CategoryTesting

Australia to roll out Covid vaccine in February, with goal for 4m jabs by March

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The rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine in Australia has been brought forward to mid-to-late February with the Morrison government aiming to have four million receive the jab by March.

Announcing the accelerated rollout on Thursday, the prime minister Scott Morrison also indicated it would be up to the states and territories to decide whether the vaccine could be made compulsory for some groups, such as aged care workers.

Australia is aiming to complete Therapeutic Goods Administration approval of the Pfizer vaccine by late January, after which it will take up to two weeks to be delivered and up to a week for batch-testing. The AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be approved in February.

Morrison set out a process to begin vaccination, with the first recipients being high-priority groups including 700,000 frontline workers in the health sector, border enforcement, hotel quarantine, aged care, and disability care; and residents of aged and disability care.

Morrison said starting with 80,000 vaccinations a week, Australia would aim to ramp that up in order to vaccinate four million people by the end of March.

The second tier of six million recipients is made up of Australians aged over 70, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders over 55, healthcare workers, younger adults with underlying health conditions and emergency services workers.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/07/australia-to-roll-out-covid-vaccine-in-february-with-goal-for-four-million-jabs-by-march

Fauci: Vaccinations are ramping up in a `glimmer of hope’

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The U.S. ramped up COVID-19 vaccinations in the past few days after a slower-than-expected start, bringing the number of shots dispensed to about 4 million, government health officials said Sunday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, also said on ABC’s “This Week” that President-elect Joe Biden’s pledge to administer 100 million shots of the vaccine within his first 100 days in office is achievable.

And he rejected President Donald Trump’s false claim on Twitter that coronavirus deaths and cases in the U.S. have been greatly exaggerated.

“All you need to do … is go into the trenches, go into the hospitals, go into the intensive care units and see what is happening. Those are real numbers, real people and real deaths,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The U.S. death toll has climbed past 350,000, the most of any country, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, while more than 20 million people nationwide have been infected. States have reported record numbers of cases over the past few days, and funeral homes in Southern California are being inundated with bodies.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the pandemic is getting worse in his city as the virus spreads rapidly within households and people let their guard down. “This is a virus that preys off of our weakness, preys off of our exhaustion,” he said.

Experts believe that the real numbers of U.S. deaths and infections are much higher and that many cases were overlooked, in part because of insufficient testing.

Fauci said he has seen “some little glimmer of hope” after 1.5 million doses were administered in the previous 72 hours, or an average of about 500,000 per day, a marked increase in vaccinations. He said that brings the total to about 4 million.

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-ap-top-news-anthony-fauci-coronavirus-pandemic-125e227ebad23e03215b18981e2c3d08HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

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New coronavirus variant does not cause illness more severe than others -Public Health England study

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A new variant of the novel coronavirus does not appear to cause more severe illness than other variants, according to a matched study bit.ly/2X7cLgp by Public Health England.

Scientists say the new variant can spread more rapidly. It was found in England in mid December and led to other countries imposing travel restrictions to the United Kingdom. Several other countries have reported variants.

Under the study, researchers compared 1,769 people infected with the new variant with 1,769 who had what they described as “wild-type” virus. The two groups were matched 1:1 on the basis of age, sex, area of residence and time of testing.

Of the 42 people who were admitted to hospital, 16 were infected with the new variant while 26 cases had wild type infection, according to the study. In terms of fatality, there were 12 deaths in variant cases compared to 10 deaths in wild-type cases.

“Preliminary results from the cohort study found no statistically significant difference in hospitalisation and 28-day case fatality between cases with the variant and wild-type comparator cases,” the study said.

There was no significant difference in the likelihood of reinfection with the new variant as compared with the other variants, it said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-variant-idUSKBN29401A?taid=5febd373047c5c0001cc0f21HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

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EU launches mass Covid-19 vaccination push in ‘moment of unity’

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European Union nations have launched a co-ordinated effort to give Covid-19 vaccinations to adults among their 450 million citizens.

