Nigerian scientists claim to have discovered COVID-19 vaccine | Photo Credit: iStock Images
Ede, Osun: A team of Nigerian scientists claimed to have discovered a unique vaccine that may help prevent the novel coronavirus infection, according to local media. The discovery of the vaccine was announced on Friday by Nigerian Universities Scientists, under the aegis of COVID-19 Research Group, even as researchers all over the world race against time to find a cure for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has so far killed at least 465,300 people globally.
Dr Oladipo Kolawole, a specialist in Medical Virology, Immunology and Bioinformatics, at Adeleke University, Ede in Osun, and leader of the research team, said during a news conference that the vaccine was being developed locally in Africa for Africans, reported The Guardian Nigeria. According to Kolawole, the unnamed vaccine, when unveiled, would also work for other races.
Kolawole, however, said that it would take a minimum of 18 months before the vaccine would become available to the public for widespread use since a lot of analysis and trials as well as approvals by medical authorities were required.
Kolawole said the research initially received funding - roughly 7.8 million Nigerian nairas ($20,000) - from the Trinity Immunodeficient Laboratory and Helix Biogen Consult, Ogbomosho. He further added that the team had been working extensively by exploring the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from samples across Africa to select the best potential vaccine candidates.
He added that the researchers had been able to pick the best potential COVID-19 vaccine candidates and had made the possible latent constructs after trying out some selected processes of vaccine development.
Meanwhile, Prof Solomon Adebola, the Acting Vice-Chancellor of the university, said the university was poised to assist in the funding of the research with a view to bringing the vaccine to the limelight, the report added.
We are glad that a vaccine that will provide a solution to a global problem like coronavirus pandemic is coming from the garden. It is our passion to be a solution provider to such a global pandemic, and we are ready to throw our weights behind the team and make the vaccine a reality, Adebola said.
Furthermore, prof Julius Oloke, the Head, Coordinating Unit of the Research Group and Vice-Chancellor of Precious Cornerstone University, Ibadan, said the vaccine was real.
The vaccine is real. We have validated it several times. It is targeted at Africans, but will also work for other races. It will work. It cannot be faked. This is a result of the determination. It took a lot of scientific efforts. The population of those that need vaccines is more than those that need drugs. That is why the research focussed on a vaccine, he was quoted as saying by the report.
As per the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 13 experimental COVID-19 vaccines are currently being tested in humans and more than 120 candidates are in earlier stages of development.
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More than 25,000 people have volunteered so far to be infected with the novel coronavirus through 1DaySooner, an online recruitment organization, as an aid in testing vaccine candidates to prevent Covid-19. These volunteers know that Covid-19 can cause suffering and even death yet they are stepping forward, willing to risk their lives, because some researchers and academics contend that such experiments in humans could accelerate vaccine development.
As a physician and a scientist who has cared for patients and who has been involved in the development of vaccines, I feel the urgency to get a vaccine approved for global use. And I have deep admiration for the courageous volunteers who are willing to put themselves in danger.
In this situation, however, their sacrifice cannot be justified. Volunteers need to be protected from both known and unknown risks. The effort to develop a vaccine should not be jeopardized by this well-intentioned but unnecessary experiment.
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In the context of an ongoing pandemic, the conventional pace of vaccine development frustrates the public, the government, public health experts, vaccine creators, regulators, and others. It is understandable that many are seeking ways to accelerate the demonstration of safety and efficacy of vaccine candidates. The mumps vaccine, considered the fastest vaccine ever developed, took scientists four years to go from collecting viral samples to securing FDA approval in 1967. A decade or longer is more typical. Everyone is hoping that inventing, testing, obtaining approval and producing a Covid-19 vaccine might be on track to set a new record.
The practice of deliberately infecting people with disease, termed human challenge trials, has a long history. It is embedded in the origin of the very first vaccine in 1796, when Edward Jenner, an English physician, purposely infected his gardeners 8-year-old son with cowpox after observing that people previously infected with cowpox, a relatively mild disease, seemed protected from smallpox, one of the deadliest scourges of the time.
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Now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, human challenge studies are being considered again.
In the June 1 issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Nir Eyal, Marc Lipsitch, and Peter G. Smith argue that this approach could accelerate the development and approval of a Covid-19 vaccine by many months. That may sound tempting, but human challenge studies with live virus are unlikely to save time. Moreover, there are ethical and practical reasons for not undertaking human challenge studies with this virus. These authors, like 1DaySooners volunteers, are well-intentioned but wrong.
Those in favor of human challenge trials propose enrolling as subjects only healthy young adults, since the Covid-19 mortality rate in this group is low. Just 7% of all Covid-19-related deaths in the U.S. have occurred among those aged 25 to 54 years, compared to 80% in those over age 65. Yet the example of fatal infections in health care workers in the prime of life makes clear that even healthy non-elderly adults may succumb to the novel coronavirus.
Human challenge studies are generally contemplated only when rescue with a lifesaving treatment or intervention is available should a vaccine candidate not protect a volunteer from the disease. But there is no cure or treatment against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that can be deployed with confidence, making viral challenge particularly risky and ethically questionable.
Most people, likely including most of the volunteers, tend to think of vaccines as fully effective: They either work or dont. This belief generally stems from the success of vaccines for childhood diseases like measles and mumps. But some vaccines, especially those for adults, are much less effective: There are seasons when the flu vaccine is only 70% to 80% effective, or sometimes even less. Imagine, for a moment, that a vaccine candidate undergoing testing turns out to generate immunity in 80% of those who receive it. Then 20% will become infected with Covid-19.
An equally disturbing scenario is what if one of the first volunteers dies, either due to the play of chance, a problem with the vaccine, or the individuals genetic makeup? This is unlikely to happen but it can, and did, in another setting with consequences that stretched far beyond the single tragic death.
In 1999, Jesse Gelsinger volunteered for one of the first gene therapy trials. The 18-year-old had a rare metabolic genetic disorder, but his condition was managed with medication; he was basically healthy. He volunteered for a safety trial of a virus-based gene-therapy and died as a result. Missteps in the trial, and the subsequent controversy surrounding his death, set the field of gene therapy back by at least two decades. That hiatus deprived a generation of patients with genetic disorders of treatments.
With vaccines already a target of widespread misinformation campaigns, the death of a single volunteer would likely cause even greater damage. From a public health perspective, it would be especially disastrous if it both slowed the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine and fueled the anti-vaccination movement.
There are other ethical considerations. An important principle in human challenge studies is that subjects must give their informed consent in order to take part. That means they should be provided with all the relevant information about the risk they are considering. But that is impossible for such a new disease.
Covid-19 was initially thought to be mainly a respiratory ailment. We now know that it can damage the kidneys, circulatory system, and the heart. It was initially believed that children could not be sickened by SARS-CoV-2, but it now appears that dozens have developed a severe inflammatory syndrome. And we know nothing about potential long-term complications of Covid-19 because the disease has only been in humans for months. Taken together, this means that no volunteer is able to give true informed consent.
Given these risks, there might still be some justification for a human challenge trial if we knew for certain it would accelerate the development of an effective vaccine. But safer trials can get us to a vaccine in the same amount of time without taking on additional risk for volunteers, especially now that some vaccine candidates already have entered Phase 2 clinical trials and several others are close behind.
In a conventional trial, subjects are injected with either the experimental vaccine or placebo. They are then monitored to see if those who got the vaccine are less likely to contract the disease while going about their daily lives. In a human challenge study, things can theoretically happen more quickly, since volunteers are deliberately infected after getting the trial vaccine or placebo.
But human challenge trials take time, too. For Covid-19, subjects would likely have to receive two doses of vaccine (spaced by weeks), wait for potential immunity to develop, then be infected with the live virus and observed for weeks to months. Since the challenge trial would need to start small and be expanded only with great caution because of the risks involved, it would take months to deliver sufficient data. Safety data, in particular, would be lacking, even though this is one of the biggest issues confronting a new vaccine, because the size of the trial would be too small to garner robust safety data and data about adverse effects of the vaccine would be confounded by the administration of the live virus.
There is no short cut for determining safety.
A large-scale, conventional study could likely be conducted just as quickly. In addition, monitoring and interim analyses of conventional trials raise the possibility of some kind of conditional or emergency use approval while the trials continue. If that happened, a vaccine might be available for certain high-risk or vulnerable groups in record time, namely 12 to 18 months from laboratory to clinic.
A final issue is that the results of the proposed human challenge studies come exclusively from the experience of younger adults, and cannot be extrapolated to the elderly, who tend to have weaker immune responses and the highest Covid-19 mortality rate. The volunteers might end up having risked their own health without truly helping those who are in greatest need of vaccine protection.
The world is overwhelmed by the pandemic. It is imperative to expedite development and approval pathways without forgoing safety and effectiveness. Ascertaining the risks intrinsic to the disease versus those of a new vaccine in specific populations health care workers, first responders, the elderly, those with comorbidities, and the like is essential. But acceleration should not mean forsaking ethical concerns, putting well-intentioned volunteers at needless risk, or setting back global vaccine efforts.
Michael Rosenblatt, M.D., is the chief medical officer of Flagship Pioneering, a venture firm that creates life sciences companies. He is the former chief medical officer of Merck and former dean of Tufts University School of Medicine. He serves as an adviser to Moderna, which is developing a Covid-19 vaccine; he is not a Moderna employee or shareholder. The opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Flagship Pioneering or Moderna.
As I dilute the coronavirus to infect cultured cells, I hear the reassuring sound of purified air being blown by my respirator into my breathing space. There are three layers of nitrile and protective materials between me and the virus, and every part of my body is wrapped in protective equipment.
Thanks to these precautions and other features of our high containment lab, I'm not nervous about being up close and personal with this dangerous pathogen.
Suiting up like you're on a space mission
When performing a SARS-CoV-2 experiment, my days start by coordinating with a least one of my lab members we always work in pairs inside containment. We outline the experiment step by step, check we have all of the required supplies, confirm and review any procedures and communicate with the facility staff.
First thing on site, we check multiple gauges and monitors to ensure the facility is functioning properly. Then we enter the changeroom, where we remove all of our street clothes, including jewelry and underwear. We don't want to bring any potentially contaminated clothing or items out of containment at the end of the day. "You enter and leave containment as you were at birth" is our saying.
We don scrubs, close-toed laboratory shoes, a full-body disposable suit, shoe covers, multiple pairs of gloves and a surgical gown. Most importantly, we also put on our air-purifying respirators. This device includes a Batman-style utility belt that houses a motor attached to an air filter capable of filtering out any infectious agents in the air. Powered by a battery pack that will last at least six hours, the respirator blows purified air up a tube into a hood that covers my entire head and shoulders. The hood is under positive pressure so no air from the environment can enter my breathing space.
Through the clear plastic face shield I can see that we look like astronauts in space suits. Once fully equipped, we enter the containment facility and proceed to our designated virus culture and animal holding rooms. This whole process has taken between 30 and 45 minutes.
What's inside?
The facility itself is a giant vacuum. All of the air flows from outside into the lab. It exhausts through air filters that remove any stray infectious agents. The facility is designed to accommodate failures. If one filter fails, there's a second one, and all work stops until both are working again.
Within this space our work is divided into rooms where we grow virus in cells in plastic dishes. There are separate spaces where we house animals that we use to evaluate how the virus is transmitted and if our vaccines are working.
When we're done for the day, the materials we used are treated with bleach or stored safely. All waste is sealed in plastic bags and treated in a pressurized, high-heat oven called an autoclave to ensure any remaining virus is dead.
To leave the lab, as we move through various anterooms toward the exit, at every stage we remove a layer of gloves and protective equipment. We also regularly spray our suits and respirators with powerful disinfectants. At the last step, we remove our respirator and scrubs and "shower out" of the facility. Even the wastewater from the shower is boiled for an hour under high pressure to kill any microorganisms.
The only living thing that leaves the facility is the scientist.
Training and oversight
Many of the safety precautions around working in a high containment facility happen long before a researcher steps foot on the site. To gain access to this laboratory, I underwent an extensive FBI and police background check.
I was subject to a medical exam, and my lung capacity was tested. I was vaccinated against influenza. I'm sure when a Covid-19 vaccine becomes available, I'll get that shot as well.
A rigorous training and testing process made sure I know how to handle agents like SARS-CoV-2 safely, as well as things like what to do during a fire, a bomb threat and even a tornado. Regardless of my over 10 years experience working with viruses, everyone entering the facility is trained from scratch.
Every high containment lab in the U.S. is subject to regular inspections by the US Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or both. Once open, a facility is reinspected and certified every three years. During the interim, inspectors arrive unannounced to review all aspects of the facility, including maintenance records, inventories of agents and operating procedures. My university also provides oversight.
In addition, there is a myriad of other security features. One of my colleagues once joked that during a zombie apocalypse, the containment lab would be the best place to hide.
Ultimately, all these precautions are in place to help us understand how the SARS-CoV-2 virus is transmitted in animals and determine the optimal vaccine formulation that will prevent transmission. The facility at Penn State, like others throughout the US, was built for this type of research so scientists could quickly and safely respond during a pandemic. With a bit of luck, the work done by dedicated researchers in these facilities will help bring the Covid-19 pandemic to an end, sooner than later.
Troy Sutton is assistant professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at Pennsylvania State University. Disclosure: Sutton receives funding from Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research (CEIRS), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and The Huck Institutes of Life Sciences at Pennsylvania State University.
The frenetic search for the miracle that will rid the world of COVID-19 is branching out in a thousand directions, and a large part of the microbial treasure hunt is going on in the Bay Area, where major progress has been made in the 100 days since residents were ordered to shelter in place.
Scientists at universities, laboratories, biotechnology companies and drug manufacturers are combing through blood plasma taken from infected patients for secrets that will help them fight the disease.
The key is likely a super-strength antibody found in some patients. But researchers must first figure out how those antibodies work and how they can be harnessed and used to stop the many health problems associated with COVID-19, particularly acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, which has killed more people than any other complication connected to the disease.
Other developments showing promise include injections of mesenchymal stem cells, found in bone marrow and umbilical cords, that doctors are studying to battle inflammation caused by ARDS. And a steroid called dexamethasone reduced the number of deaths by halting the overreactive immune responses in seriously ill patients in the United Kingdom.
In all, more than 130 vaccines and 220 treatments are being tested worldwide.
What follows is a list of some of the most promising elixirs, medications and vaccines with ties to the Bay Area:
Monoclonal antibodies / Vir Biotechnology, San Francisco: Scientists at Vir and several institutions, including Stanford and UCSF, are studying monoclonal antibodies, which are clones of coronavirus-fighting antibodies produced by COVID-19 patients.
The idea is to utilize these neutralizing antibodies which bind to the virus crown-like spikes and prevent them from entering and hijacking human cells.
Only about 5% of coronavirus patients have these super-strength antibodies, and those people are believed to be immune to a second attack.
The trick for scientists at Vir is to identify these neutralizing antibodies, harvest, purify and clone them. If they succeed, the resulting monoclones could then be used to inoculate people and it is hoped give them long-term immunity against the coronavirus. The company recently signed a deal with Samsung Biologics, in South Korea, to scale up production of a temporary vaccine in the fall after clinical trials are complete.
Another monoclonal antibody, leronlimab, is being studied in coronavirus clinical trials by its Washington state drugmaker, CytoDyn. The companys chief medical officer is in San Francisco, and the company that does laboratory tests of leronlimab is in San Carlos.
Interferon-lambda / Stanford University: Doctors at Stanford are running a trial to see if interferon-lambda, which is administered by injection, helps patients in the early stages of COVID-19. Interferon-lambda is a manufactured version of a naturally occurring protein that has been used to treat hepatitis. Stanford doctors hope it will boost the immune system response to coronavirus infections.
Dr. Upinder Singh, a Stanford infectious-disease expert, said the trial has enrolled more than 50 patients and is halfway finished. We have noted that patients tolerate the drug very well, she said.
Mesenchymal stem cells / UCSF and UC Davis Medical Center: UCSF Dr. Michael Matthay is leading a study about whether a kind of stem cell found in bone marrow can help patients with ARDS. Matthay hopes that the stem cells can help reduce the inflammation associated with some of ARDS most dire respiratory symptoms, and help patients lungs to recover.
Matthay is aiming to enroll 120 patients in San Francisco, the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento and hospitals in a handful of other states. He said the trial, which includes a small number ARDS patients who dont have COVID-19, should have results within a year. So far 17 patients are enrolled in the trial, most of them in San Francisco.
Remdesivir / Gilead Sciences (Foster City): Remdesivir, once conceived as a potential treatment for ebola, was the first drug to show some promise in treating COVID-19 patients. The drug interferes with the process through which the virus replicates itself. A large study led by the federal government generated excitement in late April when officials said hospitalized patients who received remdesivir intravenously recovered faster than those who received a placebo.
A later study looking at dosage showed some benefit for moderately ill COVID-19 patients who received remdesivir for five days, but improvement among those who got it for 10 days was not statistically significant. Gilead, a drug company, recently announced that it will soon launch another clinical trial to see how remdesivir works on 50 pediatric patients, from newborns to teenagers, with moderate to severe COVID-19 symptoms. More than 30 locations in the U.S. and Europe will be involved in the trial, the company said.
Coronavirus crisis: 100 days
Editors note: Its been 100 days since the Bay Area sheltered in place, protecting itself from the coronavirus pandemic. What have we learned in that time? And what does the future hold for the region and its fight against COVID-19? The Chronicle explores the past 100 days and looks to the future in this exclusive report.
Favipiravir / Fujifilm Toyama Chemical (Stanford University): This antiviral drug, developed in 2014 by a subsidiary of the Japanese film company to treat influenza, is undergoing numerous clinical studies worldwide, including a Stanford University trial that began this month. Unlike remdesivir, it can be administered orally, so it can be used to treat patients early in the disease, before hospitalization is necessary.
Stanford epidemiologists want to see if favipiravir, which has shown promising results in other trials, prevents the coronavirus from replicating in human cells, halts the shedding of the virus and reduces the severity of infection. The Stanford study, the only outpatient trial for this drug in the nation, is enrolling 120 people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 within the past 72 hours. Half of them will get a placebo. People can enroll by emailing treatcovid@stanford.edu.
Colchicine / UCSF (San Francisco and New York): The anti-inflammatory drug commonly used to treat gout flare-ups is being studied in the U.S. by scientists at UCSF and New York University. The drug short-circuits inflammation by decreasing the bodys production of certain proteins, and researchers hope that it will reduce lung complications and prevent deaths from COVID-19. About 6,000 patients are receiving colchicine or a placebo during the clinical trial, dubbed Colcorona, which began in March and is expected to be completed in September.
Selinexor / Kaiser Permanente: Kaiser hospitals in San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento are studying selinexor, an anticancer drug that blocks a key protein in the cellular machinery for DNA processing, as a potential COVID-19 treatment. The drug has both antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties, and its administered orally, according to Kaisers Dr. Jacek Skarbinski. The trial aims to enroll 250 patients with severe symptoms at Kaiser and other hospitals that are participating nationwide.
VXA-COV2-1 / Vaxart, South San Francisco: The biotechnology company Vaxart is testing this drug to see if it is as effective at controlling COVID-19 as trials have shown it to be against influenza. VXA-COV2-1, the only potential vaccine in pill form, uses the genetic code of the coronavirus to trigger a defensive response in mucous membranes. The hope is that the newly fortified membranes will prevent the virus from entering the body.
Its the only vaccine (candidate) that activates the first line of defense, which is the mucosa, said Andrei Floroiu, Vaxarts chief executive, noting that intravenous vaccines kill the virus after it is inside the body. Our vaccine may prevent you from getting infected at all.
The drug was effective against influenza and norovirus in trials and appears to work on laboratory animals, Floroiu said. He expects trials of VXA-COV2-1 on humans to begin later this summer.
VaxiPatch / Verndari (Napa and UC Davis Medical Center): Napa vaccine company Verndari makes a patented adhesive patch that can deliver a vaccine instead of a shot. Now, the company is trying to make a vaccine for COVID-19 that they can administer through that patch. At UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, Verndari researchers are developing a potential vaccine that relies on the coronavirus spike-shaped protein. When injected into a person, the substance would ideally train their body to recognize the virus and fight it off without becoming ill.
A spokeswoman told The Chronicle that the companys preclinical tests have shown early, positive data in developing an immune response. Verndari hopes to move into the next phase of testing in the coming weeks and start clinical trials in humans this year.
If the vaccine is proved effective and safe, patients could receive it through the mail, according to company CEO Dr. Daniel Henderson. The patch would leave a temporary mark on the skin that patients could photograph and send to their doctor as proof they have taken the vaccine, Henderson has said.
Peter Fimrite and J.D. Morris are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite, @thejdmorris
From battles on the front lines to social distancing from friends and family, COVID-19 has caused a massive shake-up of our daily lives.
After second-guessing everything from hugging our loved ones to delaying travel, there is one big question that everyone is likely thinking about: will we ever get back to the status quo? The answer may not be very clear-cut.
Todays graphic uses data from New York Times interviews of 511 epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists from the U.S. and Canada, and visualizes their opinions on when they might expect to resume a range of typical activities.
When will life return to normal?
Image: Visual Capitalist
Life in the near future, according to experts
Specifically, this group of epidemiologists were asked when they might personally begin engaging in 20 common daily activities again.
The responses, based on the latest publicly available and scientifically-backed data, varied based on assumptions around local pandemic response plans. The experts also noted that their answers would change depending on potential treatments and testing rates in their local areas.
Here are the activities that a majority of professionals see starting up as soon as this summer, or within a years time:
The activities that the majority of professionals see starting up as soon as this summer, or within a years time.
Image: Visual Capitalist
The urge to be outdoors is pretty clear, with 56% of those surveyed hoping to take a road trip before the summer is over. Meanwhile, 31% felt that they would be able to go hiking or have a picnic with friends this summer, citing the need for fresh air, sun, socialization and a healthy activity to help keep on top of their physical and mental health during this time.
Public transport and travel of any form is one aspect that has been put on hold, whether its by plane, train, or automobile. Many of the surveyed epidemiologists also lamented the strain the pandemic has had on relationships, as evidenced by the social situations they hope to restart sooner rather than later.
The worst casualty of the epidemic is the loss of human contact.
On the other hand, there are certain activities that they considered too risky to engage in for the time-being. A large share are putting off attending celebrations such as weddings or concerts for at least a year or more, out of perceived social responsibility.
Fewer people are attending celebrations such as weddings, for at least a year or more, out of perceived social responsibility.
Image: Visual Capitalist
Perhaps the most surprising finding is that 6% of epidemiologists do not expect to ever hug or shake hands as a post-pandemic greeting. On top of this, over half consider masks necessary for at least the next year.
The virus sets the timeline
Of course, these estimates are not meant to represent every situation. The experts also practically considered whether certain activities were avoidable or notsuch as ones occupationwhich affects individual risk levels.
The answers [about resuming these activities] have nothing to do with calendar time.
While many places are trickling out of lockdown and re-opening to support the economy, some officials are still warning against prematurely lifting restrictions before we fully have a handle on the virus and its spread.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use.
This article is published in collaboration with Visual Capitalist.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Lockdown is easing. People are returning to work and shops are lifting their shutters. But we dont have a vaccine and were a long way from achieving herd immunity so this new-found freedom is tainted with fear: fear of a second wave of infections.
Indeed, people are already talking about a second wave hitting China and Iran. But the concept of a second wave is flawed and creates dangerous misconceptions about the pandemic.
The idea of a second wave stems from the flawed comparison with the seasonality of the flu virus.
Early in the pandemic, many experts discussed the similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and influenza virus. They are both viruses that cause respiratory infections mostly mild. Influenza is also the cause of most recent previous pandemics. From these similarities, it was tempting to assume that COVID-19 would behave similarly to a flu pandemic. Yet these are very different viruses with very different behaviour.
COVID-19 has a far greater fatality rate compared with the flu, along with a much higher rate of hospitalisations and severe infection. Also, influenza is a seasonal virus. Every year we see cases of the flu begin in early autumn, increase over the winter and then wind down as we approach summer. This repeats yearly, and so if a new strain of flu emerges we would probably have a first wave of infections during winter-spring, then the virus would come back in a second wave in autumn-winter the following year.
The most severe pandemic ever recorded was the so-called Spanish flu pandemic. During this pandemic, the virus infected the northern hemisphere during the spring of 1918, died down some during the summer of 1918 and then came back in greater force in the autumn of 1918. It is tempting to speculate that COVID-19 will decline or disappear during the summer, only to reappear as the weather gets colder. But we dont know if COVID-19 is a seasonal virus.
Emergency hospital during the 1918 flu epidemic, Camp Funston, Kansas.
Image: Otis Historical Archives/Wikimedia Commons
The flu has lower transmission in the summer because the combination of higher humidity, increased UV light and people spending less time inside, close to each other. Some of these factors might also affect COVID-19, but we really dont know to what extent.
Even if seasonal factors affect COVID-19 transmission, the spread of a new virus through a population that has no immunity will overwhelm any influence of seasonal factors. The 2009 swine flu pandemic virus and the 1918 pandemic virus were new viruses that people had no immunity to. As a result, the virus did not go away in the summer, though transmission was somewhat reduced. So we cannot expect that COVID-19 will behave as a seasonal virus and diminish over the summer only to return with a second wave in the autumn.
The first wave hasnt ended
Aside from seasonality, there is another reason the idea of a second wave is flawed. The concept of a second wave implies that it is something inevitable, something intrinsic to how the virus behaves. It goes away for a bit, then comes back with a vengeance. But this idea fails to take into account the importance of ongoing preventative actions and portrays us as helpless and at the whim of this pathogen.
We are not between waves. We have new cases in the UK every day. We are in an ebb and flow of COVID-19 transmission that is continually affected by our precautionary actions.
Letting up on precautions will lead to an increase in cases. This is the new normal and what to expect until we have an effective vaccine with significant population uptake. Until then we have to depend on our actions to keep cases low both now and in autumn.
Cross-sectional model of a coronavirus.
Image: scientificanimations.com/Wikimedia Commons
The concept of a second wave portrays the pandemic as a force of nature that is beyond our control. But we have evidence from many countries that a strong public health system (consisting of widespread testing, contact tracing, isolation and health support) combined with public participation in safe behaviour (wearing face coverings, keeping physical distance, hand washing) is highly effective at minimising COVID-19 transmission.
We are not at the mercy of the virus, now or in the future. This is hopeful news, but it puts the burden of responsibility on all of us. We must keep fighting, but in doing so we should not fear an inevitable second wave.
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Written by
Jeremy Rossman, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Virology and President of Research-Aid Networks, University of Kent
This article is published in collaboration with The Conversation.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Plano is the nations second most stressed-out city when it comes to worrying about COVID-19, according to a study by Babylon, Inc.
Babylon, a digital health care company, came to that conclusion by analyzing posts on Twitter. The tweets were gathered from May 14 to May 18 and then analyzed using a program that detects stress in text.
According to Babylons analysis, 40.7 percent of tweets from Plano showed high levels of stress. That earned the city the number two ranking in the nation. Stockton, California came in first with 43.7 percent. Forty percent of tweets from Naperville, Illinois indicated high levels of stress, earning it the third spot.
No other Texas cities were in the top 10 and the state did not register in the top ten most stressed states, which was led by Wyoming.
The coronavirus pandemic is undoubtedly causing stress for millions of people across the US, but after analyzing Twitter to tap into local consciousness around the virus, weve found that some states and cities are much more stressed than others, Babylons study states.
Each tweets each contained at least one or more words relating to COVID-19 such as quarantine, corona, virus, COVID, self-isolation, social distancing, pandemic, epidemic, vaccine, mask, PPE (personal protective equipment, ventilator, antibody and antibodies.
The level of stress was determined by a tool called TensiStrength, which was developed by Mike Thelwall, professor of information technology at Wolverhampton University in the United Kingdom. TensiStrength estimates the stress levels in short texts based on the classification of words in the text related to stress, frustration, anxiety, anger and negativity.
The tweets that were analyzed came were from the top five most populated cities for each state in the US, according to Babylon. Also included were the top 100 most populated cities in the country.
The top three stressed-out states, based on their tweets, were Wyoming (40.1 percent), Delaware (38.8) and Mississippi (38.7). Texas was not in the top 10.
In all, more than 2.5 million tweets were collected and 155,177 were included in the final analysis, according to the study.
A city of nearly 300,000, Plano has 684 active cases of COVID-19 and 253 recoveries as of Tuesday afternoon. Ten people in Plano have died from the illness. The citys website has a COVID-19 webpage that frequently updates the number of cases and other related information.
The latest:
Renewed lockdown measures in a region of Germany where hundreds of coronavirus cases have sprung up at a slaughterhouse and states in the U.S. reporting record new cases provided a stark reminderon Tuesday that the pandemic is far from over.
In the U.S., a number of states reported record daily increaseson Tuesday.
Nevadareported a record 462 new casesamid an uptick of infections that started about two weeks after casinos in Las Vegas reopened; Arizona reported arecord of nearly 3,600 newcasesas the state continued to set records for the number of people hospitalized, in intensive care and on ventilators; Texas Gov.Greg Abbott said hisstate surpassed 5,000 new cases in a single day for the first time; and Mississippi reported a record 611 new cases.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, told a House committee on Tuesday he believes "it will be when and not if" there will be a COVID-19 vaccine and that he remains "cautiously optimistic" that some will be ready at the end of the year
WATCH |Fauci'cautiously optimistic' COVID-19 vaccine will be available by end of 2020:
In Germany, lockdown restrictions are in effect in the North Rhine-Westphalia state after more than 1,550 people tested positive for coronavirus at the Toennies slaughterhouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck.
Thousands more workers and family members were put into quarantine to try to halt the outbreak.
On Tuesday, North Rhine-Westphalia Gov. Armin Laschet said people in Guetersloh and parts of a neighbouring county will now face the same restrictions that Germany saw in March and April, including curbs on social gatherings and bar closures.
"The purpose is to calm the situation, to expand testing to establish whether or not the virus has spread beyond the employees of Toennies," Laschet said.
WATCH |German region reinstates lockdown after meat factory virus outbreak:
The governor expressed frustration at the company's handling of the outbreak, saying authorities had to order Toennies to release the names of its employees.
"The readiness to co-operate could have been greater," he said.
Union officials have blamed poor working and living conditions that migrant workers faced under a loosely regulated sub-contractor.
Mexico posted another record one-day increase in confirmed cases 6,288 while 793 more deaths have been reported.
Officials claim the pandemic has stabilized and may have even started a downward trend this week, but they have made that claim several times before.
Mexico has also had an extremely high rate of infections among health care professionals. About 39,000 of the country's confirmed cases are health care workers.There have been 584 deaths among doctors, nurses, technicians and hospital workers.
The World Health Organization says the pandemic is still growing.
"The epidemic is now peaking or moving toward a peak in a number of large countries," said Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO's emergencies chief.
Brazil recorded 39,436 new casesas well as 1,374 new deaths, the country's health ministry said on Tuesday.
The country has the second most COVID-19 cases and deaths in the worldbehind the U.S.
South Africa braced for an anticipated surge of COVID-19 cases by opening a large field hospital with 3,300 beds in a converted car manufacturing plant.
The field hospital has been constructed in the city of East London in the Eastern Cape province, one of the country's centres of the disease. South Africa has now reported a total of 101,590 coronavirus cases, including 1,991 deaths.
India has been recording about 15,000 new infections each day, and some states Tuesday were considering fresh lockdown measures to try to halt the spread of the virus among the country's 1.3 billion people. The government had lifted a nationwide lockdown to restart the ailing economy and give hope to millions of hungry, unemployed day labourers.
India's huge virus caseload is highlighting the country's unequal society, where private hospitals cater to the rich and public hospitals are so overwhelmed that many people fear to enter them.
In Pakistan, the government is determined to buoy the frail economy by opening up the country even if overcrowded hospitals are turning away patients. New cases have also been rising steeply in Mexico, Colombia and Indonesia.
Concerns over the spread of the virus prompted Saudi Arabia's unprecedented decision to limit the number of people performing the hajj pilgrimage this year to only a few thousand. The pilgrimage usually draws up to 2.5 million Muslims from all over the world.
Saudi Arabia has one of the highest infection rates in the Middle East, with more than 161,000 confirmed cases so far, including 1,307 deaths.
Worldwide, more than 9.1 million people have been infected and more than 473,000 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.The United States has the most infections and deaths by far in the world, with 2.3 million cases and over 120,000 confirmed virus-related deaths. Experts say the true numbers are much higher because of limited testing and cases in which patients had no symptoms.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it took more than three months for the world to see onemillion confirmed infections but just eight days to see the most recent onemillion cases.
"The greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself. It's the lack of global solidarity and global leadership," he said.
As of 6p.m.ET on Tuesday, Canada had 101,963 confirmed and presumptive coronavirus cases, with 64,704 of the cases listed asresolved or recovered. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial data, regional information and CBC's reporting stood at 8,499.
There are no proven treatments or vaccines for the novel virus, which causes an illness called COVID-19. Health officials say most people who contract the virus will experience mild to moderate illness, but some particularly those with underlying health issues and the elderly are at greater risk of severe illness and death.
A new study suggests that as many as 8.7 million Americans came down with coronavirus in March, but more than 80% of them were never diagnosed.A team of researchers looked at the number of people who went to doctors or clinics with influenza-like illnesses that were never diagnosed as coronavirus, influenza or any of the other viruses that usually circulate in winter.There was a giant spike in these cases in March, the researchers reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine."The findings support a scenario where more than 8.7 million new SARS-CoV-2 infections appeared in the U.S. during March and estimate that more than 80% of these cases remained unidentified as the outbreak rapidly spread," Justin Silverman of Penn State University, Alex Washburne of Montana State University and colleagues at Cornell University and elsewhere, wrote.Only 100,000 cases were officially reported during that time period, and the U.S. still reports only 2.3 million cases as of Monday. But there was a shortage of coronavirus testing kits at the time.The team used data collected from each state by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for influenza-like illness. The CDC uses this data to track the annual seasonal flu epidemic. It asks doctors to report all cases of people coming in for treatment for fever, cough and other symptoms caused by influenza."We found a clear, anomalous surge in influenza-like illness (ILI) outpatients during the COVID-19 epidemic that correlated with the progression of the epidemic in multiple states across the U.S.," Silverman and colleagues wrote."The surge of non-influenza ILI outpatients was much larger than the number of confirmed cases in each state, providing evidence of large numbers of probable symptomatic COVID-19 cases that remained undetected."These were people who showed up at a doctor's office or clinic with symptoms. Most people with COVID-19 likely never sought treatment of testing for it."The U.S.-wide ILI surge appeared to peak during the week starting on March 15 and subsequently decreased in numerous states the following week; notable exceptions are New York and New Jersey, two of the states that were the hardest hit by the epidemic, which had not started a decline by the week ending March 28," the team wrote.The researchers could not count every single case, so they ran a series of calculations to make sure their data fit in with what's known about state populations and about the annual flu epidemic, as well as with the hard data that was collected from actual testing of coronavirus patients. They also took into account growing evidence that people started avoiding hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices once it was clear there was a pandemic, and after pandemic lockdowns started."If 1/3 of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S. sought care, this ILI surge would have corresponded to more than 8.7 million new SARS-CoV-2 infections across the U.S. during the three-week period from March 8 to March 28, 2020," the researchers wrote.Cases fell after that. "We saw this huge peak that ended on March 22 in most places," Silverman told CNN. Cases have been on the decline since then, he said but the data the team is collecting does not include the past two weeks.The team is now working to try to get closer to real-time surveillance of the pandemic. The data from the CDC comes in about two weeks after people make their doctor visits. They hope their approach called syndromic surveillance could complement data collected from actual testing. "In a dream world, everyone who comes in would have a test. We would be able to get a full scope of the pandemic," Washburne told CNN.
A new study suggests that as many as 8.7 million Americans came down with coronavirus in March, but more than 80% of them were never diagnosed.
A team of researchers looked at the number of people who went to doctors or clinics with influenza-like illnesses that were never diagnosed as coronavirus, influenza or any of the other viruses that usually circulate in winter.
There was a giant spike in these cases in March, the researchers reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
"The findings support a scenario where more than 8.7 million new SARS-CoV-2 infections appeared in the U.S. during March and estimate that more than 80% of these cases remained unidentified as the outbreak rapidly spread," Justin Silverman of Penn State University, Alex Washburne of Montana State University and colleagues at Cornell University and elsewhere, wrote.
Only 100,000 cases were officially reported during that time period, and the U.S. still reports only 2.3 million cases as of Monday. But there was a shortage of coronavirus testing kits at the time.
The team used data collected from each state by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for influenza-like illness. The CDC uses this data to track the annual seasonal flu epidemic. It asks doctors to report all cases of people coming in for treatment for fever, cough and other symptoms caused by influenza.
"We found a clear, anomalous surge in influenza-like illness (ILI) outpatients during the COVID-19 epidemic that correlated with the progression of the epidemic in multiple states across the U.S.," Silverman and colleagues wrote.
"The surge of non-influenza ILI outpatients was much larger than the number of confirmed cases in each state, providing evidence of large numbers of probable symptomatic COVID-19 cases that remained undetected."
These were people who showed up at a doctor's office or clinic with symptoms. Most people with COVID-19 likely never sought treatment of testing for it.
"The U.S.-wide ILI surge appeared to peak during the week starting on March 15 and subsequently decreased in numerous states the following week; notable exceptions are New York and New Jersey, two of the states that were the hardest hit by the epidemic, which had not started a decline by the week ending March 28," the team wrote.
The researchers could not count every single case, so they ran a series of calculations to make sure their data fit in with what's known about state populations and about the annual flu epidemic, as well as with the hard data that was collected from actual testing of coronavirus patients. They also took into account growing evidence that people started avoiding hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices once it was clear there was a pandemic, and after pandemic lockdowns started.
"If 1/3 of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S. sought care, this ILI surge would have corresponded to more than 8.7 million new SARS-CoV-2 infections across the U.S. during the three-week period from March 8 to March 28, 2020," the researchers wrote.
Cases fell after that. "We saw this huge peak that ended on March 22 in most places," Silverman told CNN. Cases have been on the decline since then, he said but the data the team is collecting does not include the past two weeks.
The team is now working to try to get closer to real-time surveillance of the pandemic. The data from the CDC comes in about two weeks after people make their doctor visits. They hope their approach called syndromic surveillance could complement data collected from actual testing. "In a dream world, everyone who comes in would have a test. We would be able to get a full scope of the pandemic," Washburne told CNN.
