While the medical world rushes to develop an effective and safe vaccine for the deadly coronavirus which is sweeping across the planet, millions of doses of other life-saving immunizations against other diseases, continue to be delivered by the United Nations - albeit at a somewhat slower pace.
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, testifies ... [+] during a US Senate Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to examine Covid-19, focusing on an update on the federal response in Washington, DC, on September 23, 2020. (Photo by Graeme JENNINGS / POOL / AFP) (Photo by GRAEME JENNINGS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
With four vaccines against Covid-19 in the final stage of U.S. clinical trials and a fifth on its way, Dr. Anthony Fauci sees the potential for vaccines to hold promise in some patient populations better than others.
Fauci said late last week he remains optimistic about vaccines in their final stage of development and he believes Americans will begin to be vaccinated in November and December. And as vaccines are approved, researchers may find that one works better on one population than others.
There may be different vaccines for different situations, Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Dr. Howard Bauchner, editor of JAMA during an interview Friday afternoon.
Fauci made his comments a day after Maryland-based Novavax said it would begin phase 3 clinical trials of its coronavirus vaccine in the United Kingdom. Fauci said the Novavax vaccine is expected to begin final stage clinical trials in the U. S. in October.
We have the first four and one more, Novavax, is going into a phase 3 trial,Fauci said. We have a bunch of candidates going.
The Novavax trial is the fifth supported by the U.S. governments Operation Warp Speed effort designed to quickly bring vaccines against Covid-19 to market. Novavax, which has never brought a vaccine to market, was awarded a $1.6 billion grant to produce 100 million dosages of a coronavirus vaccine by early next year.
The four other vaccines against Covid-19 in final-stage U.S. clinical trials are being developed by Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, providing several options should one not be as effective as another.
You might find when you do a clinical trial, that you maybe have three or four vaccines that are effective, Fauci told JAMAs Bauchner.
But you may find one that does better in an older population than another, Fauci added. It could be that you would recommend, that if you are an older person you get this vaccine versus that. That is something we wish for namely that we have enough vaccines that you can tailor the better one for each individual group.
Watch the entire video of JAMAs interview with Fauci that included a detailed update on Covid-19 vaccine development:
Raina MacIntyre, who heads the biosecurity program at the Kirby Institute of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, said she would not recommend the emergency use of vaccines before the conclusion of Phase 3 trials. AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish company, halted late-stage testing in the United States on a vaccine candidate this month after one volunteer fell seriously ill for unknown reasons.
Flawed vaccines can cause significant health problems. In 2017, children who were injected with Sanofis dengue vaccine became sicker. Children vaccinated against respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V., in the 1960s also suffered side effects, resulting in trials being scrapped.
Broad inoculation campaigns also increase the risk of getting multiple vaccines, which could have adverse effects on a persons immune response.
It may be three to six months before we get Phase 3 trial results its not that long to wait, Dr. MacIntyre said. You are potentially muddying the waters for the time when we do have Phase 3 trial data for the best possible vaccine.
Still, China may not want to wait.
In an interview with China Central Television, the state broadcaster, Mr. Zheng, the health official, said that when cold weather arrived, the government might consider expanding the scope of who qualified for emergency use, adding people who work in markets, transportation and the service industry.
The goal is to first establish an immune barrier among special populations, so that the operations of the entire cities will have a stable guarantee, Mr. Zheng said.
The vaccine makers and local governments stress that participation is voluntary, and many people who take the vaccines pay a considerable amount to do so. According to government notices, the vaccines would cost about $148, putting them out of reach for many in a country where 600 million people make that much in a month.
By: Explained Desk | Pune | Updated: September 27, 2020 4:57:04 pmCommuters wearing protective masks board a subway during morning rush hour in New York (Photographer: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg)
Coronavirus vaccine tracker: Nearly half the respondents in a new survey in the United States have said they would definitely, or probably, not take a coronavirus vaccine if it were to become available today.
