. But so far, there is no clear suggestion that the vaccine played any role. Similarly, a fatal blood disorder suffered by a Florida physician two weeks after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine raised concerns that it was triggered by the vaccine. This condition did not occur among the tens of thousands of clinical trial subjects, so it might be a complete coincidence. Authorities are investigating this case.
So far, we know COVID-19 is an unpredictable and potentially deadly disease. And the information we have about the effectiveness and safety of COVID-19 vaccinations is encouraging. Minor side effects should be expected; severe allergic reactions may rarely occur. Side effects from the vaccine are not reasons for most people to avoid vaccination.
As the number of vaccine recipients and the number of different vaccines grow, vigilance is warranted. What we know today about side effects and safety wont be the last word. Volunteers in clinical trials and members of the public who have received vaccinations continue to be monitored, and are encouraged to report problems.
There are pros and cons to any new medical treatment. But remember there are also pros and cons to declining treatment. Based on my reading of currently available information, the decision to be vaccinated against COVID-19 should be an easy one.
Follow me on Twitter @RobShmerling
