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Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
By Michael Erman
U.S. regulatorson Thursday expanded eligibility for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to 16- and 17-year-olds, as public health officials have urged Americans to get a third shot due to concerns about the new Omicron variant of the virus.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it amended its emergency use authorization of Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and BioNTech SE's vaccine to allow youths aged 16-17 to receive a third shot at least six months after their second vaccine dose.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also signed off on the shots.
"Although we don’t have all the answers on the Omicron variant, initial data suggests that COVID-19 boosters help broaden and strengthen the protection against Omicron and other variants," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. She strongly encouraged all eligible 16- and 17-year olds to get the shots.
Around 4.7 million U.S. youths in that age group are fully vaccinated and more than 2.5 million of them are six months past their second dose.
Only the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has been authorized for use in the age group.
Some scientists have raised concerns about the additional shot because of the elevated risk of rare cases of heart inflammation in young men that have been linked to messenger RNA vaccines such as the Pfizer/BioNTech shot.
All U.S. adults are currently eligible for booster shots of the three authorized COVID-19 vaccines.
The FDA's authorization comes a day after Pfizer and BioNTech released data suggesting that booster shots could be key to protection against infection from the newly identified Omicron variant. read more
The CDC has identified fewer than 100 cases of Omicron in the United States, but they are expected to increase in the coming weeks and months.
Meanwhile, the dominant Delta variant, which is very transmissible and can be passed on by people who are fully vaccinated, has driven up infections. Regions where activities have moved indoors for winter, such as the Northeast, have seen some of the biggest increases in new cases, which now average close to 120,000 daily.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-fda-authorizes-pfizerbiontech-booster-16-17-year-olds-2021-12-09/
Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization (WHO) holds up a chart during a news conference given by the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19 about its investigation of the coronavirus outbreak in Beijing, China, February 24, 2020. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
COVAX, the global vaccine-sharing network, needs a new set of rules in the long term to prevent the hoarding of vaccines by high income and vaccine-producing countries, a senior advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
COVAX, which is co-led by the WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), suffered as high-income countries used their purchasing power to steer the flow of vaccines, while manufacturing countries prioritised domestic distribution, said Bruce Aylward, Senior Advisor to the WHO Director General.
"You can't vaccinate one part of the world and then make low-income countries wait," he told media on the sidelines of meetings for the G20's financial track on the Indonesian island of Bali.
COVAX has since January largely allocated doses of COVID-19 vaccines proportionally among its 140-plus beneficiary states according to population size. In October, the WHO said it would distribute shots only to countries with the lowest levels of coverage.
Aylward called for vaccine manufacturers to be more transparent.
"The manufacturers have got to say how many vaccines are going to who, and when. If we don't have that information, we can't plan properly," he said.
On Wednesday, the WHO said hospitalisations caused by the highly infectious Omicron variant of COVID-19, detected in 57 nations, was likely to rise as it spreads.
"Many people have said (Omicron) is not causing a lot of deaths. We don't know that," Aylward said.
"It is a very new virus, there has not been a lot of sequencing done that tells us the seriousness of this disease".
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/covax-scheme-needs-rules-prevent-vaccine-hoarding-who-advisor-2021-12-10/
People pass the control tower of Singapore's Changi Airport, Singapore January 18, 2021. REUTERS/Edgar Su
Singapore has detected its first locally transmitted case of the COVID-19 variant Omicron in a member of staff at the city state's airport, authorities said late on Thursday, warning that more Omicron cases are likely to be detected.
The 24-year-old Singaporean woman, who works in a service role in the airport, "may have interacted with transit passengers from Omicron-affected countries," the health ministry said in a statement.
She tested preliminarily positive for Omicron as a part of the routine testing for frontline workers, it said, noting she was fully vaccinated and asymptomatic.
A second Omicron case reported on Tuesday was a traveller from Germany.
Both of individuals had received vaccine boosters shots, the health ministry said.
The cases are currently pending further genome sequencing to confirm the variant.
Singapore had previously detected three Omicron cases, all found in overseas travellers.
"Given its high transmissibility and spread to many parts of the world, we should expect to find more Omicron cases at our borders and also within our community," the health ministry said.
Singapore has vaccinated 96% of its eligible population, and authorities are urging the public to get booster shots amid concerns over the Omicron variant.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-reports-first-locally-transmitted-omicron-case-2021-12-10/
A healthcare worker in Rome prepares a dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Photograph: Yara Nardi/Reuters
Dr Guido Russo says stunt was protest against vaccine mandates and jab is ‘best weapon we have’ against virus
An Italian dentist who presented a fake arm for a Covid vaccine says he has since been jabbed and that the vaccine “is the best weapon we have against this terrible disease”.
Dr Guido Russo faces possible criminal fraud charges for having worn an arm made out of silicone when he first showed up at a vaccine hub in the northern city of Biella. Italy has required doctors and nurses to be vaccinated since earlier this year.
Russo insisted during a Wednesday night appearance on Italian talkshow La7 that he was not trying to defraud the government nor dupe anyone because the arm was obviously not real. He said he wanted to make a personal protest against vaccine mandates.
A nurse who spotted the silicone arm reported Russo to her managers. The dentist acknowledged his protest had failed and said he received a vaccine dose in one of his actual arms the next day “because the system obliged me to”.
He added: “I think at this point the vaccine is the only weapon we have against this terrible disease, but there should be a freedom of choice.”
Russo denied he was anti-vaccination and had received all his childhood vaccines. He said he had some of those vaccines redone over the summer, including a tetanus shot.
While Italy’s vaccination rate is nearly 85% of the currently eligible population ages 12 and over, people in the the age range from 30 to 59 have proven the most resistant to vaccinations, with nearly 3.5 million still not having received their first doses.
The government is expanding its vaccine mandate to other categories of workers, including law enforcement officers and teachers.
Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/09/italian-who-presented-fake-arm-for-covid-jab-has-since-been-vaccinated
Private healthcare provider says symptoms in country’s fourth wave are far milder than in previous waves
People at a Covid vaccination centre in Orange Farm, South Africa. Photograph: Jérôme Delay/AP
Covid cases in South Africa have surged by 255% in the past seven days but there is mounting anecdotal evidence that infections with the Omicron variant are provoking milder symptoms than in previous waves.
According to a South African private healthcare provider, the recent rise in infections – which includes the Omicron and Delta variants – has been accompanied by a much smaller increase in admissions to intensive care beds, echoing an earlier report from the country’s National Institute for Communicable Disease (NICD).
On Thursday, Marco Cavaleri, the head of biological threats to health and vaccines strategy at the European Medicines Agency, said the situation in Europe remained “extremely worrying”, primarily due to the spread of the Delta variant, while preliminary data on Omicron suggested it may be more transmissible than Delta but cases appeared to be mostly mild.
“However we need to gather more evidence to determine whether the spectrum of disease severity caused by Omicron is different to that of all the variants that have been circulating so far,” Cavaleri said. “Only time will tell.”
He said it appeared that the currently approved Covid vaccines were considerably less effective in neutralising Omicron, but “we need to gather a more precise picture around the level of immunity that can be retained”.
The World Health Organization said Africa currently accounted for 46% of reported Omicron cases globally.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said that despite the global concern over Omicron, it was still unclear whether it was more transmissible or caused more severe disease, and he criticised western countries for imposing a travel ban on the country.
South Africa’s biggest private healthcare provider, Netcare, said data from its facilities indicated less severe Covid symptoms in the current fourth wave than in previous waves.
“Having personally seen many of our patients across our Gauteng hospitals, their symptoms are far milder than anything we experienced during the first three waves,” Netcare’s Richard Friedland told the Daily Maverick on Wednesday.
“Approximately 90% of Covid-19 patients currently in our hospitals require no form of oxygen therapy and are considered incidental cases. If this trend continues, it would appear that, with a few exceptions of those requiring tertiary care, the fourth wave can be adequately treated at a primary care level.”
Friedland said that in previous waves 26% of Netcare’s Covid patients were treated in high care and intensive care units.
Friedland’s comments echo earlier analysis from Dr Fareed Abdullah, of the South African Medical Research Council, who said many of the patients diagnosed with Covid in hospitals in badly hit Gauteng province and elsewhere were often “incidental” identifications in patients presenting with other conditions.
“The main observation that we have made over the last two weeks is that the majority of patients in the Covid wards have not been oxygen dependent. Sars-CoV-2 has been an incidental finding in patients that were admitted to the hospital for another medical, surgical or obstetric reason,” Abdullah said.
“A snapshot of 42 patients in the ward on 2 December reveals that 29 (70%) are not oxygen dependent. These patients are saturating well on room air and do not present with any respiratory symptoms. A significant early finding in this analysis is the much shorter average length of stay of 2.8 days for patients admitted to the Covid wards over the last two weeks, compared to an average length of stay of 8.5 days for the past 18 months.”
South African and other experts have said it is still too early in the Omicron outbreak to determine the longer-term course of the illness, and the younger population profile of South Africa means other countries may not necessarily see the same public health outcomes.
South Africa has struggled at times with initially distinguishing between Covid variants, with some testing equipment unable to quickly spot Omicron without sequencing.
Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/09/south-african-covid-cases-up-255-in-a-week-as-omicron-spreads
Here is a snapshot of everything you might have missed:
· Australia will begin administering Covid-19 vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 from 10 January.
· US regulators have expanded eligibility for booster shots to 16- and 17-year-olds amid rising concerns about the new Omicron variant.
· European Union countries are expected to agree to limit to nine months the duration of Covid-19 certificates for travel around the bloc, three EU sources told Reuters.
· Dozens of US Navy medics have deployed to New Mexico to treat a Delta variant-fuelled surge in patients as part of a military operation to treat virus hotspots across Western and Midwest states.
· Singapore has detected its first locally transmitted case of the Omicron variant in a member of staff at the city state’s airport, authorities said, warning that more Omicron cases are likely to be detected.
· The Philippines will ban entry by people who have recently travelled to Portugal.
· Early hospital data from South Africa shows less than a third of patients admitted for Covid-19 during the latest wave linked to the Omicron variant are suffering severe illness, compared with two-thirds in the early stages of the last two waves.
· Malta will return to mandatory mask-wearing in outdoor and indoor spaces as from Saturday, Health Minister Chris Fearne said.
· Germany’s vaccination advisory commission recommended the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is given to children aged five to 11 with pre-existing conditions.
· The European Union’s drugs regulator said it could make sense to administer vaccine boosters as early as three months after the initial two-shot regimen.
Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/dec/10/covid-news-live-australia-to-offer-jabs-to-children-aged-five-to-11-us-omicron-cases-mostly-mild-cdc-chief-says
Medicine
