Philly will be vaccinating residents for at least a year, top health official says; Pa. doesnt know when co The Philadelphia Inquirer
There is no specific documentation that links COVID-19 with food pickup or delivery services. Solid surfaces as a mode of transmission is not a major concern.
If there are still doubts in your mind, cleaning the surface with a disinfectant wipe is effective against the COVID-19 virus.
I have been eating food from local restaurants for the past year that I either pick up or have delivered. I just pick up the food and wash my hands before eating it. That is good practice all of the time, not just during a pandemic.
You can enjoy food from our amazing restaurants.
Feb. 5, 2021 -- The Biden administration is pushing to make quick at-home tests for COVID-19 available to more Americans.
In a media call on Friday, Andy Slavitt, the White House senior adviser for the pandemic response, told reporters that the administration was working with six companies under the auspices of the Defense Production Actto surge manufacturing of at-home test kits with the goal of, by summer, having millions of Americans being able to access at-home tests.
So far, the plan is short on details. He didnt name the companies or the tests but said more announcements would be coming shortly.
At-home tests are one of the key steps to getting back to normal life, Slavitt said.
While the U.S. waits for vaccines to quench the pandemic, experts believe an important way to control the virus and fully reopen the economy could be to use quick, cheap paper strip tests to find people who could spread COVID-19.
The tests use saliva or a swab from inside the nose, mixed into a bit of solution. Users drop the solution onto a paper strip, much the way home pregnancy tests work.
The tests use proteins embedded in the paper to recognize and grab onto key pieces of the virus. When the virus is found, another indicator -- like a line or a plus sign -- changes color to show the result.
Because the tests latch on to a part of the coronavirus that is not mutating, they should still work well to detect even the new variant forms of the virus.
Regulators have been wary of approving them because they have a higher rate of false negatives, compared to gold-standard PCR tests, which are run in a lab.
Instead, the results are most accurate when a person has a lot of virus circulating in their body, typically a day or two before they start showing symptoms to a few days after getting sick.
While that may make them less reliable for diagnosing a COVID-19 infection in someone who has been sick or carrying the virus for a while, testing experts say that makes them great to use as screening tools -- a way to catch people who are contagious and isolate them before they can spread the virus.
Michael Mina, PhD, an assistant professor at Harvards T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an expert in diagnostic testing, has been a vocal proponent of rapid tests to control the spread of the virus. He said he has taken no funding from any testing companies, though he has been talking to many of them about their technologies.
This test is as powerful as it is because it will find you when youre positive. It wont tell you that you were positive 2 weeks ago, like PCR will tell you that you were positive 2 weeks ago, he said, And it will give it to you in a time when it is actionable, in 15 minutes.
Mina says if the tests are cheap enough, people could test themselves before they go to work, two to three times a week, for example, to know when they need to stay home so they dont run the risk of infecting their co-workers. The tests could be used at the entrances of sports arenas, concerts, and airports to help catch people who are contagious and may not know it because they arent showing any symptoms.
He said the strategy many people are trying to use now -- testing themselves a few days before they travel or visit family -- is useless, and I can't say it enough. That is a pointless waste of money, he said in a call with reporters on Friday.
The best thing you can possibly do is test yourself the moment right before youre walking into whatever it is, whether it's work or school or an event or the grocery store, whatever it might be, he said.
The success of a plan like this depends on having many rapid tests and making them cheap enough so people can use them regularly.
Slavitt said the U.S. was on its way to that goal.
In addition to the tests announced on Friday, Slavitt said the U.S. would be working with an Australian company called Ellume to get 8.5 million of their tests to Americans by the end of the year. That test uses a device that connects to a smartphone app to give people test results in about 15 minutes. It can also connect to public health reporting systems to help health authorities track positive cases.
Mina said he doesnt think the Ellume test can be an effective screening tool. For one thing, its price may put it out of reach for regular use. When it was authorized in December, the company said the kit to do the test would cost about $30, which is too expensive for people and businesses to use frequently. Mina said the quantity ordered by the U.S. would only amount to about 3,000 tests a day, not nearly the millions of daily tests the U.S. would need to be using for a while to control the spread of the virus.
Thats nothing, he said. We have wasted money on it.
So far, the FDA has declined to approve other rapid, fully over-the-counter tests for home use, saying their results so far have not been accurate enough to meet the agencys standards for diagnostic tests. Two other tests that deliver results at homehave been approved but they require a prescription.One is being made by a company called Lucira and costs$50. The other is the $25 BinaxNow test, which is made by Abbott.
Mina says that if the rules were more flexible, the FDA could approve several new tests and get them to Americans very quickly.
I don't think that waiting until the summer is good, he said in a call with reporters on Friday. I am encouraged that the administration is making multiple steps right now to try to signal that they are going to be pushing for speedier access to testing, but I think that we have these tests in front of us this moment. We just need to listen to the science a bit more.
WebMD Health News
Andy Slavitt, White House senior adviser for the pandemic response, Washington, DC.
Michael Mina, PhD, assistant professor, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA.
White House COVID Response Team Press briefing, Feb. 5, 2021.
The good news is that Texas is finally seeing COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases trend downward after a holiday season marked by a record-breaking surge that pushed hospital systems and health care workers to their limits.
The bad news is that there are still more Texans getting sick and being hospitalized for the coronavirus than this summer, when the state was in the throes of the first wave.
And while vaccinations are reaching more people every day, health care experts warn that this doesnt mean Texas is out of the woods. They say people should remain vigilant and continue following safety guidelines like mask-wearing and social distancing, especially as new variants of the virus continue to emerge. With Super Bowl Sunday around the corner, many are concerned about super spreader events that could undo the modest progress the state has experienced in the past few weeks.
Cases peaked in mid-January at an average of more than 22,000 per day. By Thursday, the average had decreased to around 16,500 per day. COVID-19 hospitalizations have also dipped from an all-time high of more than 14,000 patients on Jan. 12 to 10,523 reported patients on Thursday.
Texas is still experiencing more than 40% more daily cases on average than it saw during the previous summer peak for confirmed cases.
The fact that things are decreasing, it doesn't mean that we [get] to relax because every time we've done that, things go back really, really bad, said Cesar Arias, a professor of infectious diseases at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
Broadly, Texas health officials say the reason for the recent dip in numbers is because the state is coming off a spike related to gatherings from Thanksgiving and the December holiday season. But a combination of vaccines for health care workers and a decrease in large gatherings could also be contributing to the downward trends, said Philip Huang, director of health and human services in Dallas County.
Vaidehi Shah, Waco-McLennan Countys senior epidemiologist, added even before the pandemic began, January and February usually didnt see as much travel a trend that has helped lower positive case rates this year.
Still, more than 37,000 Texans have died, and there is still a long way back to normal, Arias said.
Comparatively, we are nowhere near to where we should be, to be able to control this pandemic, Arias said. Were getting to the peak of that exposure, and theres probably much more people that are infected than we have been able to detect. So maybe its scratching the surface.
Shah said she hopes hospitalization patterns in Waco will continue to improve at similar rates. By the beginning of January, COVID-19 patients were being treated in more than 30% of hospital beds in that region, a number that has since dropped in half.
During the pandemic, Shah said the trend has been a rise in cases, followed by a rise in hospitalizations, then a rise in deaths.
And when the numbers go down, it goes in a similar pattern, Shah said. So [our region] did start seeing a reduction in cases about two to three weeks ago Were really hopeful well see that same thing with fatality numbers as well.
Medical professionals are also worried by the new COVID-19 mutations that have emerged in Texas and across the country over the past few months. The variants have the potential to be more contagious and could lead to another increase in case rates and hospitalizations down the line.
But Arias said hes hopeful proliferation of the COVID-19 vaccines will help mitigate that spread. While the vaccine may be effective on new mutations as well, Arias said there are still factors that prevent vulnerable populations, like people of color, from receiving a dose in the first place.
I dont think we still have a very good plan to cover those at the moment, Arias said. Those are most likely where these situations are going to emerge in terms of the system viruses or mutated viruses that transmit better. So aggressive vaccination is really the only way out.
Stephen Love, president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, said hes worried about Super Bowl parties as another source of spread. Love said while people are often vigilant in settings like grocery stores, that level of caution tends to diminish at small gatherings.
They get lax when they get home, Love said. I think a lot of the spread weve seen, especially during the holidays,and right after the holidays, didnt occur out in public it occurred in the home.
Mandi Cai contributed to this report.
Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says President Biden told him from the outset: "We're going to make some mistakes along the way. We're going to stumble a bit. And when that happens, we're not going to blame anybody. We're just going to fix it." "Boy, was that refreshing," Fauci says. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption
Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says President Biden told him from the outset: "We're going to make some mistakes along the way. We're going to stumble a bit. And when that happens, we're not going to blame anybody. We're just going to fix it." "Boy, was that refreshing," Fauci says.
Less than three weeks into the new Biden administration, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who has headed up the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, is encouraged by the new president's approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It was very clear what President Biden wanted ... and that is that science was going to rule," Fauci says. "That we were going to base whatever we do, our recommendations or guidelines ... on sound scientific evidence and sound scientific data."
But there was something else that Biden promised, which Fauci found equally reassuring: "He said, 'We're going to make some mistakes along the way. We're going to stumble a bit. And when that happens, we're not going to blame anybody. We're just going to fix it.' "
"Boy, was that refreshing," Fauci says.
Fauci has worked with seven presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden. Much of his career has been devoted to researching viruses and the immune system. During the AIDS epidemic, he made major contributions to the understanding of how HIV affects the immune system and was instrumental in developing drugs that could prolong the lives of people with HIV.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Fauci became something of a medical celebrity as a member of the former administration's coronavirus task force who publicly disagreed with President Donald Trump about COVID-19 treatment, the value of masks and about the timeline for reopening. In return, Trump called Fauci an "idiot" and tweeted about firing him.
"What I think happened is that the [Trump] White House, in general the president was looking for people who were saying things that were compatible with what his feeling was about, where he wanted to go," Fauci says.
Looking ahead, Fauci says the pandemic is far from over especially as the virus mutates and new strains emerge. He says controlling the spread of the virus will help tamp down mutations. The key is to vaccinate "as many people as quickly and as efficiently as you possibly can" and "to double down on the public health measures of uniform wearing of masks, physical distancing, avoiding congregate settings particularly indoors."
Fauci notes that any vaccination efforts should address the needs of the larger global population.
"You've got to be able to get with the help of the developed world the entire world vaccinated," he says. "As we allow this infection to exist to any degree in any part of the world, it will always be a threat. So we've got to approach this the way we approach smallpox, the way we approach polio, and the way we approach measles and other devastating global outbreaks."
On the major new mutations in the coronavirus and how that affects our strategy to fight it
I think people need to understand something that's very important: RNA viruses SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus will mutate, and the more the virus replicates, the more opportunity you give it to mutate. So when you have so much infection in the community, as we have had in the United States over the last few months, where you literally have hundreds of thousands of new infections per day we were up to between 300,000 to 400,000 [cases] a day. We're down now between 100,000 to 200,000 per day. But we still have 3,000 to 4,000 deaths per day. That means the virus has almost an open playing field to replicate, [which] means you give it an opportunity to mutate.
So even though this is a challenge, we should not be set back by this. We can meet the challenge and you meet the challenge by first getting a handle on the degree of mutations by doing good genomic surveillance, No. 1, but No. 2, by doing whatever you can to prevent the replication of the virus by vaccinating as many people as quickly and as efficiently as you possibly can.
And also to double down on the public health measures of uniform wearing of masks, physical distancing, avoiding congregate settings, particularly indoors.
One of the things that we do know is that the vaccines that we have, although they are less effective in preventing disease ... when you look at serious disease with hospitalizations and deaths, the vaccines still have a pretty important, positive effect even on the mutants.
But we don't want to get confident about that. We've got to be able to match future vaccines and upgrade them to be able to be directed specifically at these troublesome mutants that have evolved.
On the misleading idea that a good way to conquer COVID-19 might be to simply let more people get infected and gain immunity that way
[Trump] wanted to focus on things other than the pandemic. So anyone who would come in, like [coronavirus adviser] Dr. [Scott] Atlas, and say, "Just let people get infected, you'll get herd immunity and everything will be fine" was a welcome strategy or a welcome philosophy.
But as it turns out and we know right now very clearly that that was an incorrect strategy, if you actually pursued a strategy of "don't try and intervene. Don't wear a mask. Don't worry about congregate settings, just let the virus take its course and try and protect the vulnerable." ... We cannot effectively protect the vulnerable [that way], because they were such an important part of our population.
So if you look at the number of people right now who have died, it's close to 450,000 people. And if you look at the seroprevalence in the country how many people already will have gotten infected there are certain areas where it's high, 20-plus%. But as an average for the country, it's probably somewhere less than 20%, which means that if you wanted to get the 70 or 85% of the people that need to be infected to give you herd immunity, a lot more people will have died. We've already had 430,000 [to] 450,000 people who have died, and we aren't even anywhere close to herd immunity.
On the origin of the FDA's "emergency use authorization," which has been used to speed COVID-19 vaccines to market
To get a drug out as quickly as you possibly can, based on the fact that the benefit looks like it was better than the risk and you didn't have to fully show efficacy yet, originated way back during the years of HIV. Compassionate use of a drug even before you get an emergency use authorization originated way back in the days of HIV, because we didn't have compassionate use to any great extent until we got into the situation with HIV in the early and mid 1980s. So there's a very good connection between some of the things that we're doing now with interventions for COVID-19 that actually originated way back when we were doing HIV in its very early years.
On two things he learned from the AIDS epidemic that he's applying to the COVID-19 pandemic now
One of them is the importance of getting the community involved and dealing with the community and their special needs. ... We have a disparity here that is striking and needs to be addressed that if you look at the incidence of infection and the incidence of serious disease, including hospitalization and deaths, brown and Black people suffer disproportionately more than whites. ...
So I think that shines a bright light on what we probably should have done all along and certainly must do in the future, is to address those social determinants of health that actually lead to the great disparity of suffering in COVID-19 among brown and Black people. We had the same sort of thing with the disparities of infection in certain demographic groups with HIV. So from an epidemiological standpoint, there were similarities there.
We also learned the importance of fundamental basic science in getting solutions. ... Back in the early days, getting infected with HIV was a virtual death sentence for the overwhelming majority. ... It was the fundamental basic science of targeted drug development that allowed us to develop combinations of drugs first single drugs and then a couple at a time, and then triple and more combinations of drugs that ultimately completely transformed the lives of people living with HIV, to the point where you went from a virtual death sentence to being able to lead essentially a normal life, as well as not infecting anybody else. ...
We know now that something we've called "treatment as prevention" [works] which means if you treat someone who's living with HIV and suppressed the level of virus to below detectable, you make it essentially impossible for that person to infect someone else. So we got there through basic science.
On being vilified by AIDS activists early on in the AIDS crisis, who believed the government should expand access to experimental medicines, and how that compares to being vilified during the COVID-19 pandemic by people who are anti-science and anti-mask
That really is a stark contrast. The [AIDS] activists were justified in their concerns that the government (even though they weren't doing it deliberately) were not actually giving them a seat at the table to be able to have their own input into things that would ultimately affect their lives. So, even though they were very theatrical, they were very iconoclastic, they seemed like they were threatening, ... never for a single moment did I ever feel myself threatened by the AIDS activist.
In fact, one particular situation, I think, was very telling. At a time when there was a lot of pushback against the government and not listening to the valid concerns of the activists, I was invited to go down and I went with just one of my staff at the time to go down essentially alone to the gay and lesbian community center in the middle of Greenwich Village to meet with what must have been anywhere from 50 to 100 activists in this meeting room. Just me and one of my staff. And they were angry with the federal government because they felt the federal government was not listening to them, and they were right I think they had a really good point.
Not for a second, did I feel physically threatened to go down there, not even close. I mean, that's not the nature of what the protest was. And I think one of the things about it was that not only were they not threatening at all in a violent way, but ultimately they were [also] on the right side of history.
On his early research into the AIDS epidemic, visiting gay bathhouses to gain a better understanding of the then-mysterious outbreak that was killing gay men
This was the very, very early years of the outbreak. In fact, it may even have been before we even discovered that HIV was the cause. And we were seeing these large numbers of mostly gay men who were formerly otherwise well, who were being devastated by this terrible, mysterious disease. And it was so concentrated in the gay community that I really wanted to get a feel for what was going on there that would lead to this explosion of a sexually transmitted disease. So I did. I went to the Castro District [of San Francisco]. I went down to Greenwich Village and I went into the bathhouses to essentially see what was going on.
And the epidemiologist in me went, "Oh, my goodness, this is a perfect setup for an explosion of a sexually transmitted disease!" And the same thing going to the gay bars and seeing what was going on. And it gave me a great insight into the explosiveness of the outbreak of a sexually transmitted disease. So I think it was important, because it gave me a really on-the-ground feel for what was actually dynamically going on.
On whether COVID-19 will be with us forever like influenza
I don't think we need to make that assumption. That certainly is a possibility that you would have enough virus floating around and changing from year to year, that you would have to treat it in some respects, the way we treat seasonal influenza, where you have to upgrade the vaccine almost every year.
There is a way, if done properly, to avoid that, and that is, for example, if we successfully vaccinate 70 to 85% of the people in the United States and dramatically diminish the level of infection if we were living in a vacuum in only the United States, then I don't think we'd have to worry about seasonal turnover and having to match. But we live in a global community and unless we get the rest of the world adequately vaccinated and unless we don't have the opportunity of this virus to mutate in a place that doesn't have access to vaccines, we will always be threatened.
Fresh Air's interview with Dr. Fauci was recorded as part of a WHYY Zoom event at which Fauci accepted WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award.
Sam Briger and Seth Kelley produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Deborah Franklin adapted it for the Web.
A 10-year-old Latino boy from East County who died on Jan. 23 is now the regions youngest COVID-19-related death, according to San Diego Countys latest coronavirus tracking report released Friday.
It was a day for grim records. In addition to the youngest, a 106-year-old man, also from East County, became the oldest local COVID-related death among the 2,777 announced to date.
Previously, the youngest to suffer such stark consequences after novel coronavirus infection was a 19-year-old man who died on Jan. 3. The previous-oldest COVID-19 casualty was a 104-year-old woman from the north central part of the county who died on Jan. 1, according to county records.
Both the oldest and youngest were said to have had other health problems present in addition to testing positive for the virus. Thirty-seven of the 39 deaths announced in Fridays report had other health problems present.
It was not immediately clear why it took nearly two weeks for the 10-year-old boys death to be reported to the public. Generally, the county health department has said in the past, reporting delays can be caused by the time it takes to process death certificates or to a lag in a hospital reporting the loss to public health.
As is always the case, the county released no information on the specific circumstances including what other illnesses were involved in the losses. Such details are not connected to individual deaths for fear that doing so may make it easier to identify those who have died.
Generally, death has been very uncommon among those who are younger than age 18. According to provisional death counts listed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 67 children age five through 14 have died after a confirmed coronavirus infection among more that 421,000 COVID-related deaths nationwide. That figure is known to be incomplete given the sometimes weeks-long reporting delays.
While the community continues to record the deaths of those hospitalized during the patient surge in December and January, the local pandemic continues to run far below previous daily new case totals that topped 4,000 several times after the holidays.
Fridays report, though, showed a slight uptick. After two days under 1,000, the daily case total was 1,453 Thursday following Wednesdays tally of 1,598.
Total COVID-related hospitalizations continued to fall, reaching 1,183 with 353 in intensive care beds.
There is now real evidence that at least one coronavirus variant seems to elude some of the power of Covid-19 vaccines. What, exactly, that means for the pandemic is still being sussed out.
Even if the vaccines are less powerful against the variant, they still appear to protect people from the worst outcomes, like hospitalization or death. But the loss in efficacy against the B.1.351 variant in clinical trials suggested to some experts that the immunity the shots confer may not last as long against that form of the coronavirus. Or that the vaccines wont be as powerful of a drag on transmission, the way scientists hope the shots will be for other versions of the virus.
More urgently, experts said, the disparate results serve as a warning flag that the world needs to step up its current vaccination campaigns and expedite efforts to envision what Covid-19 vaccines 2.0 might look like.
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Its a huge relief to know that the vaccines still seem to protect against hospitalization and deaths, said Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern. The No. 1 thing at the moment is to try and reduce in any way the cost that this virus charges us as it spreads through societies. But its definitely true the loss in efficacy, it raises some worrying questions.
Below, STAT lays out the good and the bad news about vaccines and the B.1.351 variant, and what may be coming next.
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Key questions about vaccines sometimes get reduced to whether they work or not against the different forms of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. But that oversimplifies what clinical trials are measuring, what the vaccines might be able to do, and how much of this is a matter of degrees, not a yes-or-no answer.
The trials have generally been investigating whether the vaccines prevent symptomatic cases of Covid-19. But Covid-19 presents across a full spectrum, from asymptomatic infections to fatal ones, which is why some trials also include data specifically focused on the outcomes people most want to prevent: severe disease and death.
In a way, the first clinical trial results from Moderna and the Pfizer and BioNTech team, which both showed the respective vaccines were 90% or more protective against symptomatic disease, spoiled us for what we could expect for immunizations still going through trials. The achievements went way beyond what experts had hoped Covid-19 vaccines could hit.
So when Johnson & Johnson reported last week that its vaccine was, on average, 66% efficacious at blocking moderate and severe disease a figure that ticked up to 72% when just looking at U.S. participants many researchers sought to remind people that this was a result worth celebrating. The vaccine was 85% effective against severe disease cases no matter the infectious variant, and all the deaths and hospitalizations in the trial occurred among people who got the placebo, not the vaccine.
People look at 72% and say well thats not as good as 90%, but the fact is, if you look at serious disease, it was extremely effective in preventing serious disease, including hospitalizations and deaths, Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters this week.
Simply, clinical trial data released last week for the J&J shot and another from Novavax showed the vaccines did not fare as well in South Africa, where the B.1.351 variant first emerged and has circulated at the highest levels.
The efficacy of the J&J shot against moderate or worse Covid-19 fell to 57% in South Africa, while Novavax reported its vaccine was 49% effective in South Africa at preventing symptomatic Covid-19. In a separate trial in the United Kingdom, Novavaxs shot was nearly 90% efficacious. (Another variant on the global radar, B.1.1.7, first emerged in the U.K., and while it is more transmissible, so far it doesnt seem to have as significant of an impact on vaccines.)
Beyond the drop in protection, some experts said the results indicated the vaccines might be less powerful against B.1.351 in other ways, too.
Clinical trials havent shown whether any of the existing vaccines can slow the spread of any iteration of SARS-2, but many experts think the shots will offer some help in that arena, whether because they prevent some infections entirely, or because they make people who still contract the virus less contagious for a shorter time, or some combination of factors.
When you think about vaccines, you think about the direct impacts on the person vaccinated, but you also think about the indirect effects, like what it can do to spread, said evolutionary biologist Katia Koelle of Emory University.
But several experts told STAT the results from Novavax and J&J made them wonder if vaccines will have the same potential benefit on transmission against B.1.351 as they might on other forms. A less potent vaccine, even if it prevents severe disease, may not galvanize the immune system enough to block infection or reduce infectiousness as much.
If everyone is vaccinated, then maybe thats not a big deal, because youve just got a cold going around, Hodcroft said. But if youve got a partially vaccinated population, that means you still have some susceptible people, where if a vaccinated person passes it on to a non-vaccinated person, they could still be in danger of being hospitalized or dying.
Experts also raised the question of whether the vaccines might lose more of their power against the variant faster than they would against other SARS-2 iterations. How long the protection elicited by any of the existing vaccines lasts, against any version of the virus, remains an open question. Essentially, researchers have to track vaccinated people and watch when their immunity wanes. But a weaker response could start to dissipate faster.
When were looking at four months down from vaccination, six months down from vaccination, these numbers could be even worse, Kristian Andersen, an infectious diseases expert at Scripps Research Institute, said about the differing efficacy levels by variant.
Andersen said the Novavax and J&J results should serve as a rallying cry for the global scientific community including vaccine makers and regulators to prepare, in case the B.1.351 variant or some other form of SARS-2 is able to escape immune protection in ways the trial data do not yet show. He said people shouldnt assume that because the vaccines appeared to guard against severe disease from B.1.351 during the trial, that people will carry that protection for a long period.
If we sit around and wait until we have all the perfect data showing do you or do you not get people with severe disease? Does it help control transmission? All these things if we sit around and wait, and were wrong, thats bad, he said.
The clinical trials of the two vaccines authorized in the U.S. the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech products were completed before particular variants of concern took off, so there are not clinical data on how the shots stack up against B.1.351.
Instead, scientists have studied in lab experiments how well neutralizing antibodies taken from people whove been vaccinated fend off the variants. So far, the companies have reported drops in the antibodies potency against B.1.351 or select mutations in the variant, but the message from them and other scientists has been that the shots produce such sky-high levels of defense that they can withstand some loss of response without really changing how well they protect people.
Theres a lot of headroom in the mRNA vaccines, Linda-Gail Bekker, the deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the University of Cape Town, told reporters this week, referring to the mRNA technology with which both vaccines are made. With B.1.351, even if there is a little bit of ding there, we would still be in a very good space.
But scientists caution that its difficult to extrapolate what such lab experiments mean for the real world. The experiments only look at neutralizing antibodies, while the immune response includes other types of antibodies as well as fighters like T cells. With that thinking, its possible that the real immune response from vaccines is even more robust against mutations than the lab data show.
But the drop in neutralizing antibody power in the experiments, combined with the drop in efficacy in the Novavax and J&J trials, leads some experts to think that if the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines were put up against B.1.351 in trials, they might also see declines in efficacy.
Right now, B.1.351 accounts for just a fraction of global Covid-19 infections. But already, researchers are exploring ways to update vaccines to better target it or other worrisome variants that crop up. Vaccine makers have announced theyre studying strain-specific boosters or next-generation vaccines that could target multiple variants, and regulators have said theyre considering how to green light tweaked vaccines without requiring the full package of trials that new products have to fulfill.
B.1.351 is not the only variant that researchers worry could evade the immune response. Another variant, called P.1 and identified first in Brazil, shares some of the same mutations. There is preliminary evidence that both variants can slip past the protection generated after an initial Covid-19 case and reinfect people more easily than other SARS-2 types.
But the clinical trial results do not change the imperative to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible with the shots that are available, experts stress. If anything, they add to the pressure to pick up the global pace. The shots protect people from Covid-19. And, if they can help drive down cases which steps communities and individuals take to slow the spread of the virus will also do they will prevent people from getting sick and dying, and decrease the likelihood that other potentially dangerous variants emerge.
We need to vaccinate even faster and even more, Andersen said. The vaccines are still effective.
Long-term care facilities have some protections when it comes to pandemic-era lawsuits, lawyers say. Many states have passed civil immunity laws that protect businesses from COVID-19-related litigation, except in cases of willful, reckless, intentional or grossly negligent misconduct.
They dont completely get rid of the opportunity for a plaintiff to sue; they just make it a lot harder, Idelevich said. Were seeing creative lawyers try to get around all of these immunity statutes that are coming out from all of the states.
There is also the possibility that plaintiffs who successfully challenge immunity in one state could create a domino effect across the country. It would create enough media buzz around it that I think youd start seeing copycat lawsuits, Idelevich said.
Defense lawyers are also claiming the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, known as the PREP Act, which offers immunity to liability for COVID-19 countermeasures, covers all COVID-19 lawsuits at long-term care facilities, but courts so far have disagreed, Stahle said. In those cases, lawsuits that were sent to federal court were remanded back to state courts.
Its all in flux, she said.
Trying to obtain immunity through the PREP Act puts cases in limbo and delays the process for getting families answers, Richardson said.
Families want to hold the nursing home accountable for what errors and mistakes theyve caused. They also want to know what happened, Richardson said.
Because long-term care facilities have been closed to visitors to prevent the spread of COVID, family members are not able see their loved ones and often arent able to intervene until things seem severe, Stahle said. In Missouri, where Stahle practices, calls to the states elder abuse hotline are down from the previous year.
Never in her career has Stahle seen so many severe lawsuits involving nursing homes than in the past year. Her firm alone is handling fatal cases unrelated to COVID-19 where a resident allegedly drowned in the bathtub, a residents wound became infested with maggots and a resident died from extreme dehydration.
We are seeing neglect like never before, Stahle said. Youre getting these severe cases all at the same time.
The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living and some of its state affiliates have advocated for reasonable, limited liability protections that defend staff and providers for their good faith efforts during this challenging time.
We understand that loved ones are grieving and looking for answers, but this is a vicious virus and an unprecedented public health crisis, AHCA/NCAL said in a prepared statement. Caregivers are doing everything they can, often with limited resources and ever-changing information. Providers or individual healthcare workers who were following government guidance should not be held responsible for their good faith efforts during this once-in-a-century pandemic.
Long term care providers are already facing a financial crisis due to COVID. Compounded with an excessive litigation environment, thousands of long-term care facilities would be forced to close their doors, in turn, displacing tens of thousands of vulnerable residents and limiting access to critical services for our nations seniors.
Faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences will present a webinar for the Meredith community about vaccine science and COVID-19.
Presenters will be Assistant Professor Carolina Perez-Heydrich, Professor Jason Andrus, and Professor Karthik Aghoram. They will explain the role of vaccines in combating COVID-19, immune responses against coronaviruses, and the development of mRNA vaccines. The presenterswill also discuss the benefits and risks associated with vaccination.