Shots were administered on Sunday morning to the most vulnerable people, healthcare workers who take care of them, and some politicians to reassure the public that the vaccinations are safe.

The vaccines, developed by Germany’s BioNTech and American drug maker Pfizer, started arriving in EU countries on Friday. The EU has seen some of the world’s earliest and hardest-hit virus hot spots, including Italy and Spain.

Others EU countries, like the Czech Republic, were spared the worst early on only to see their healthcare systems near collapse in the autumn.

Altogether, the EU’s 27 nations have recorded at least 16 million coronavirus cases and more than 336,000 deaths – huge numbers that experts still agree understate the true toll of the pandemic due to missed cases and limited testing.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the vaccine rollout, calling it “a touching moment of unity”.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/eu-launches-mass-covid-19-vaccination-push-moment-unity/HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

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FDA authorizes first over-the-counter COVID-19 antigen test

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The U.S. Food and Drug administration on Tuesday authorized emergency use of the first over-the-counter COVID-19 antigen test, which can be used at home.

The test by Ellume offers a nasal swab analyzer that connects to a software application on users’ smartphone, and gives results in 20 minutes.

Anyone above two years of age, including those not showing symptoms, can take the test, the agency said.

The news follows authorization of the first prescription COVID-19 test for home use last month, and of a non-prescription test system allowing a lab to process nasal samples collected at home, last week.

The regulatory nods will help expand Americans’ access to testing, reduce the burden on laboratories and test supplies, and give more testing options, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-fda-testing-idUSL4N2IV3O8HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

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‘We should be substantially back to normal’ by summer 2021, says Operation Warp Speed’s chief science advisor

Operation Warp Speed’s Chief Science Advisor Moncef Slaoui told CNBC that Americans can expect to get back to ‘normal’ by summer 2021, as families across the United States spend Thanksgiving apart this year in order to keep their loved ones safe. 

“We hope that we would have vaccinated 70% to 80% of the U.S. population by May or June of 2021, so I would hope that by summer, we should be substantially back to normal,” Slaoui said in a Wednesday evening interview on “The News with Shepard Smith”. 

Doctors and scientists, however, are reassuring Americans that there will be a reprieve. Two weeks after Thanksgiving, the FDA will meet to discuss whether to green-light Pfizer’s vaccine. If it does, the government plans to ship out 6.4 million doses to communities around the country.

Slaoui said that inoculating all Americans will be a “challenge” but he thinks it is achievable. “People need to know that every year between 140 million to 180 million doses of flu vaccine are produced, distributed, and inoculated in the U.S. population in a period that goes between the month of August and the month of, maybe, January,” Slaoui said. “So, we may be doubling that number over the period of time, but it’s not from scratch, which was very different from the testing.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/25/we-should-be-back-to-normal-by-summer-2021-says-operation-warp-speed-advisor.htmlHELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

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Can dogs smell COVID? Here’s what the science says

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Canines seem to detect coronavirus infections with remarkable accuracy, but researchers say large-scale studies are needed before the approach is scaled up.

Around the world, canines are being trained to detect the whiff of COVID-19 infections. Dog trainers are claiming extraordinary results — in some cases, they say that dogs can detect the virus with almost perfect accuracy. Scientists involved with the efforts suggest that canines could help to control the pandemic because they can screen hundreds of people an hour in busy places such as airports or sports stadiums, and are cheaper to run than conventional testing methods such as the RNA-amplification technique PCR.

But most of these findings have not yet been peer reviewed or published, making it hard for the wider scientific community to evaluate the claims. Researchers working on more conventional viral tests say that initial results from dog groups are intriguing and show promise. But some question whether the process can be scaled up to a level that would allow the animals to make a meaningful impact.

On 3 November, groups working with the animals met in an online workshop called International K9 Team to share preliminary results from experiments and to improve how their research is coordinated.

“No one is saying they can replace a PCR machine, but they could be very promising,” says veterinary neurologist Holger Volk at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover in Germany, who is leading an effort to train and study COVID-sniffing dogs and did not speak at the event.

Many sniffer-dog scientists turned their attention to COVID-19 early in the pandemic. They have trained their canines to smell samples, most often of sweat, in sterile containers, and to sit or paw the floor when they detect signs of infection. Trials at airports in the United Arab Emirates, Finland and Lebanon are using dogs to detect COVID-19 in sweat samples from passengers; these are then checked against conventional tests. According to data presented at the K9 meeting, dogs in Finland and Lebanon have identified cases days before conventional tests picked up the virus, suggesting that they can spot infection before symptoms start.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03149-9HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

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Quarter of us may already be immune to coronavirus – without ever being infected

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One in four people may already be immune to coronavirus – without ever being infected, a new study has found.

Public Health England (PHE) followed nearly 2,850 key workers from the police, fire and health services to gauge levels of immunity to Covid-19.

Researchers found that by June, a quarter had high levels of T-cells which recognised the virus.

It suggested they had some level of protection against the bug, yet nearly half had never been infected.

The experts believe they may have developed a level of immunity from similar coronaviruses – like the one that causes the common cold.

They followed up with the study sample after four months and found that no-one with a high T-cell count had caught Covid.

Dr Peter Wrighton-Smith, the CEO of Oxford Immunotec, the company that developed the T-cell test for trial, said that the results show that relying on antibody testing alone to see who is immune to the virus could underestimate the number of people who have immunity.

T-cells target and destroy cells in the body that become infected by the virus.

Previous studies on immunity have centered on antibodies.

Antibodies neutralise a virus before it is able to enter the cells of the body.

Data from the study found that none of the participants with high T-cell responses became infected with the virus in the following four months.

This, the experts claim, suggests that part of the immune system can protect people from the virus.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13249689/quarter-already-immune-coronavirus-without-ever-infected/HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

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Oxford vaccine shows ‘encouraging’ immune response in older adults

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The Oxford coronavirus vaccine shows a strong immune response in adults in their 60s and 70s, raising hopes that it can protect age groups most at risk from the virus.

Researchers say the Lancet phase two findings, based on 560 healthy adult volunteers, are “encouraging”.

They are also testing whether the vaccine stops people developing Covid-19 in larger, phase three trials.

Early results from this crucial stage are expected in the coming weeks.

Three vaccines – Pfizer-BioNTech, Sputnik and Moderna – have already reported good preliminary data from phase three trials, with one suggesting 94% of over-65s could be protected from Covid-19.

The UK has already ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine, manufactured by AstraZeneca, 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and five million of the Moderna vaccine.

The challenge with developing a Covid vaccine is to trigger the body to fight back against the virus no matter how old someone is.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54993652HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

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UK – Mass Covid tests trialled in Liverpool ‘cut transmission by 90% & can help us get back to normal ASAP’

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Pregnancy-style Covid tests could allow Brits to socialise again after trials in Liverpool show they can reduce transmission by 90 per cent.

The rapid turnaround tests will play a “major role” in returning life to normal, Oxford Uni scientists said today.

Testing shows the checks can effectively pick up more than three in four positive cases – the majority of which are currently being missed.

Experts say they are now looking at how the new technology, which can provide results in under 30 minutes, could be self-administered.

The kits, known as lateral flow tests, have been trialled across England to find out their effectiveness, including a city-wide pilot in Liverpool which was launched last week.

The tests involve a swab of the nose and throat, just like a PCR test.

It’s then inserted into a tube of liquid for a short period of time.

Drops of that liquid are then added to a strip – similar to a pregnancy test – and about half an hour later a result is shown.

Public Health England today said that their extensive clinical evaluation has proven them to be accurate and reliable enough for community-use.

Sir John Bell, professor of medicine at Oxford University, said: “‘The data in this validation report demonstrates that these inexpensive, easy to use tests can play a major role in our fight against Covid-19.

“They identify those who are likely to spread the disease and when used systematically in mass testing could reduce transmissions by 90 per cent.“

www.thesun.co.uk/news/13169865/mass-covid-tests-trialled-liverpool-cut-transmission-90/HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

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