Pew Research Centre, which carried out the survey among over 10,000 US adults between September 8 and 13, said the percentage of people who were willing to take the medicine had come down sharply from 72 per cent in May, when it had last conducted a similar survey, to 51 per cent now.
Only 21 per cent of the respondents said they would definitely take the vaccine, if it were available now.
Public confidence in the coronavirus vaccines being developed has been low because of the speed with which the process is moving and apprehensions that it was being driven more by political considerations rather than by science.
Almost 77 per cent of the respondents in the Pew survey said they believed it was very, or somewhat, likely that a coronavirus vaccine would be approved in the United States before its safety or effectiveness was fully understood.
Because of such concerns, nine big pharmaceutical companies which are developing a vaccine for Covid19 disease, had earlier this month issued a statement promising to follow the rigorous methods of science in the pursuit of a vaccine. Last week, three of the leading developers AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna also came out with detailed information on the clinical trials they were carrying out. Such information is usually not made public until the trials are completed and their results published.
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Among those who, in the Pew survey, said they would be reluctant to take the vaccine, 76 per cent flagged concerns about potential side effects as the reason for their unwillingness, while 72 per cent said they would like to have more information about these vaccines.
About 31 per cent of these people said they did not think they needed a vaccine.
The ones most talked about:
* AstraZeneca/Oxford University* Moderna* Pfizer/BioNTech* Johnson & Johnson* Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline* Novavax* Russian vaccine, developed by Gamaleya Insttiute in Moscow* Three Chinese vaccines that have been approved for use in China without phase-3 trials being completed. One of them has been given emergency use authorisation in UAE
(As on September 25; source: WHO Coronavirus vaccine landscape of September 22, 2020)
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TORONTO -- Nearly 200 COVID-19 vaccines are in development, and more than 60 of those are at various stages of human testing.
But for some, a vaccine isnt coming soon enough, so they have taken to making their own and giving them to others despite criticism that this could be dangerous for recipients and set back the entire vaccination movement.
Known as the citizen science vaccine initiative, some independent scientists, technologists and science enthusiasts are designing "do-it-yourself inoculations" against COVID-19. They say it is their only chance to become immune without waiting a year or more for a vaccine to be formally approved.
Preston Estep, an American biologist and co-founder of the Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative (RaDVaC) in Boston, has created his own inhaled vaccine and is currently testing it on himself.
I was guinea pig number 1, Estep said in an interview with CTV News.
While COVID-19 vaccines are being developed at record speed, it will still take months and possibly years before those inoculations are widely administered to the public.
We didn't have the time to wait for that, so we employed a longstanding tradition in vaccines and in medicine more generally, of self-experimentation to try to accelerate that process, Estep explained.
However, Estep and his colleagues are not the only ones designing DIY vaccines. Other scientists are also using this unconventional approach to find an immunization against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
For Esteps vaccine, he and other researchers with RaDVaC used common ingredients and fragments of the coronavirus protein to produce a liquid they think will boost the immune system's ability to recognize the virus.
The vaccine consists of just a few very simple ingredients. It can be easily made, we make it in a private lab but we could make it at home, Estep said.
It could be made in a physician's office very easily, he added.
He explained that the vaccine consists of just five ingredients, two of which are water and sodium chloride. He said the other ingredients are relatively accessible and extremely well-tested while minimal equipment is required.
RaDVaC has shared the formula for the vaccine online, but no one knows yet if it works.
Whether or not it provides protective immunity is an open question, but that's an open question for every vaccine, Estep said.
He said their vaccine poses minimal risk and has not shown any adverse reactions in those who have taken it.
We've had a couple of people experience mild headaches, out of the well over 100 doses that I've recorded in the dosage log, so it's pretty mild relative to the other commercial vaccines that are in production and in clinical trials, Estep said.
While RaDVaC consists of scientists and engineers that Estep says have a level of competence to judge the safety of the vaccine, other experts are warning that this kind of self-experimentation can be dangerous.
The biggest concern is that information about how to develop this vaccine in untrained hands really could lead to serious health harms, University of Illinois law professor Jacob Sherkow said in an interview with CTV News.
Sherkow said there is also concern that the DIY vaccine trend may spread beyond COVID-19.
As people learn about the do-it-yourself vaccine movement for COVID specifically, there's going to be hesitancy to take a vaccine that otherwise is commercially developed, either because of anti-government or anti-regulatory leanings, Sherkow explained.
Additionally, Sherkow said DIY vaccines may give ammunition to anti-vaccination conspiracy theories that are just starting to currently bubble over in the COVID context.
While it is impossible to stop someone from experimenting on themselves, critics say government regulators should step in and monitor this homemade vaccine trend.
Vaccines, before theyre approved, need to undergo clinical trials to ensure that theyre both safe and effective, Sherkow said.
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CTV is publishing this story about do-it-yourself inoculations against COVID-19 because news about the development of a vaccine is very much in the public interest. However, CTV strongly discourages people from engaging in the highly dangerous action of taking do-it-yourself inoculations.
Nicholas, 65, had gone into the hospital after experiencing trouble breathing. Five days later, he went into the intensive care unit because his breathing got worse.
It didn't take long for doctors to determine that Nicholas and his wife, Mary Jane, both had Covid-19. While hospitalized, he learned of his older brother's death, and 12 days later, Nicholas, too, succumbed to the virus.
Family members said Nicholas and Ralph, 68, were great friends and enjoyed spending time together, especially on family vacations.
Mary Jane and Ralph's widow, Ann, described their husbands as being "big family men" and said they "loved being grandfathers."
Ann said that after Ralph died, more than 50 employees of JetBlue, where he worked, drove past their house to honor his life.
Mary Jane said on the day she brought Nicholas' ashes home, her neighbors honored him with signs and banners and raised a glass to Nicholas.
Remembering Ralph's legacy
Ralph Thomas Gismondi was born July 30, 1951, in Queens, New York, to Josephine and Nicholas Gismondi. He attended Mater Christi High School, St. Johns College and Queens College, majoring in history.
Ralph served as a member of the New York City Fire Department and retired at the rank of captain. He was among the first responders on duty on September 11, 2001. Ralph also served as a flight attendant for JetBlue Airlines and was still employed there when he died, Ann said.
Ann said "he enjoyed traveling and loved working for JetBlue." She described Ralph as "one of the most sociable people you would ever want to meet."
"We have been together since I was 15 and he was 16," said Ann. They married in 1970 and had two daughters, Lisa and Lori.
"He was a very hands on father and grandfather," she said.
Ralph entered the hospital March 17 with symptoms of a cough, fever and shortness of breath. He tested positive for Covid-19 on March 19, and Ann tested positive a few days later.
Ralph died April 5 due to coronavirus complications. "I could not have a funeral for him. I did not have, you know, that closure. It was just a freaking nightmare," said Ann.
Ralph was the first JetBlue employee to die of the virus.
His friends and family attested to his great personality in his online obituary. "Simply the best, always made me feel happy" and "His kindness and friendship will always be remembered" were among the comments.
"He loved people and people loved him. He was a larger-than-life character," said Ann.
Along with Ann, Lisa and Lori, Ralph is survived by his grandchildren, Ally, Kera, Elvis, Dylan and Summer.
Remembering Nicholas' legacy
Nicholas Joseph Gismondi, was born April 12, 1955, in Queens. He was known by "Poppi" to those closest to him.
Nicholas attended Monsignor McClancy High School and was known as an exceptional baseball and basketball player. He earned the Brooklyn/Queens Player of the Year award and was inducted into McClancy's Hall of Fame. Scouts took notice of his baseball skills and recruited him to St. Francis College in Brooklyn, where he majored in accounting.
"He was kind, he was always laughing. He had a great laugh," Mary Jane said.
Nicholas met Mary Jane in 1974 at a small group dinner with mutual friends. They married in 1982 and had three sons, Christopher, Nicholas and Michael.
Christopher said his father was known as "someone who always wanted to turn life's lemons into lemonade."
They lived in Westfield, New Jersey, where Nicholas was known as a devoted member of the community. Nicholas, known by many in the community as "Mr. Nick," brought his passion for baseball to Westfield by serving as the president of the Westfield Baseball League. He was later inducted into the Westfield Booster Hall of Fame.
"Volunteerism and giving back to the community were very important to him," said Mary Jane.
On March 31, Nicholas and Mary Jane entered the hospital because of trouble breathing. Nicholas had symptoms of a cough and fever. Both tested positive for Covid-19.
Nicholas died from Covid-19 on April 17. He leaves behind his wife, his three children and two grandchildren, Juliette and Luke.
Nicholas and Ralph are survived by their sister, Joanne, and their parents, Josephine, 93, and Nicholas, 96.
Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution Scott Atlas holds a Covid-19 vaccine playbook and distribution plan during a press conference with US President Donald Trump in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House on September 16, 2020, in Washington, DC. (MANDEL NGAN/Getty Images North America/TNS)
Im dwelling on numbers because this week, the US officially counted 200,000 COVID-19 deaths. Words like grim milestone just dont seem adequate in the face of that toll.
Numbers are valuable. Case counts help scientists track the infections spread. Death tolls help policy makers figure out where things are going right or horribly wrong. Theyre utilitarian.
They can also hit like a derailed train.
Since I started this column two months ago, more than 345,470 people have died of COVID-19 around the world. 57,993 of those deaths were in the US.
Thats 345,470 people, each with families and friends and coworkers and enemies and cats and dogs and people who just saw them on the street while walking to the bus. Theyre gone. Their desks and armchairs and beds are empty. The people who loved them are red-eyed and sorting through the stuff they left behind. Each human lost cuts deep into communities, and the US has etched a wound into itself that is deeper than any other covid-wound on Earth.
Ive stopped looking at the numbers every hour, like I was doing this spring. But every Friday, when I look at the numbers on Johns Hopkins dashboard, its still a shock. I know Im not alone.
Shocked that would be the word that I would say captures my response to our current death numbers from the vantage point of February, David Celentano, the head of Johns Hopkins School of Public Healths epidemiology department, told Vox this week.
In February, the first US death was alarming. Now, around 800 people in the country are dying of the disease every day, and the sirens and alarm bells have blurred into the background of a horrible year.
When it comes to death, numbers like 200,000 are no more tragic than numbers like 145,763, or 12 or one. But the roundness of the number does help to turn up the volume on that incomprehensible din. Visuals that compare the national death toll to our neighborhoods and cities, like The Washington Posts brutal new interactive map, can help us understand the volume of death body by body and block by block. Comparisons to other death tolls can help us reckon with just how unprecedented this is.
The number of dead is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days. It is roughly equal to the population of Salt Lake City or Huntsville, Alabama, Carla K. Johnson wrote for The Associated Press.
Thinking beyond the USs borders more than 985,748 people have died of this disease. There are 74 different countries and territories around the world with populations smaller than that number.
Wrestling with the loss of a nations worth of people is not something that any one of us thought wed be dealing with this year. Every single death, every single case, ever since the pandemic roared into public consciousness in January, is one too many.
These numbers are the subject of all the science we talk about every week they provide the data that researchers use to study this disease. But the climb of these numbers is also an urgent motivation behind this research. Whether researchers are trying to find a vaccine, or a treatment, or figure out how the virus moves between us, or how it wrecks our bodies the goal is the same. No one can make those numbers go down but it is still possible to keep them from going up.
Heres what else happened this week.
Child deaths tied to covid-19 remain remarkably low, months into U.S. pandemicWhile the COVID-19 death toll in the United States remained the highest in the world, the fatality rate for people under 20 remained extraordinarily low. Experts are still trying to understand how the disease affects younger people. (Lenny Bernstein/The Washington Post)
The Core Lesson of the COVID-19 Heart DebateThere has been a lot of effort put into understanding some of the damage that COVID-19 can do to the heart. Many studies have poured out of labs, as a flood of data has rushed into them but many conclusions in the heart debate remain out of reach. Over at The Atlantic, Ed Yong discusses why, and finds that as pandemics get wider, they feel weirder. (Ed Yong/The Atlantic)
What Do Two New Studies Really Tell Us About Coronavirus Transmission on Planes?This is a good breakdown of some of the limitations behind two case studies that looked at coronavirus transmission on planes. (Jane C. Hu/Slate)
Johnson & Johnson Starts Phase 3 Trial for Single-Dose Coronavirus VaccineThis week, Johnson & Johnson started its large-scale trials for its vaccine in the US. Unlike many of the other candidates, this one is designed to only require a single dose potentially making is easier to distribute. A different company, Novavax, also entered phase three trials this week in the UK. (Elliot Hannon/Slate)
Here come the tortoises: In the race for a Covid-19 vaccine, slow starters could still win outAt STAT theres a good update on some of the other vaccine candidates. Pharma companies Merck and Sanofi are both moving more slowly and methodically, but are still very much making progress towards a vaccine. (Helen Branswell/STAT)
A Covid-19 Vaccine for Children May Not Arrive Before Fall 2021As vaccine development pushes ahead, one group is noticeably not represented in any of the vaccine trials underway in the US kids. Vaccine developers are keenly aware that children are not simply miniature adults. Carl Zimmer writes in The New York Times. Creating a vaccine that is safe and effective for children will likely take a lot more work, and a lot more time.(Carl Zimmer/The New York Times)
156 countries are teaming up for a Covid-19 vaccine. But not the US or China.How will a vaccine get distributed when we finally have a good candidate? Manufacturing and shipping issues aside, its going to be a massive political undertaking too. For a look at the international relations side of vaccine distribution, read up on Covax, an initiative that aims to distribute billions of doses worldwide by the end of next year. (Julia Belluz/Vox)
Averting a COVID-19 vaccination crisis will take careful communicationIn order for a vaccine to work, people have to be willing to take it. The Verges Nicole Wetsman talked with a vaccine hesitancy researcher about this vaccine, and what concerns public health experts will have to overcome. (For more expert opinions on a similar topic, check out Maggie Koerths `How To Know When You Can Trust A COVID-19 Vaccine` at Five Thirty Eight.) (Nicole Wetsman/The Verge)
The code: How genetic science helped expose a secret coronavirus outbreakThis is a great feature that dives deep into how researchers uncovered a single outbreak at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. (Sarah Kaplan, Desmond Butler, Juliet Eilperin, Chris Mooney and Luis Velarde/The Washington Post)
To the more than 32,397,479 people worldwide who have tested positive, may your road to recovery be smooth.
To the families and friends of the 985,748 people who have died worldwide 203,549 of those in the US your loved ones are not forgotten.
Stay safe, everyone.
Officials this week released statistics showing that the positivity rate in some Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods had grown to anywhere from 3 percent to 6 percent, significantly more than the citys overall rate of between 1 percent and 2 percent. Officials are especially worried about the positivity rates in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Borough Park, Midwood and Gravesend, which they have referred to as the Ocean Parkway Cluster.
Mr. de Blasio said on Friday on the Brian Lehrer radio show that the city had closed four yeshivas over violations of social distancing rules. This is an indicator of something well be fighting for a little while here, he said.
The uptick in these neighborhoods amounts to the first major virus challenge for the city after months of declining or flat numbers. The concern now is that if the outbreak spreads further in the Orthodox community, it could begin to take hold elsewhere, with even more serious consequences. If the citys overall positivity rate hits 3 percent, that would trigger a new lockdown, including the closing of public schools.