The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Kelsieanne Schmidt, 21, a public health and biology major. Meredith Director of Student Health Services Mary Johnson and Director of Human Resources Pam Galloway will also participate in the panel discussion along with Perez-Heydrich, Andrus, and Aghoram.
There will be two opportunities to participate in the COVID-19 Vaccines: Get the Facts webinar.
Covid-19 Vaccines: Get the Facts Session 1Tuesday, February 16 at 5:30 p.m.Register in advance for this webinar
Covid-19 Vaccines: Get the Facts Session 2Friday, February 19 at 10 a.m.Register in advance for this webinar
COVID-19 Vaccines: Get the Facts is open to Meredith students, faculty/staff, and alumnae.
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Since last year humanity was shaken by fear and uncertainty due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus, bringing to light the fragility and vulnerability of human existence. To fight against the propagation of this virus, the human family tried to adapt itself to this unprecedented and challenging situation by observing social distancing and lockdowns, the closing of borders and the massive use of digital technology. Pope Francis has often said that the virus brought us together and only in solidarity can we get out of this pandemic.
This year, vaccines have become available, thus, bringing much hope, but also a wider gap in inequality. The rich nations of the Global North that poured money into the production of the vaccines are now waiting for a return on their investment. It is believed that the miracle of the vaccines would reignite the global machinery. This has led to a kind of focus on the North, shown in nationalism and protectionism. The Global South, where the majority of the poor live, is left out.
Pope Francis encouraged people to get vaccinated because it was one way of exercising responsibility towards others and collective well-being. He reiterated the need for vaccines for all, especially for the most vulnerable and needy in all regions on the planet. Before all others: the most vulnerable and needy! We are at a crucial moment, an opportunity to live the miracle of charity, through addressing together the present challenge.
The access to vaccines across the world has not been as equitable as it should be. It is sad to note that not all nations and those who want or need the vaccine can get it because of supply issues, while in our interconnected world, the vaccines must be made available equitably.
Since every life is inviolable, nobody must be left out. The poor, minorities, refugees, the marginalised are the most exposed to the virus. Taking care of them is a moral priority because abandoning them puts them and the global community at risk. Our collective well-being depends on how we care for the least.
As we face a global emergency, political leaders must look beyond the interests of their own nations and political groups. This pandemic is a global human security problem that threatens the whole human family. Addressing the vaccines issue from the perspective of a narrow national strategy might lead to a moral failure in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable across the globe.
The current vaccines crisis must be seen in the wider context of the global health situation. Many of the least developed nations still lack basic medical infrastructures and the means of storing the vaccines. Moreover, people in distant rural areas are not sensitised and are exposed to other infectious diseases that remain prevalent.Given this context, the international community should have a holistic, multi-stakeholder approach to avoid the danger of the pandemic getting out of hand in the Global South which may then lead to a global humanitarian crisis again.
The debt of low-income countries should be reviewed. The remission of debt could be a means for generating funds for the multi-stakeholders, Faith-Based Organisations in particular, to upgrade the medical services and facilities in these countries. The money that is meant to pay a poor countrys debt could be spent for strengthening health security.
The question of the patent on the vaccines must also be considered urgently to identify localised production in Africa, Latin America and Asia and accelerate access to the vaccines before it is too late. Involving local actors, in particular Faith-based Organisations, is important because they have the basic structures and the necessary contact with the most vulnerable people such as migrants, the internally displaced and the marginalised.
In line with the observations made by the Dicastery for promoting Integral Human development Vaccines for all: 20 points for a fair and healthier world, Caritas Internationalis urges the decisions makers and the United Nations to act on the following, namely:
Call for a Security Council meeting to address the issue of access to the vaccines as a global security problem with firm political decisions based on multilateralism.
Undertake the debt remission of the poorest countries as quickly as possible and use the funds obtained to upgrade the medical and health systems in these countries.
Promote the local production of vaccines in different technical hubs in Africa, Latin America and Asia and make them available in the next six months by addressing the issue of patent and technical collaboration with the poorer nations.
Allocate financial and technical support to the local Civil Society Organisations, and to Faith-Based Organisations in particular, to ensure the preparation of local communities awareness and capacity building to prepare them to have access to preventive care.
H.E. Luis Antonio Card. Tagle,President of Caritas Internationalis
H.E. Peter Kodwo Appiah Card. Turkson,Prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development
Aloysius John,Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis
