Markets expect any COVID-19 vaccine approved this year to only be 50% to 60% effective, asset manager Balyasny says | Markets Business Insider
Eric Trump: "Yes. Listen, that first day he got hit hard, first day Friday. And I can tell you as son, it's never fun watching your father fly off to Walter Reed on Marine One, right? I mean, that's something that -- it's a day that no son wants to, again, remember. It's -- that's no fun to watch.
"But I'm telling you I spoke to him three times that next Saturday. The guy sounded 100%. It was amazing. It actually probably goes to speak to how good some of these vaccines that are being created are and what my father's done on the vaccine front, no one could have done. No one could have done.
"I mean, literally, Biden was calling my father xenophobic for shutting down America from travel to China -- I mean, and the virus came from China. My father, literally, started day one creating this vaccine. He worked to push this vaccine. And now my father just took it. And you see how well he got over it --
Jonathan Karl: Wait, wait. Can you --
Trump: -- an inspiration. I think -- as Americans, Jon, we should be very proud of that.
Karl: Can you clarify that? You said your father just took a vaccine?
Trump: Meaning when he was in Walter Reed, the medicines that he was taking.
Karl: The therapeutics?
Trump: -- he felt horrible. And on Saturday -- again, I spoke to the man three times on Saturday and he sounded tremendous. And I think it goes to show the power of medicine in this country and how far that we've come on Covid in the last six, seven months.
Holy cow! There's a vaccine for Covid-19? This is great news!
Or, well, no. See, either Eric Trump let the biggest cat out of the bag ever -- that the President was given a "vaccine" for Covid-19 -- or he is simply confused about the difference between medicines designed to help mitigate the course of the virus and an actual vaccine.
(HINT: It's the latter.)
See, we know that the President received several therapeutics designed to help him deal with the virus. Those included the anti-viral drug remdesivir, a steroid known as dexamethasone and experimental antibody cocktail produced by the pharmaceutical company Regeneron.
He was not, as far as we know, administered a "vaccine" of any sort. Even if he had been, vaccines are meant to keep someone from getting sick, not help you once you are sick. (The flu shot, for example, is given as a preventative, not as a treatment.)
Trump can call it whatever he likes. But the reality is that we do not yet have a vaccine -- much less a cure.
And once we do have a vaccine, which Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said recently could be as soon as November or December, it will be months before we get anything close to the necessary number of people vaccinated to return to some semblance of normal.
The problem is that (lots and lots) of people listen more to Donald and Eric Trump than to Dr. Fauci. Which puts the onus on the President and his son to be very clear -- and careful -- with their words. Which, of course, they are not.
Judo Olympian Valerios Aslanidis is the first Greek to get the Russian COVID-19 vaccine in Moscow and spoke with Sputnik Hellas about his experience.
Aslanidis became the first Greek to try the Russian vaccine against COVID-19. The president of the Greek community of Anapa revealed to Sputnik Hellas that a friend urged him to get the vaccine and immediately took the first plane to Moscow.
They checked everything for me before the vaccine
The 67-year-old Pontian lives permanently in Anapa, Russia, where he has his own vineyard with the wine called Old Greek and is currently at home, after receiving the vaccine five days ago.
I got the vaccine in Moscow four days ago. A friend of mine from wrestling, a champion of the Soviet Union, called me and told me to get the vaccine whenever I wanted. I immediately got a plane ticket to Moscow and went to the center. It was a wonderful center and they did all the necessary exams for me. They checked me everywhere, they looked at my blood, my antibodies, I did a coronavirus test, they checked my lungs. Everything. After two hours, after they saw that I was fine, they gave me the vaccine. We went to the room that had a security door and had a refrigerator with a temperature of -32 degrees. They showed me the vaccine that was frozen and melted it, because it must be at -18 to be done. And they gave me the vaccine. Then I went to the doctor to sit for 30 minutes, he said.
On the 21st day after the first vaccine, you do the second
Aslanidis told Sputnik Hellas about the whole process that followed after the vaccine and what the doctors advised him to watch out for, so that after three weeks he can do the second dose.
The doctor asked me how I was. I was fine and he kicked me out. He told me to keep texting him how I am, if I have a fever, if my hand hurts, if I have anything in general. He took my temperature five or six times everyday and I had absolutely nothing. I was like I was before the vaccine. Then he told me to go again in two weeks to see the antibodies from the first vaccine again. If all goes well, then on the 21st day after the first vaccination, you do the second. The first vaccine lasts you three to six months and the second two years or more. The first vaccine is for how you feel and then you go for the second. The vaccine, according to the instructions, says that those who are 60 years old to do it, and I am 67, but I have nothing , the Judo Olympian emphasizes.
Its not as easy as the flu vaccine
The former world champion, after completing his athletic career, decided to dedicate himself to what he loved and created the traditional vineyard of the Old Greek in the Pontic village of Vitiazevo in Anapa and is in fact one of the most prominent citizens. That was one of the first reasons the vaccine was given.
Where I got the vaccine, it was made by ministers, deputy ministers and Putins friends. All his own people. Only 12,000 have been vaccinated in Russia, according to statistics, and more will be done in November. It is not as easy as the flu vaccine. They have to test you. If you have heart problems, if you have antibodies and more, you cannot get the vaccine. It is not free to be able to get the vaccine yet. You have to have friends. Putins relatives, eight people did it and they are all fine. I did not pay anything, I did it for free, he pointed out.
The vaccine kills the coronavirus
Many people are afraid to take the risk and get the vaccine now, but Aslanidis is not one of them:
I was not afraid. What should I be afraid of? After the 21 days that will pass, I will see how it evolved and I will recommend it to others. Now Im fine, I was not in pain at all, I did not have a fever, nothing. A month ago I also got the flu vaccine. In Russia they have new technology, the coronavirus kills the vaccine, it does not allow it to penetrate deeper into the body. And all my friends who did it are fine.
The coronavirus did not come for a few months and we have to get the vaccine
Aslanidis is a patriarch for the Pontians of the region and managed to unite them and advises everyone about the vaccine:
The coronavirus did not come for a few months, but it will last a long time and we have to get the vaccine. It is not only possible to live with masks and not go to work. The doctors told me for the first two weeks to be careful not to get sick. Then I will be free, neither masks nor anything. My friends who have done it do not wear masks. I tell you again, Im fine. Be careful and always with health to everyone, he concluded.
George Vrontakis is a correspondent for Sputnik Hellas
While there has been a lot of talk and hope that an effective Covid-19 vaccine will be available soon, top experts say an affordable tool that already exists is just as important in the fight against the pandemic: masks.
Dr. Christina Brennan, vice president of clinical research at Northwell Health's Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, told "60 Minutes" on Sunday that if she had to choose between a mask or a vaccine, a mask is more important.
"With our social distancing, wearing of the mask, the data's already showing that it's been effective. It's, you know, cost savings, and it's effective. And it can go a long way," said Brennan, who oversees multiple clinical trials using drugs such as Remdesivir, which President Donald Trump received on Oct. 2, to treat Covid-19.
Dr. David Ho, a world renowned virologist working on developing monoclonal antibody therapies for Covid-19 at Columbia University, who also appeared on "60 Minutes," emphasizes the importance of masks too. He tells CNBC Make It that "masks are key right now." But "we need as many tools in our tool box as we can have in dealing with this pandemic," says Ho, and "vaccines and therapies would make a huge difference as well."
Dr. Kevin Tracey, who spoke to "60 Minutes" and heads the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health, says masks are key in tackling Covid-19 now.
"The reality is we know the masks work," Tracey, who is doing clinical trials and research around Covid-19 treatments, tells Make It. But also, "we know we need to make therapies and vaccines."
It's a similar case to HIV, says Tracey: treatments for HIV are "pretty effective," but he still advises people to have safe sex with condoms because they can prevent infection.
Masks are "pretty good" at preventing infection, too, Tracey says. "But neither [masks nor vaccines] are perfect."
Multiple studies throughout the pandemic have found that wearing masks is linked to lower transmission rates. Tracey cited a recent study from Northwell Health that found healthcare workers had a lower infection rate than the general public because they wore PPE at all times.
While the study is good news, Tracey says we still need a vaccine and therapies to fight Covid-19 going forward. He predicts effective Covid-19 therapies will be readily available in another year or two.
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Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, tells Lawrence O'Donnell that Johnson & Johnson pausing clinical trials after an "unexplained" illness is "reassuring that the process by which we are developing the vaccine is working." Dr. Jha says Trump claiming he's immune "sends all the wrong public health messages."Oct. 13, 2020
For a long time, drug makers have been the most hated industry in America. Companies are blamed for gouging prices on lifesaving drugs and enriching themselves through the opioid crisis, among other sins.
Now, with pharmaceutical companies racing to find vaccines to end the coronavirus pandemic, the industry is hoping to redeem itself in the publics mind.
The primary goal, of course, is to rescue the world from the grips of a vicious virus. But a big fringe benefit is to get public credit and to use an improved image to fend off government efforts to more heavily regulate the industry.
Consider Johnson & Johnson, one of the worlds largest health care companies.
In recent years, its reputation has been battered by accusations that products like its artificial hips and talcum powder have harmed customers. In 2019, an Oklahoma judge ordered the company to pay $572 million for contributing to the opioid epidemic.
This spring, Johnson & Johnson jumped into the hunt for a Covid-19 vaccine; its candidate is now in the final stage of clinical trials. (On Monday, the company said it had temporarily paused the study after a participant became sick with an unexplained illness.)
Regardless of whether the vaccine ever comes to market, the company is looking to create a surge of positive publicity from its work. Its chief executive, Alex Gorsky, went on the Today show this spring and called Johnson & Johnsons lab workers heroes. The company has produced a slick, self-promotional online video series, The Road to a Vaccine, featuring feel-good interviews with the companys scientists and segments on issues like whether it is safe to send children back to school.
Johnson & Johnsons efforts to develop a vaccine will show that J&J is a company full of people with heart and soul who are doing this 24-7, with all their science and know-how, Dr. Paul Stoffels, the companys chief scientific officer, said in an interview. While the companys image at times has been trashed, he said, I hope that we can get to a better reputation.
That is a widely held sentiment across the pharmaceutical industry. Companies are looking for public makeovers as a political battle over drug price controls looms. Others are seizing the once-in-a-generation opportunity to raise money for future projects from investors and the government.
For an industry demonized by consumers and politicians, the hunt for a vaccine offers a path to redemption, said J. Stephen Morrison, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.
Last fall, a Gallup poll found that drug makers had the worst reputation of any American industry. Americans were twice as likely to rate the industry negatively as positively. Drug companies were even less popular than the federal government.
The pandemic and the high hopes for a fast, safe, effective vaccine appears to be changing that perception, at least for now. This spring, other opinion polls showed that Americans views of the industry were improving.
When Gallup released the results of this years annual survey, conducted in the first half of August, the results confirmed that the pharmaceutical industrys reputation had gotten a bit better. Now, it is second to last, having inched past the U.S. government.
Public opinion matters. The industry is facing a fight in Washington over price controls, which could take a bite out of companies profits in the United States. The latest salvo came last month when President Trump issued an executive order that called for capping the costs of some prescription drugs.
The industrys largest trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, is fighting back by invoking the industrys effort to fight the coronavirus. It denounced Mr. Trumps executive order as a reckless attack on the very companies working around the clock to beat Covid-19.
Kim Monk, managing director of Capital Alpha Partners, a policy research firm in Washington, said finding a safe and effective vaccine could help drug companies in their campaign to stave off price controls. You dont even need to say it, she said. Its part of the strategy.
To be sure, the race for a coronavirus vaccine is much more than a public relations play. Scientists at pharmaceutical companies take great pride in their work to combat human suffering. And there is immense prestige involved in being among the first to successfully conquer a devastating global pandemic.
There are also potentially enormous profits on the line.
Vaccines are often thought of as the pharmaceutical industrys sleepy, low-profit backwater, but that is not always the case, said Dr. David Bishai, a professor of health economics at Johns Hopkins Universitys school of public health.
Prevnar, a vaccine to prevent pneumococcal disease, which leads to ear and sinus infections, is Pfizers top-selling product, responsible for nearly $6 billion in revenue last year.
Mercks Gardasil, which protects against human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that can cause cervical cancer, generated close to $4 billion in sales last year, making it the companys third-best seller.
While drug makers generally do not disclose what they earn on individual drugs, two of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi, have said in securities filings that the profit margins in their vaccine divisions are greater than in their other lines of business.
Ronny Gal, an analyst at Bernstein, estimated that sales from a coronavirus vaccine could be up to $20 billion in the first year alone. And since diseases are rarely eradicated, vaccines tend to be a very long-term business, he said.
Two leading drug makers have pledged to not profit from their vaccines. But those promises are laden with caveats.
Johnson & Johnson has said it will sell the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use. But the company hasnt explained in detail how it will define not for profit. In any case, when the emergency pandemic phase of the crisis ends, the company will no longer be bound by its pledge. Jake Sargent, a Johnson & Johnson spokesman, said the end of the emergency phase will be defined at a future date by global health authorities.
Another major drug company, AstraZeneca, has made a similar pledge not to profit on its vaccine, which is also in large clinical trials, during the pandemic. But in a contract with one of its manufacturers, AstraZeneca has suggested that it can declare the pandemic to be over as soon as July 2021 around the time that a successful vaccine is likely to be sold worldwide, according to The Financial Times.
The company has committed to supplying the potential vaccine at no profit during this pandemic period, said an AstraZeneca spokeswoman, Michele Meixell. It is too early to determine pricing post-pandemic.
The Covid-19 vaccine business is likely to be unusually lucrative because much of the risk has been taken out of the equation. The federal government has entered into deals with companies totaling more than $10 billion to develop, manufacture and distribute coronavirus vaccines. Drug companies usually spend small fortunes to market their products. But that will probably not be required to generate public interest in a coronavirus vaccine.
If you get a vaccine and it gets recommended by the C.D.C., you barely need a sales force, said Geoffrey Porges, the director of therapeutics research at the investment bank SVB Leerink.
A successful vaccine could be a transformative moment for unproven companies like Moderna and Novavax, which have never previously brought vaccines to market. But even being involved in the race is proving financially fruitful for smaller firms.
The German biotech firm CureVac, which says it hopes to have a successful vaccine by the end of the year, raised $245 million in August when it began trading on the Nasdaq. It is now valued at nearly $10 billion, despite never having brought a product to market.
Ms. Monk of Capital Alpha Partners said drug makers large and small were likely to benefit from any association with fighting the coronavirus. For an industry that is not viewed favorably by the public, she said, this is a real opportunity for them to put on a white hat and save the world.
Heather Griggs, a registered nurse and operations chief of the Umatilla County Public Health Department contact tracing center in Pendleton, Ore., updates a list of job assignments. Griggs is among the thousands of contact tracers nationwide. Ben Lonergan/AP hide caption
Heather Griggs, a registered nurse and operations chief of the Umatilla County Public Health Department contact tracing center in Pendleton, Ore., updates a list of job assignments. Griggs is among the thousands of contact tracers nationwide.
The United States has more than 50,000 contact tracers for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic hit, according to a survey of states conducted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in collaboration with NPR.
The total number of contact tracers reported in all U.S. states and territories was 53,116. That's four times the number of contact tracers states reported to NPR in its initial survey in late April, but it falls far short of the more than 100,000 that public health experts have been calling for since the pandemic began seven months ago.
"I see us inching up in terms of increasing the contact tracing personnel, [though] still only really halfway to where we need to be," says Danielle Allen, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University and a co-author of a handbook of COVID-19 policy. This latest survey shows a nearly 30% increase from NPR's last survey in early August, which found 41,122 contact tracers across the country, but some of that increase is due to the fact that more states are now included.
Contact tracing staffing "feels stagnant," says Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. She oversaw the survey in collaboration with NPR. "I don't see a lot of evidence that we have a new push or renewed interest in trying to prepare for what we might see this winter," she says, "and we're already seeing cases tick up across the U.S. and in Europe."
Here are six takeaways from this latest survey
1. Most states' contact tracing workforce falls short of need
Only a handful of states currently have enough public health workers to investigate their coronavirus cases, according to an NPR analysis. This has been the case each time NPR has surveyed states. This time, only Oregon and Vermont and Washington, D.C., have enough. Four more states Maine, Montana, New York, and Hawaii have enough when reserve staff are included. And 44 states fall short of need.
The analysis, based on state case counts over the past 14 days, was done using an estimating tool developed by The Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at the George Washington University. As in June and August, NPR assumed workers are calling 10 contacts per case and that tracers reach 45% of contacts and follow up with them every other day a conservative estimate, to reflect the real-world challenges health workers face.
2. Amid case surges, contact tracing can't solve everything
Watson says states need to keep increasing staffing to help curb transmission, but that contact tracing can't stop the pandemic on its own especially when cases are surging in many places.
She and her team landed on a new threshold above which contact tracing can't keep up: 10 coronavirus cases per day per 100,000 people. That threshold is "based both on the data that we're seeing and on discussions that we've had with public health officials at the local and state levels."
"It's easy for these systems to become overwhelmed," Watson explains. When cases rise, they can rise quickly much faster than a public health team can hire more tracers. The threshold underscores that contact tracing "is not the silver bullet it is a necessary component of a successful response, but we can't rely on it once we have out-of-control epidemics in communities," she says. Instead, communities need to turn to more aggressive interventions, such as closing businesses and mask mandates.
Jane Yackley, an epidemiologist with the Tennessee Department of Health, agrees that contact tracing can only be successful when combined with other measures. She highlights the need to "make staying home the easy choice" for people who are infected or exposed.
"Contact tracing continues to be one piece of the puzzle; it will not eradicate COVID-19 and it cannot work if people cannot (or will not) comply," Yackley wrote in response to the survey. "The perceived 'failure' of contact tracing is a failure of expectations. Contact tracing alone cannot control this level of disease."
3. States adapt to surging cases and plan to hire more staff
Asked if they had needed to change their contact tracing process during a surge, six states said they had, 21 reported they had not, while others said the question was not applicable or the answer was unknown.
"I do think that many programs will be overwhelmed at some point during this pandemic," Watson says. "So it's worth considering what that means for contact tracing whether it means that more federal support is needed, more reserve staff or different approaches to contact tracing when transmission gets really high."
More than half of states that responded to the survey said they plan to hire still more contact tracers, even seven months into the response. In all, states reported plans to bring on more than 3,500 workers.
"I think it means they can now see the value of it both for actually contributing to disease suppression and for delivering really valuable data, intelligence and knowledge," Allen says. "They realize they need to catch up."
One state that said that increased cases were causing delays in contact tracing efforts was Wisconsin. "We are maximizing limited resources in attending to the surge in number as well as the increased complexity of cases," Elizabeth Goodsitt, a communications specialist wrote in response to the survey.
She noted that "the fluctuations in workload makes staff retention challenging," and funding issues may be hindering local health departments from hiring and training up new staff quickly.
Michigan, which had relied primarily on volunteers to handle contact tracing, has also had to adjust. "This worked really well until colleges and schools led to large increases so we are flexing to more paid staff," Katie Macomber of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services wrote in response to the survey.
4. More states are sharing contact tracing data with the public
Contact tracing is also a tool for understanding where transmission is happening in a community.
"The thing that's incredibly valuable about contact tracing at this point is the literal intelligence the knowledge and understanding that it gives decision-makers," Allen says. "If you can work out that you have a whole cluster coming from one specific kind of activity, then that's what you shut down you have to shut down everything."
In this survey, nearly every state reported gathering transmission information and other metrics from contact tracing. Twenty-two states reported sharing that information publicly on a government website up from 14 states last time.
Watson points out that public information about contact tracing staff numbers is surprisingly less likely to be public than details about transmission.
5. Many states have launched apps but are concerned about public acceptance
The traditional method of contact tracing is people and resource intensive trained public health workers call and interview every person who tests positive and follow up with that person's close contacts for days to ensure that they quarantine.
Since the spring, there has been a great deal of interest in a technological shortcut. North and South Dakota were early adopters of contact tracing apps. Since Google and Apple joined forces to facilitate the creation of contact tracing apps, Virginia has launched one, along with New York and New Jersey.
In all, the new survey found 20 states reported currently using a contact tracing app or related technology, with nine more planning to deploy one in the future. The main concerns states cite about these apps were related to getting the public to use and accept this technology, with privacy concerns close behind.
"I'm curious to see how many people download these apps, how much of a push public health departments put on people adopting them I think really remains to be seen," Watson says.
And it may be difficult to measure how much these apps help curb the spread of the virus, Allen says. "Precisely because they're privacy protective, it's actually very hard to figure out what kind of impact they've had," she explains.
Looking to countries like Switzerland that have been using apps, she says they "definitely catch some cases, but it's at the margins, it's not like it's a transformative thing. It's definitely not the kind of thing that's going to make or break our response."
In other words, there's no getting around the need for many trained public health workers who can do the time-consuming, labor-intensive work of making a lot of phone calls.
6. Still no significant federal resources
States have tried to meet the need for contact tracers without a lot of help or resources from the federal government. Some have relied on volunteers; others have raised money from private philanthropists.
The need is significant. In April, a group of former federal officials who wrote a letter to Congress calling for increased contact tracing support estimated that $12 billion in federal funding would be needed to pay for new hires. There are some efforts in Congress to better fund and coordinate contact tracing, but the prospects of a coronavirus relief bill have grown dim with the election only weeks away.
Watson says that in the face of rising case numbers, members of the public and policymakers might be tempted to "blame contact tracing for failing if transmission starts to run away again and I think it's not fair to put that on contact tracing, especially when it's not been resourced appropriately."
Without this financial support, Allen says the country's contact tracing workforce will likely "just keep inching up," even if coronavirus cases spike.
The spread of novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) in Nigeria continues to record increases as the latest statistics provided by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control reveal Nigeria now has 60,655 confirmed cases.
On the 13th of October 2020, 225 new confirmed cases and 1 death were recorded in Nigeria, having carried out a total daily test of 969 samples across the country.
To date, 60,655 cases have been confirmed, 52,006 cases have been discharged and 1,116 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. A total of 558,313 tests have been carried out as of October 13th, 2020 compared to 554,006 tests a day earlier.
According to the NCDC, the 225 new cases were reported from 11 states- Lagos (165), FCT (17), Rivers (13), Ogun (12), Niger (8), Delta (4), Ondo (2), Anambra (1), Edo (1), Ekiti (1), Kaduna (1)
Meanwhile, the latest numbers bring Lagos state total confirmed cases to 20,251, followed by Abuja (5,849), Plateau (3,545), Oyo (3,315), Rivers (2,674), Edo (2,637), Kaduna (2,520), Ogun (1,952), Delta (1,807), Kano (1,740), Ondo (1,652), Enugu (1,309), Kwara (1,050), Ebonyi (1,044), Osun (906), Abia (898), Katsina (896), Gombe (883). Borno (745), and Bauchi (710).
Imo State has recorded 585 cases, Benue (483), Nasarawa (472), Bayelsa (403), Jigawa (325), Ekiti (324), Akwa Ibom (295), Niger (269), Anambra (255), Adamawa (248), Sokoto (162), Taraba (108), Kebbi (93), Cross River (87), Zamfara and Yobe (79), while Kogi state has recorded 5 cases only.
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In a move to combat the spread of the pandemic disease, President Muhammadu Buhari directed the cessation of all movements in Lagos and the FCT for an initial period of 14 days, which took effect from 11 pm on Monday, 30th March 2020.
The movement restriction, which was extended by another two-weeks period, has been partially put on hold with some businesses commencing operations from May 4. On April 27th, 2020, Nigerias President, Muhammadu Buhari declared an overnight curfew from 8 pm to 6 am across the country, as part of new measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19. This comes along with the phased and gradual easing of lockdown measures in FCT, Lagos, and Ogun States, which took effect from Saturday, 2nd May 2020, at 9 am.
On Monday, 29th June 2020 the federal government extended the second phase of the eased lockdown by 4 weeks and approved interstate movement outside curfew hours with effect from July 1, 2020. Also, on Monday 27th July 2020, the federal government extended the second phase of eased lockdown by an additional one week.
On Thursday, 6th August 2020 the federal government through the secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 announced the extension of the second phase of eased lockdown by another four (4) weeks.
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Nearly 22,000 COVID-19 tests have been performed in Greenwood County as of Sunday and local health officials use different types of tests to meet different needs.
Dr. Chris Oxendine at Abbeville Area Medical Center said the best way to break down test types is by ones used to determine acute infection, which includes PCR and antigen testing, and testing to determine if someone had been previously infected, which is testing for antibodies.
PCR, or polymerase chain reaction tests, are considered the most sensitive tests available and are often used in hospital labs and by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.
This takes genetic material from the virus and amplifies it, allowing for the increased sensitivity, Oxendine said in an emailed statement. The downside of this test is the turnaround and cost.
AAMC sends samples for these tests out to be completed by state-approved labs, but Oxendine said the hospital will soon be able to run these tests in-house. Hospital staff uses these types of tests in mobile testing events.
Rapid antigen tests are used for point-of-care testing at AAMC, Oxendine said. These test for specific types of proteins that are part of the virus. While these tests are typically less sensitive than a PCR test, the benefit is the results come quicker and they are less expensive, making them more accessible for clinics, nursing homes and other similar settings.
Antibody tests dont check if the patient is sick but instead looks to see if they were infected in the past and have since developed an immune response. AAMC will soon be able to run these tests, and in mid-November will be a part of a DHEC and University of South Carolina prevalence study.
A selection letter will be mailed to a random sample of people across South Carolina, Oxendine said. If the letter recipient chooses to participate they will come to AAMC and have labs taken at no cost to the patient. This information will be shared with the state.
At Self Regional Healthcare, staff members are using four different test platforms, but all are PCR based tests, said Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs Dr. Matt Logan.
Cepheid is a rapid test used mostly for patients being admitted to the hospital, and it yields results in about 45 minutes to 2 hours.
Abbott ID Now is used in Selfs urgent care centers, but once supplies are more readily available, the hospital wants to expand use. The Abbott tests can only be run one at a time, and its less sensitive than other test platforms if the patient is asymptomatic, but it yields results in about 15 minutes.
Since these machines can only run 4-5 tests per hour, it is not appropriate for use in our drive-through testing line, Logan said in an emailed statement.
When available, Self staff use the Panther test platform for drive-thru testing. Its a rapid test that allows batches of specimens to be run at the same time, with results sometimes available the same day. The most common test at the drive-thru line, however, is still the DHEC swab. These cotton swabs are sent off to a testing lab, and yield results within two or three days.
All of the above tests are frequently in short supply in the U.S., so there are days when we must make substitutions based on what we can source at the time, Logan said. We do have ability to test for COVID-19 antibodies in the blood, however, testing for antibodies is not appropriate to diagnose acute COVID-19 infection. This is because developing antibodies after infection with COVID-19 takes time and the response is variable from person to person.
Work is still underway to develop and improve testing platforms, along with the continued work on developing a vaccine for the virus. For now, however, health officials are still recommending hand hygiene, wearing masks and social distancing as the main ways to avoid getting sick or spreading the virus.
Contact staff writer Damian Dominguez at 864-634-7548 or follow on Twitter @IJDDOMINGUEZ.
RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) Here is the latest COVID-19 data from the Virginia Department of Health.
According to the health department, Virginia now has 160,805 cases 151,357 confirmed and 9,448 probable. Since yesterday 1,235 new cases have been reported.
A total of people have been hospitalized due to the virus and 3,372 people have reportedly died because of it thats 11 new deaths in the last 24 hours.
The states positivity rate remains at 4.5 percent.
If you would like to get tested for COVID-19, the following testing locations are free.
RICHMOND
CHESTERFIELD
FREDERICKSBURG
Virginia Commonwealth University
As of Oct. 12, the college has reported:
University of Richmond
As of Oct. 12, here is what the college has reported:
James Madison University
The universitys dashboard as of Oct. 9 shows that:
