Category: Covid-19 Vaccine

SEATTLE -- The first people to roll up their sleeves to receive an experimental vaccine for the coronavirus say they were inspired to help because they wanted to do more to fight the disease than wash their hands and work from home.

Three of the study participants spoke to The Associated Press on Monday following the trial's first injections in Seattle. They said the shots were no more painful than an ordinary season flu vaccine.

Some will get higher dosages than others to test how strong the dose should be. They will be checked for side effects and have their blood tested to determine whether the vaccine is revving up their immune systems.

The volunteers said they weren't acting in hopes of protecting themselves. They understand their role is a small part of what could be an 18-month hunt for a successful shot that could be distributed widely.

They work in the tech industry and in health research. Two have children, and all three are working from home to slow the spread of COVID-19.

They are a 43-year-old operations manager at a small tech company, a 46-year-old network engineer at Microsoft and a 25-year-old editorial co-ordinator at an independent global health research centre at the University of Washington.

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Jennifer Haller, 43, still cuts up apples for her 16-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter each morning, even though the teenagers now make their own lunches. She leaves for work before they head to school on a normal day.

On Friday, however, the governor ordered the closure of all Washington state schools that were still open. Her company wants everyone to work from home.

Her husband, a software tester, was laid off last week, a move unrelated to the pandemic. The family's income was cut in half. The job market looks grim.

"I figure we probably need to prepare for him to be off work for six months," she said.

Haller works as an operations manager at a small tech company that normally runs out of a shared working space in Seattle. She learned of the vaccine study through Facebook on March 3, the day Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute started recruiting. She submitted her application immediately.

Two days later, she was dining at a Mexican restaurant when she answered a phone call from an unknown number. It was a member of the research team asking if she wanted to participate and if she had 15 minutes to answer some questions. She interrupted her dinner and agreed.

"We all feel so helpless. This is an amazing opportunity for me to do something," she said Monday.

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Neal Browning, 46, lives in Bothell, Washington, north of Seattle, with his fiancee and their daughters. He works as a network engineer at Microsoft, one of the first companies to require its employees to work remotely.

At a neighbourhood gathering Sunday, Browning watched his daughters and other children improvise a game of tag without touching each other. They'd been told about social distancing, a way to fight the virus by staying away from others.

"Kids are fairly adaptable," Browning said. "If you give them a set of rules, they like to follow them if at all possible."

Browning and his fiancee have three daughters between them, ages 8, 9 and 11. The girls are proud of him for testing the first vaccine for the new virus, he said.

"Every parent wants their children to look up to them," Browning said Monday after his shot. But he's told the girls not to brag to their friends too much. "It's other people too. It's not just Dad out there."

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Rebecca Sirull, 25, barely stopped working to get her shot Monday, participating in a conference call for work while sitting in the research institute's clinic.

She moved to Seattle from the Boston area in December to work as editorial co-ordinator for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

She lives in an apartment with roommates, and her social life took a hit with the coronavirus restrictions. The ultimate frisbee team she joined for the spring season is no longer playing: "Our very first game was cancelled," she said.

"The dating scene is kind of on hold for the moment," Sirull added. "You know, people talk about finding their quarantine buddy, but I'm happy to kind of wait another couple months. You know, it's not that pressing an issue right now for me."

She's heard friends make dark jokes about parallels between the coronavirus pandemic and the start of every zombie apocalypse movie ever made. "I say, `No, guys, it doesn't have to go that way!"'

She joined the vaccine study as "a way to contribute to the situation in a positive way, considering, you know, the main guidelines that we all have right now are to stay home and do nothing, which is sort of a hard message to hear when you want to help out."

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Meet the volunteers testing the new experimental COVID-19 vaccine - CTV News

(SEATTLE) U.S. researchers gave the first shot to the first person in a test of an experimental coronavirus vaccine Monday leading off a worldwide hunt for protection even as the pandemic surges.

With a careful jab in a healthy volunteers arm, scientists at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle begin an anxiously awaited first-stage study of a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed in record time after the new virus exploded from China and fanned across the globe.

Read more: Want a Coronavirus Vaccine, Fast? Heres a Solution

Were team coronavirus now, Kaiser Permanente study leader Dr. Lisa Jackson said on the eve of the experiment. Everyone wants to do what they can in this emergency.

The Associated Press observed as the studys first participant, an operations manager at a small tech company, received the injection inside an exam room. Several others were next in line for a test that will ultimately give 45 volunteers two doses, a month apart.

We all feel so helpless. This is an amazing opportunity for me to do something, said Jennifer Haller, 43, of Seattle. Shes the mother of two teenagers and they think its cool that shes taking part in the study.

Mondays milestone marked just the beginning of a series of studies in people needed to prove whether the shots are safe and could work. Even if the research goes well, a vaccine wouldnt be available for widespread use for 12 to 18 months, said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Thats still important if the virus becomes a long-term threat.

This vaccine candidate, code-named mRNA-1273, was developed by the NIH and Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Moderna Inc. Theres no chance participants could get infected from the shots because they dont contain the coronavirus itself.

Its not the only potential vaccine in the pipeline. Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine against COVID-19. Another candidate, made by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, is expected to begin its own safety study in the U.S., China and South Korea next month.

The Seattle experiment got underway days after the World Health Organization declared the new virus outbreak a pandemic because of its rapid global spread, infecting more than 169,000 people and killing more than 6,500.

COVID-19 has upended the worlds social and economic fabric since China first identified the virus in January, with regions shuttering schools and businesses, restricting travel, canceling entertainment and sporting events, and encouraging people to stay away from each other.

Starting what scientists call a first-in-humans study is a momentous occasion for scientists, but Jackson described her teams mood as subdued. Theyve been working round-the-clock readying the research in a part of the U.S. struck early and hard by the virus.

Still, going from not even knowing that this virus was out there to have any vaccine in testing in about two months is unprecedented, Jackson told the AP.

Some of the studys carefully chosen healthy volunteers, ages 18 to 55, will get higher dosages than others to test how strong the inoculations should be. Scientists will check for any side effects and draw blood samples to test if the vaccine is revving up the immune system, looking for encouraging clues like the NIH earlier found in vaccinated mice.

We dont know whether this vaccine will induce an immune response, or whether it will be safe. Thats why were doing a trial, Jackson stressed. Its not at the stage where it would be possible or prudent to give it to the general population.

Most of the vaccine research under way globally targets a protein aptly named spike that studs the surface of the new coronavirus and lets it invade human cells. Block that protein and people wont get infected.

Researchers at the NIH copied the section of the virus genetic code that contains the instructions for cells to create the spike protein. Moderna encased that messenger RNA into a vaccine.

The idea: The body will become a mini-factory, producing some harmless spike protein. When the immune system spots the foreign protein, it will make antibodies to attack and be primed to react quickly if the person later encounters the real virus. Thats a much faster way of producing a vaccine than the traditional approach of growing virus in the lab and preparing shots from either killed or weakened versions of it.

But because vaccines are given to millions of healthy people, it takes time to test them in large enough numbers to spot an uncommon side effect, cautioned Dr. Nelson Michael of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, which is developing a different vaccine candidate.

The science can go very quickly but, first, do no harm, right? he told reporters last week.

The Seattle research institute is part of a government network of centers that test all kinds of vaccines, and was chosen for the coronavirus vaccine study before COVID-19 began spreading widely in Washington state.

Kaiser Permanente screened dozens of people, looking for those who have no chronic health problems and arent currently sick. Researchers arent checking whether would-be volunteers already had a mild case of COVID-19 before deciding if theyre eligible. If some did, scientists will be able to tell by the number of antibodies in their pre-vaccination blood test and account for that, Jackson said. Participants will be paid $100 for each clinic visit in the study.

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Neergaard reported from Washington, D.C.

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COVID-19 Vaccine Test Begins With U.S. Volunteer | Time

Biotech giant Regeneron said it aims to have doses of a potential drug for COVID-19 ready to start human clinical trials by early summer.

The approach involves creating antibodies to the virus that could be used to treat the disease and to prevent it, Regeneron said in a statement Tuesday.

The company had previously said it aimed to have hundreds of thousands of doses ready for human testing in late summer, so the new goal is a significant acceleration. Regeneron said it plans to start large-scale manufacturing by the middle of next month and still plans to ramp up to hundreds of thousands of preventive doses a month by the end of summer.

"There are always so many moving parts, but we're hitting our best numbers, our best timelines, and things are going really well," Dr. George Yancopoulos, Regeneron's co-founder, president and chief scientific officer, said in a telephone interviewMonday night.

Regeneron is developing the therapy the same way it created a drug for Ebola, which is now under review by the FDA, and four other drugs already on the market: It uses mice genetically engineered to have human-like immune systems. The mice are exposed to a target protein and generate human antibodies in response.

Those antibodies are now used in medicines approved to treat such maladies as asthma, high cholesterol, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.

The approach has been heralded by health experts including former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb as among the most promising for new tools to apply against the novel coronavirus potentially in the fall, when infections could resurge even if they tamp down during the summer.

For COVID-19, the mice were exposed to part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Regeneron said its scientists have now isolated hundreds of antibodies that neutralize the virus, and they're sorting through them as well as antibodies isolated from people who have recovered from COVID-19 to find the best two with which to create a cocktail treatment.

Yancopoulos said Regeneron plans to combine two antibodies because "you want to ensure if, God forbid, there's a mutation or variation in the virus, you don't lose [efficacy] due to that one antibody."

For Ebola, Regeneron used the same approach to create a three-antibody cocktail, which proved life-saving in a clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018.

The approach to provide treatment and protection in one potential medicine for COVID-19 puts Regeneron somewhere in between the vaccine projects underway at Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, and others, and the hunt for medicines across the industry, including at Gilead Sciences. Yancopoulos said the duration of protection that Regeneron's antibodies could provide is unknown before human studies are run, but extrapolating from earlier experience, they "expect one dose to last at least a month."

The dose needed for protection is a lot less than for treatment after someone is infected, he said, which is why Regeneron's goal of hundreds of thousands of doses by late summer applies to preventive use.

"For every hundred people you 'prophylax,' you can probably treat like five or 10 people," Yancopoulos said.

He noted the first people likely to receive the prophylactic treatment would be health-care workers and others at high risk for the disease. They would likely need a dose once a month until a vaccine conferring longer-term immunity becomes available. (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is leading the nation's COVID-19 vaccine development, has said a vaccine won't be available for a year to 18 months.)

And though Regeneron is meeting its own most optimistic timelines for the project, Yancopoulos said, "it still depends on a lot of things going right. This is biology, not coding or writing an app. There are a lot of things that can still go wrong."

The company also said Monday it is starting clinical trials of its rheumatoid arthritis drug, Kevzara, to treat the severe immune response that can occur in the lungs of patients with COVID-19. Since that drug is already on the market, it could provide an immediate option for the most critical patients, if it's successful.

"We really do feel," Yancopoulos said, "like we've been preparing for years for this opportunity to make a difference."

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Regeneron aims to have coronavirus antibody treatment ready for human testing by early summer - CNBC

]]> According to NIAID directer Dr Anthony Fauci, it will take a year for a Covid-19 vaccine to be available globally. Credit: Shutterstock.

Covid-19 has now been declared to be a pandemic by the World Health Organisation. Since the very beginning of the outbreak early in 2020, the pharma industry and the medical community have been focusing their efforts on investigating drugs that can be repurposed to treat the symptoms, as well as developing new vaccines to tackle the viruss spread.

To date, the Chinese authorities have approved an anti-viral against Covid-19 called fapilavir. This drug, which is manufacture red by Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical, and was developed to treat influenza. Other antiviral drugs being studied for repurposing are Gileads Ebola drug remdesivir, Roches rheumatoid arthritis treatment Actemra and AbbVies HIV drugs Kaletra and Aluvia.

Visit our Covid-19 microsite for the latest coronavirus news, analysis and updates.

Although there has been success in repurposing, development of novel treatments takes much longer. Vaccines are crucial to viral pandemic management because they can confer immunity among the general population, meaning this virus will be more easily contained in the future.

There has been some debate about precisely how long this will take, primarily because Israeli researchers from the state-funded Migal Galilee Research Institute announced they might have a vaccine for the virus in eight to ten weeks. This is because they have been working on a vaccine for Infectious Bronchitis Virus, which has been found to be genetically similar to Covid-19.

Readers of Pharmaceutical Technology have been voting on how long they think it will take for a vaccine to be available to patients. With over 164,000 votes cast, the results show than almost 33% of readers believe it will take over a year, while slightly more 28% are optimistic there could be a vaccine available within three months.

Experts are clear that it will take at least a year for a vaccine to be developed against Covid-19; this situation is not helped by the likelihood that the virus has already mutated into two strains.

US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Dr Anthony Fauci told the US House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee on 11 March: With regard to vaccines, we were able to go very quickly from understanding the virus and its genetic sequence to actually develop a vaccine. However, in the next four weeks or so, we will go into Phase I trials getting it into Phase I in a month is the quickest that anyone has ever done in the history of vaccinology.

So we go into Phase I, it will take around three months to determine if it is safe, then you go intoPhase II to determine if it works. Since this is vaccine, you dont want to give it to normal healthy people with the possibility that it will hurt them or that it will not work. So [this] phase is critical [and] will take another eight months or so.

So when youve heard me say that we would not have a vaccine that will be ready to start to deploy for a year to a year and half; that is the time frame. Anyone who thinks they can move more quickly than that, I believe would be cutting corners that would be detrimental.

Although this 12 to 18-month timeline will be difficult to speed up significantly for this pandemic, the scale of the spread and panic Covid-19 has caused must open the pharma industrys eyes about how to ensure the world is better prepared for future outbreaks and pandemics. This is particularly important given that research shows deadly outbreaks are more likely as the climate crisis progresses.

In this context, Virtual Clinical, a clinical research organisation specialising in virtual trials, has called for speeding up the clinical development process through virtualising clinical trials.

We need to learn from the past, and look at how it took the US Food and Drug Administration more than five years to approve the Ebola vaccine after the start of the first human trials, Virtual Clinical CEO Mark Thomas said in a press release. Using virtual clinical trials, enrolment will be quicker, costs will be reduced, and symptom and safety reporting can be more accurate.

He explains that currently there are hybrid versions a noteworthy example is Medidatas aspirin study in the US but there is a need to further virtualise. Every week is critical in a global emergency, he says. By changing the way we run clinical trials, we can provide more hope to get a vaccine [developed] earlier. This transformation of clinical trials will require regulators to accept these virtual initiatives as an equivalent to the existing approaches.

Another way to improve and speed up the clinical trial process is through better and connected data collection. To this end, Amsterdam-based data company Castor announced it would provide free access to its electronic data capture (EDC) system for all non-profit Covid-19 research projects.

Being able to standardise clinical data being accessed globally would help all researchers to understand the natural history of the disease, and describe clinical phenotypes and treatment interventions, CEO Derk Arts noted in a statement.

He adds: Epidemics and pandemics spread fast, they do not wait for clinical trials or academic journals to publish results.

With Covid-19, we have an opportunity to get it right and accelerate the discovery of cures through cooperation and collaboration. The best way to save lives is to share meaningful data in real-time. This new global health crisis caused by Covid-19 may spark systemic change a data revolution that could save thousands of lives.

Focusing on the vaccines specifically, one of the leaders in vaccine development for this current outbreak is the Norwegian Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

Since the outbreak first started spreading globally in January, CEPI has funded multiple vaccine candidates from biotech firms, pharma companies and university labs; importantly, the innovations CEPI supports are those that not only intend to produce a vaccine against this novel virus, but involve pioneering technologies that can speed up the development of vaccines in future outbreaks.

The so-called platform technologies they support are those where the basic components of the vaccine can be used as a backbone and adapted for use against new, emerging pathogens simply by inserting their genetic sequence.

One example is CEPIs partnership with US-based Moderna; this company has already received support from NIAID. The biotech leverages mRNA technology and its Covid-19 vaccine is encoded for a pre-fusion stabilised form of the Spike S protein.

Moderna CEO Stphane Bancel said: We believe our mRNA vaccine technology offers potential advantages in the speed of development and production scalability, which positions Moderna to potentially develop a vaccine against coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, which is now known as Covid-19. At the end of February, Moderna announced it had shipped its novel vaccine against Covid-19 for Phase I testing.

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Covid-19 outbreak: the key to quicker vaccine development - Pharmaceutical Technology

FREDERICK, Md. The Army Command working on a COVID-19 vaccine and treatment briefed the community Monday in a virtual town hall on Facebook. Officials from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command, or USAMRDC, the Barquist Army Health Clinic on Fort Detrick, Frederick Health Hospital near the base and other groups answered questions and gave updates about concerns surrounding COVID-19.

Leaders of USAMRDC reported a task force with multiple laboratories within the command is meeting daily. They are looking at preventing, detecting and treating COVID-19.

According to USAMRDC, theyre doing everything ranging from validating testing kits, doing some early vaccine work and looking at therapeutics for COVID-19.

The work is done in partnership with other government agencies, as part of the larger response to COVID-19.

Frederick Health Hospital is looking to set up a drive-through testing site. They are hoping to have that running sometimes in by the middle or end of this week and plan to follow the Centers for Disease Control guidelines for who should be tested.

With allergy season approaching, we want to make sure you're aware of the differences in symptoms between them, Coronavirus and the Flu.

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On Fort Detrick, currently, there are no plans to start testing people at the visitors center. Right now, officials reported no confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the Fort Detrick community.

RELATED: 'We're getting very good at this' | Military researchers talk COVID-19 vaccine work at Pentagon

Leaders attempted a calming tone for this virtual town hall. They asked those listening to be patient, remind them things will change on a daily basis, so the advice is likely to change. They promised to update the community as this happens.

RELATED: VERIFY: No confirmed sources for viral coronavirus quarantine voicemail

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Army command continues work on COVID-19 vaccine, treatment | Hospital near Fort Detrick to setup drive-through testing site - WUSA9.com

The immune responses from one of Australia's first coronavirus patients have been mapped, which researchers say is the first step towards finding a vaccine.

Researchers at Melbourne's Peter Doherty Institute for Infection tested at four different points in time the blood samples of an otherwise healthy woman who was diagnosed with coronavirus.

They were able to record how her immune system responded to COVID-19, and how it was able to overcome the virus.

Laboratory Head Professor Katherine Kedzierska told SBS News the patient's immune response was similar to that of a patient with influenza.

"When we were analysing the immune responses, we saw really textbook images of several different immune cell types emerging in the patient's blood," she said.

"Even though COVID-19 is caused by a new virus, in an otherwise healthy person, we can generate a robust immune response across different cell types."

"This is an important step forward in understanding what drives recovery."

"Now we can do research on understanding what's lacking, or what's different in patients that have fatal disease outcomes."

Scientists from The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity were able to succesfully grow a version of the Coronavirus in January.

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Research fellow Oanh Nguyen said it is the first time broad immune responses to COVID-19 have been reported.

"Three days after the patient was admitted, we saw large populations of several immune cells, which are often a tell-tale sign of recovery during seasonal influenza infection."

"We predicted that the patient would recover in three days, which is what happened."

In January, Doherty Institute researchers became the first outside China to successfully grow the Wuhan Coronavirus from a patient sample.

Now by dissecting the immune response, scientists are a step closer to finding an effective Coronavirus vaccine.

But ProfessorKedzierska said there are "many more questions" scientists are yet to answer.

"We've shown that this patient expressed antibodies, which are obviously important for the vaccine development," she said.

"We still need to understand the nature of those antibodies, whether they can neutralise the virus or not."

And it's too early to tell if patients who've had the Coronavirus are immune from future infections.

"We need to understand whether those immune responses can proceed into immunological memory[and whether] we still got those cells that can protect us against reinfection...with the same virus."

The findings were published on Tuesday in a medical journal called Nature Medicine.

Coronavirus symptoms can range from mild illness to pneumonia, according to the Federal Government's website, and can include a fever, coughing, sore throat, fatigue and shortness of breath.

There are now more than 375 coronavirus cases across Australia.

As of Tuesday afternoon, only people who have recently travelled from overseas or have been in contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case and experienced symptoms within 14 days are advised to be tested.

If you believe you may have contracted the virus, call your doctor, dont visit, or contact the national Coronavirus Health Information Hotline on 1800 020 080.

If you are struggling to breathe or experiencing a medical emergency, call 000.

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Australian researchers have made an important discovery in the race to find a COVID-19 vaccine - SBS News

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The Race Is On To Find A Vaccine For COVID-19 - WCCO | CBS Minnesota

If it seems that your news feed has been flooded with nerve-wracking updates on the COVID-19 outbreaks, have no fearthere are also plenty of positive updates on the pandemic as well.

So without any further ado, here is a list of 10 hopeful headlines on the coronavirus response from around the world.

Scientists at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle delivered the first rounds of a potential coronavirus vaccine to several dozen optimistic volunteers earlier this week.

43-year-old vaccine recipient Jennifer Haller, who is also a mother to two teenagers, was all smiles after she told AP reporters she was feeling great as she was leaving the clinic. This is an amazing opportunity for me to do something, she added.

Amidst national shortages of hand sanitizers, alcohol distilleries in Atlanta, Portland, rural Georgia, and North Carolina have begun using their facilities to make their own sanitation products.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) says that cleaning your hands with an alcohol-based rub can help to kill viruses on your hands, many of the distilleries say they hope to continue producing their bootleg sanitizers until the virus has been properly contained.

Satellite readings of air pollution levels over China and Italy show that the regions hit hardest by the COVID-19 have also caused air pollution levels to decline dramatically.

Some reports estimate that Chinas quarantine has saved more than 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmospherewhich is about the equivalent of what Chile produces in a year.

Not only have similar effects been reported across Italy, the canals and waterways of Venice are reportedly cleaner than ever with the waters shining crystal clear in the absence of diesel-powered boats and gondoliers.

The vaccine developers in Seattle arent the only ones working on potential treatments and cures for the diseasean immunologist from Johns Hopkins University is reviving a century-old blood-derived treatment for use in the United States in hopes of slowing the spread of the disease.

The technique uses antibodies from the blood plasma or serum of people who have recovered from COVID-19 infection to boost the immunity of newly-infected patients and those at risk of contracting the disease.

According to Reuters, South Korea recorded more COVID-19 recovery cases on March 6th than new infections for the first time since the nation experienced the largest Asian outbreak outside of China.

Since the novel coronavirus outbreak was first reported in South Korea back in January, the nation reached a peak of 909 new infections on February 29th.

Now, however, Reuters reports that the declining rate of infection has continued to fall with less than 100 new cases reported for several days in a row.

Crowds of medical staffers and discharged patients were filmed celebrating the closure of all 14 temporary hospitals that opened in Wuhan to treat COVID-19 patients during the worst of the outbreak.

Authorities told the South China Morning Post this week that the virus had finally passed its peak as the nations mainland experienced only 11 new cases on March 13th, most of which were from international travelers.

As the outbreak is finally brought under control, parks and tourist attractions are slowly beginning to reopen to the public under careful moderation.

At the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research, scientists have found that two different medicationsboth of which are registered and available in Australiahave completely wiped out traces of the disease in test tubes.

Not only that, the drugs were given to some of the nations first COVID-19 patients, which resulted in disappearance of the virus and complete recovery from the infection, researchers told News.com.au.

The university is now looking to conduct a nationwide trial with the drugs to evaluate the efficacy and tolerance of each drug administered separately and together.

As restaurants across Canada and the United States are forced to temporarily shut down amidst COVID-19 outbreaks, Uber Eats has announced that they will be waiving delivery fees for independent restaurants.

We know the success of every restaurant depends on customer demand, the company said in a statement. Thats why were working urgently to drive orders towards independent restaurants on Eats, to help make up for the significant slowdown of in-restaurant dining.

As more customers are choosing to stay indoors, weve waived the Delivery Fee for the more than 100,000 independent restaurants across US and Canada on Uber Eats. We will also launch daily dedicated, targeted marketing campaignsboth in-app and via emailto promote delivery from local restaurants, especially those that are new to the app.

Scientists from Canada and the Netherlands have also made medical breakthroughs of their own. In Toronto, a team of researchers managed to isolate the agent responsible for the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, which will help researchers around the world develop better diagnostic testing, treatments, and vaccines.

Researchers from these world-class institutions came together in a grassroots way to successfully isolate the virus in just a few short weeks, said Dr. Rob Kozak, clinical microbiologist at Sunnybrook University. It demonstrates the amazing things that can happen when we collaborate.

Meanwhile, Dutch researchers have submitted a scientific paper for publishing on how they have identified an anti-body for the virusand it could be a world-first.

Dollar General has announced that they will be devoting their opening hour of shopping time to elderly customers. Athletes and sports teams are pledging to pay the wages of arena employees during the shutdown. Utility companies, landlords, automakers, and internet providers are waiving a number of late fees and payments to ease the financial burden of the shutdown. School districts across the country are still opening their doors to serve meals to kids and families.

All in all, the pandemic situation may seem grim, but these are just a few examples of how businesses and individuals are still looking out for each other during times of trouble.

Multiply The Good By Sharing The Positivity With Your Friends On Social Media

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10 Positive Updates on the COVID-19 Outbreaks From Around the World - Good News Network

LOS ANGELES - As fears over the COVID-19 pandemic grow following mass closures across the United States, concerns of scammers attempting to take advantage of the chaotic situation are circulating as confusion and panic spread.

RELATED:CoronavirusNOW.com, FOX launches national hub for COVID-19 news and updates.

The Lucas County Sheriffs Office in Ohio issued a warning to its followers to be on the lookout for con artists claiming to be with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attempting to lure people into reserving a vaccine to prevent COVID-19.

Scammers have been calling people requesting credit card and social security numbers in exchange for reserving a vaccine that currently does not exist, according to the sheriffs office.

RELATED:CDCs flatten the curve graphic shows why social distancing amid coronavirus pandemic is necessary

Anyone receiving such a call should not under any circumstances give the caller any personal information or money," the Lucas County Sheriffs Office wrote on their Facebook page.

U.S. researchers gave the first shots in a clinical trial of an experimental coronavirus vaccine Monday. But even if the research goes well, a vaccine would not be available for widespread use for 12 to 18 months, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

On March 15, the National Security Council tweeted regarding a concern over fake text message rumors circulating throughout the public about a national quarantine.

On March 6, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an alert reminding individuals to be wary of possible scams related to the pandemic that has completely upended the social and economic fabric of the world.

Cyber actors may send emails with malicious attachments or links to fraudulent websites to trick victims into revealing sensitive information or donating to fraudulent charities or causes, the organization said. Exercise caution in handling any email with a COVID-19-related subject line, attachment, or hyperlink, and be wary of social media pleas, texts, or calls related to COVID-19.

Carolina Sanchez breaks down what you need to know about this health affliction.

CISA warns against giving away sensitive information over email and advises people to be wary of clicking on any link attachments sent via email.

RELATED:Coronavirus cancellations: These major events, concerts called off amid COVID-19 outbreak

CISA said that federal, state, local, tribal and territorial COVID-19 information sites are the best resources for up-to-date information on the pandemic.

The Secret Service said scammers send emails under the guise of a medical official with important information about coronavirus. When the victim lets their guard down and opens an attached file, their computer becomes infected with malware.

The scammer could access the victims passwords and possibly even their financial information.

RELATED:Flight change fee waivers, cancellations: This is how major airlines are reacting to COVID-19

In non-delivery schemes, victims are told about an in-demand medical supply that can prevent coronavirus. Once they pay for it, the victim never hears from the seller again or receives a product, the agency said.

Avoid opening attachments and clicking on links within emails from senders you do not recognize, the Secret Service said. These attachments can contain malicious content, such as ransomware, that can infect your device and steal your information.

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Authorities warn of scam callers seeking sensitive information to reserve a vaccine for COVID-19 - FOX 13 Tampa Bay

Coronavirus or COVID-19 cureis still under a long process for now. This is what Global Health Official revealed on Bloomberg in an exclusive interview when he was asked about the real status of theviruscure in the world. Clearly, the official said that there was already a potential cure for the viral disease, but it's now only on Phase 1, which means it still has a long way to go before officially announcing it as the primary COVID-19 cure. What to do now?

(Photo : VIDO-InterVac on Reuters)COVID-19 Cure Still on Phase 1 and Might Take 18 Months From Now to Create Says Global Health Official

Bloomberg recentlyexclusively interviewedArnaud Bernaert, a representative from the World Economic Forum Head of Global Health and Healthcare, and asked him on his personal views regarding the formulation of COVID-19 cure. Bernaert admitted on air that the cure might take a while to create before officially distributing it around the world and claimed it as the cure for the novel virus.

As estimated by Bernaert, the virus cure might take over a year or exactly 18 months--since the medicine is still on Phase 1-- before people will be cured by the formulation.

"You need to understand that Phase 1 means that we only verify that the vaccine is not toxic to humans. It's a state that is very early on the discovery process. You have to remain and demonstrate efficacy and, most importantly, and the vaccine can be manufactured at the scale which is an issue in the context of existing filling capacity for vaccines globally," said him. "I would say it's promising, but it's still a long way, and I tend to agree with clinical experts on that 18 months is a reasonable time frame of seeing a vaccine."

(Photo : KYODO on Reuters)COVID-19 Cure Still on Phase 1 and Might Take 18 Months From Now to Create Says Global Health Official

The Biomedical Advanced, Research and Development Authority, wassaidto be working with pharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson on creating potential vaccines against the disease. They were supposed to be the company that already reached phase 1 of getting the cure.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony S. Fauci already said that finding the cure for the Coronavirus is their main priority for today and having the phase 1 of the clinical trial of the potential vaccine will be a huge help for their discovery.

"Finding a safe and effective vaccine to prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2 is an urgent public health priority," said him in a statement. "This Phase 1 study, launched in record speed, is an important first step toward achieving that goal."

As of now, authorities around the world are still advising all citizens to be aware of proper hygiene on their residences to protect themselves from getting the virus.

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COVID-19 Vaccine Still on Phase 1 and Might Take 18 Months From Now to Create Says Global Health Official - Tech Times