But she said other data had been reassuring, as Britain continued with its big bet on the Oxford rollout, which has been gathering pace and reaching up to 500,000 people each day.Mr Johnson said he does not agree with the German ruling, as he backed the advice from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).When asked if he was worried about Germany’s move, he replied: “No, because I think the MHRA, our own authorities have made it very clear that they think the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is very good and efficacious, gives a high degree of protection after just one dose and even more after two doses.“And the evidence they’ve supplied is they think it’s effective across all age groups and provides a good immune response across all age groups.”The European Medicines Agency (EMA) was expected to approve the vaccine for use in the EU on Friday, although it is not yet clear whether it will set an age limit.But the German authorities said: “There currently is not sufficient data to assess the vaccination effectiveness from 65 years.”Oxford University, which partnered with AstraZeneca to develop the vaccine, has stressed that its jab offers high protection against severe disease and prevents people needing to go to hospital.
“The latest analyses of clinical trial data for the AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine support efficacy in the over 65 years age group,” AstraZeneca said in a statement.“We await a regulatory decision on the vaccine by the EMA in the coming days.”A Phase 3 Lancet study published in December said older age groups had been recruited later into the study so “efficacy data in these cohorts are currently limited by the small number of cases, but additional data will be available in future analyses”.In that particular analysis, only 12 percent of people given two doses of the vaccine in the UK arm of the trial (285 out of 2,377) were aged 56 to 69, while 9 per cent (213) were over 70.Some 12 percent of people in the control group (given a dummy vaccine) were also aged 56 to 69 while 9 per cent were over 70.Older people made up similar proportions in the Brazilian section of the trial, which was made up of 4,088 people.Previous work published in November included findings for 560 people.Of these, 160 were aged 18 to 55, 160 were aged 56 to 69, and 240 were 70 or older.Those results found that all age groups, including older people, had an immune response to the vaccine after two doses.
It comes as demand for the scarce Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, which has a 95 percent effectiveness, has been intense, with Australia ordering 10 million doses.
The Australian has reported that Pfizer may switch manufacturing of its vaccine to the US in order to fulfil global supply agreements, and sidestep EU export restrictions that could threaten supply, including those 10 million doses allocated to Australia.On Thursday night Australian time, Pfizer said it had tested the jab against the UK and South African strain of COVID-19 and said the differences were “unlikely to lead to a significant reduction in the effectiveness of the vaccine”.It is now uncertain how soon the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will make it to Australia, as an initial batch of 80,000 doses was meant to be heading to Australia within the next few weeksTOO EARLY TO EASE EU RESTRICTIONSThe World Health Organisation’s European branch announced on Thursday (local time) that it was too early to lift virus restrictions on the continent despite a slight drop in new cases in most countries.Regional Director for WHO Europe, Hans Kluge, said 30 of the bloc’s 53 countries had “seen a significant decrease in 14-day cumulative incidence” of the virus.Although numbers are declining “transmission rates across Europe are still very high, impacting health systemsand straining services, making it too early to ease up,” Mr Kluge told an online press conference.Mr Kluge warned that while the vaccine rollout offered hope, the continuing mutation of the virus posed a serious risk of Europe being “hit again”. NURSING HOME DEATH PROBENew York’s nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 may be more than 50 per cent higher than officials claim — because Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration hasn’t revealed how many of those residents died in hospitals, state Attorney-General Letitia James announced on Thursday, local time.In a damning, 76-page report, Ms James also said that some unidentified nursing homes apparently underreported resident fatalities to the state Department of Health (DOH) and failed to enforce infection-control measures — with more than 20 currently under investigation.
According to the New York Post, the bombshell findings could push the current DOH tally of 8,711 deaths to more than 13,000, based on a survey of 62 nursing homes that found the state undercounted the fatalities there by an average of 56 per cent.The report further notes that at least 4,000 residents died after the state issued a controversial, March 25 Cuomo administration mandate for nursing homes to admit “medically stable” coronavirus patients — which James said “may have put residents at increased risk of harm in some facilities.”“As the pandemic and our investigations continue, it is imperative that we understand why the residents of nursing homes in New York unnecessarily suffered at such an alarming rate,” Ms James said.
“While we cannot bring back the individuals we lost to this crisis, this report seeks to offer transparency that the public deserves and to spur increased action to protect our most vulnerable residents.”Vivian Zayas — who founded the Voices for Seniors advocacy group after her mother, who lived in a Long Island nursing home, died of COVID-19 last year — said that “our jaws dropped” upon reading Ms James’ report.“The lawyer general’s report shows that Cuomo’s book on his great leadership during the pandemic is a fraud,” she said.“It’s a fraud and insult to the families. He’s a fraud and his book is a fraud.”
Asked about the finding during a morning news conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “We have to make sense of this. We have to get the full truth. … And we have to be honest about the numbers.”“These are our loved ones that we lost,” Mr de Blasio said.“It’s someone’s grandma, it’s someone’s mother or father, aunt or uncle. This is families missing someone dear to them.”He added: “Among all the other pain that we went through in 2020, this was arguably the worst part of it.”Gov. Cuomo’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, with a spokesman saying officials were still reviewing James’ report.
NED-2139-Oxford-covid-vaccine
On Thursday (local time) it was reported that Canada’s expected COVID-19 vaccine shipments had been reduced again.Canada’s Global News reported that the nation will receive hundreds of thousands fewer doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine than previously anticipated.The government had promised that Canada would receive four million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine by the end of March.
Sources from multiple premiers’ offices confirmed it’s now expected to be only about 3.5 million doses. One of the sources told Global News that Alberta’s total shipments for the first quarter of this year will be 13 per cent less than previously expected.On Thursday, Canada’s largest province of Ontario reported 34 more deaths in long-term care homes, and 2,093 new COVID-19 cases, with 56 more deaths.SHOCK STUDY: COVID CAUSES MENTAL ILLNESSOne in eight people who have recovered from COVID-19 are diagnosed with their first psychiatric or neurological illness within six months of testing positive for the bug, according to a new study.Researchers who surveyed 236,379 coronavirus survivors found that the numbers rose to one in three when people with a previous history of psychiatric or neurological illnesses were included, the Guardian reported.In addition, the study found that one in nine patients also were diagnosed with conditions such as depression or stroke despite not having gone to a hospital when they were infected, according to lead author Dr. Max Taquet of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford.The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, used electronic health records to evaluate hospitalised and non-hospitalised US patients with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis who recovered.According to the results, the likelihood of a COVID-19 survivor developing a psychiatric or neurological illness within six months was 33.6 per cent; almost 13 per cent of the survivors did, in fact, receive a diagnosis in that time frame, the study found.
NED-1909-COVID-19-World-cases-vs-death-comparison
UK EXTENDS LOCKDOWNAnd a day after Boris Johnson said he was “deeply sorry” for Britain’s 100,000 coronavirus dead, the British Prime Minister has extended England’s lockdown for another three more weeks – and schools won’t go back until March 8 at the earliest, according to a report in The Sun.
Mr Johnson said that getting kids back to class was tied to the national restrictions – and that children will not be going back in mid-February as hoped.Mr Johnson told British parliament on Wednesday (local time) children would continue to learn remotely for another five weeks – and there was not yet enough data to decide when to lift the lockdown measures.“At this point, we do not have enough data to judge the full effect of vaccines in blocking transmission nor the extent and speed with which the vaccines will reduce hospitalisations and deaths, nor how quickly the combination of vaccinations and the lockdown can be expected to ease the pressure on the NHS.”Mr Johnson originally said the lockdown would be in place – and schools shut – until the middle of February but left the door open for it to be extended.It will be a massive blow to parents and children hoping for schools would be able to reopen, as in the November lockdown.
But he promised: “The most important thing is to get kids back in school as soon as we sensibly can.“That is what the government is determined to do.”“We will not persist for a day longer than is necessary, but nor can we relax too soon, because if we do we run the risk of our NHS coming under still greater pressure, compelling us to reimpose every restriction and sustain those restrictions for longer.”On Tuesday, Mr Johnson apologised to the people of Britain saying he was “deeply sorry” after the country’s death toll passed 100,000.Mr Johnson said the staggering death toll “exhausts the thesaurus of misery” and represents “an appalling and tragic loss of life”.“It’s hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic – the years of life lost, the family gatherings not attended, and for so many relatives the missed chance even to say goodbye.
“I offer my deepest condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one: fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and the many grandparents who have been taken.To all those who grieve, we make this pledge: that when we come through this crisis we will come together as a nation to remember everyone we lost and to honour the selfless heroism of all those on the front line who gave their lives to save others.”It comes as British citizens returning home from roughly 30 countries deemed at “high risk” from new coronavirus variants could soon have to quarantine in hotels, reports said on Wednesday (local time).Beefed-up rules will require the travellers to stay in hotels near airports for 10 days, according to the Times and BBC.Non-UK arrivals from the targeted destinations — which include South America, Portugal, Cape Verde and South Africa — are already barred following the discovery of two virus variants in Brazil and South Africa.
WHO BEGINS WUHAN FACT-FINDING MISSIONA team of World Health Organisation researchers have left quarantine in Wuhan as of Thursday (local time) and are beginning what is to be a heavily-scrutinised probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. The team emerged from the Jade Boutique hotel in Wuhan, wearing masks, before boarding a bus on Thursday afternoon local time after completing a 14-day stint in quarantine. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealthAlliance, a global organisation focused on infectious disease prevention, tweeted: “Moving into next phase of work now w/ @WHO mission team [and] China counterparts.”The WHO insists the visit will be science-based and try to ascertain exactly how the virus jumped from animals to humans and where it exactly began.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, White House spokesman Jen Psaki voiced concern over the “misinformation” from “some sources in China”.On Thursday, Beijing responded sharply, warning the US to “respect facts and science, respect the hard work of the WHO experts.” It is understood that the Chinese government opposes the fact-finding mission, which has been delayed by its hosts. Throughout the pandemic, the Chinese government has been critical of other countries and sought to avoid taking responsibility for the virus and its subsequent global outbreak. It has not been revealed how the WHO researchers will work, or what they will be allowed to see and access in Wuhan.Relatives of Wuhan’s dead have called for a meeting with the WHO team, saying they have faced new levels of official obfuscation since the UN’s health agency arrived.While the common theory is that the outbreak occurred in a wet market in Wuhan, others claim it emerged in a scientific laboratory. The Chinese government itself previously suggested the virus was developed in the US as a biological weapon.
Powered by WPeMatico