Visits to Borough Park showed how the rules are often ignored. The outbreak devastated New Yorks Orthodox Jewish community in March and April, but this week, there was hardly a face mask in sight, as if the pandemic had never happened.
In other U.S. news:
In rural Minnesota, a coronavirus survey was stopped after multiple occurrences of residents intimidating and shouting racial and ethnic slurs at workers going door-to-door, the states health department said. The state has reported an average of nearly 900 cases per day over the past week, according to a New York Times database.
Joining a growing number of colleges that have taken disciplinary action against Greek organizations that violate health rules, Indiana University has forced a fraternity to shut down through next summer because it held a large event at which people did not wear face masks or socially distance. The fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi, agreed to close its chapter house in Bloomington.
Two former leaders of a Massachusetts veterans home were indicted on charges of criminal neglect in connection with the coronavirus deaths of at least 76 residents at the facility, the states attorney general said on Friday. Bennett Walsh, 50, and Dr. David Clinton, 71, were indicted Thursday by a state grand jury on charges related to their work at the Holyoke Soldiers Home in Holyoke, Mass. Each man was indicted on five counts, and the specific charges were for caretakers who wantonly or recklessly permit or cause bodily injury and abuse, neglect or mistreatment of an older or disabled person.
The major U.S. stock indexes all rose on Friday, but the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average still recorded their fourth straight week of losses. The Dow closed with a 1.34 percent gain for the day, but was down 1.8 percent for the week, and the S&P 500 ended the 1.6 percent higher, but with a 0.6 percent loss for the week. The Nasdaq, which rose 2.26 percent on Friday, gained 1.1 percent for the week after ending the previous three weeks with declines.
Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia said on Friday that he and his wife, Pamela Northam, had tested positive for the virus. Mr. Northam, a Democrat, said that he felt fine, while his wife was experiencing mild symptoms. Gov. Mike Parson of Missouri, a Republican, announced Thursday that he and his wife, Teresa, had tested positive. Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, also a Republican, contracted the virus in July.
A federal judge barred the Trump administration from ending the 2020 census a month early, the latest twist in years of political and legal warfare over a contested population count that was delayed for months because of the pandemic. In U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge Lucy H. Koh issued a preliminary injunction on Friday preventing the administration from winding down the count by Sept. 30, a month before the scheduled completion date of Oct. 31.
In Boulder, Colo., public health officials have banned social gatherings of any size and issued a stay-at-home order for all people aged 18 to 22. The measure attributed a recent surge in cases to the reopening of the University of Colorados Boulder campus on Aug. 24, noting that 78 percent of new virus cases in the county were among that age group. The mandate will remain in effect until at least Oct. 8.
Less than a week before indoor dining resumes in New York City, Mayor de Blasio said that the citys outdoor dining program would be made permanent and year-round. Restaurants will have the option of enclosing their outdoor areas, but if they do, they will have to adhere to indoor dining restrictions of 25 percent capacity, the mayor said.
Reporting was contributed by Livia Albeck-Ripka, Hannah Beech, Pam Belluck, Choe Sang-Hun, Emily Cochrane, Karen Crouse, Johnny Diaz, Ben Dooley, Michael Gold, Emma Goldberg, Joseph Goldstein, Antonella Francini, Matthew Futterman, Rebecca Halleck, Winnie Hu, Makiko Inoue, Mike Ives, Isabel Kershner, Juliana Kim, Andrew E. Kramer, Dan Levin, Donald G. McNeil Jr., Sarah Mervosh, Raphael Minder, Saw Nang, Richard C. Paddock, Azi Paybarah, Bryan Pietsch, Daniel Politi, Alan Rappeport, Simon Romero, Julie Shaver, Dera Menra Sijabat, Mitch Smith, Liam Stack, Daniel E. Slotnik, Anna Schaverien, Eliza Shapiro, Jeanna Smialek, Mitch Smith, Eileen Sullivan, Michael Wines, Elaine Yu, Mihir Zaveri and Karen Zraick.
