The global cause of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 was on its way to 102 million on Friday, as health experts released the latest vaccine updates from Novavax Inc. and Johnson & Johnson were digesting amid hopes that they would soon receive emergency clearance and strengthen supplies.
Novavax NVAX,
said late Thursday its vaccine candidate, which has a different mechanism than the one already authorized in the US – one developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE,
and the German partner BioNTech’s BNTX,
and a separate one developed by Moderna Inc. MRNA,
– appears to be 89% effective, based on early data from a UK trial involving 15,000 patients, reports the AP.
The company said that about half of the participants in the trial who became infected with the virus had the mutated version that had been spreading in the UK for weeks. According to a preliminary analysis, the vaccine is almost 96% effective against the original virus and almost 86% effective against the new variant.
See also: The Novavax vaccine is effective. Now I seriously hope this is what I was injected with
Scientists were even more concerned about a strain first discovered in South Africa that had different mutations, and the results of a smaller Novavax study suggest that the vaccine does work, but not nearly as well as against the variant from the United Kingdom.
Read now: Medicine manufacturers investigate the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments against new, more contagious South African strain
It was a similar story by J&J JNJ,
when it released early Friday early data from a phase 3 trial of its candidate for COVID vaccine and said it appears to be 66% effective in preventing moderate-to-severe illness 28 days after vaccination, but less effective – only 57% – in dealing with the South African tribe.
J&J will submit the data to a peer-reviewed magazine in the coming weeks and expects to submit an emergency use authorization in early February. There are high expectations for this vaccine as it requires only one dose, as opposed to those currently approved which require two doses that are weeks apart.
According to a New York Times tracker, the U.S. added at least 165,073 new cases on Thursday and according to the New York Times counted at least 3,862 deaths, though that was less than the more than 4,000 deaths reported in the past two days.
Case numbers have been declining over the past 14 days. The U.S. averaged 159,598 new cases a day last week, 34% lower than the average two weeks ago.
According to the COVID detection project, hospitalization rates are also improving. There were 104,303 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals on Thursday, up from 107,444 the previous day. The number has now been declining for 17 consecutive days and is at its lowest level since December 7th.
“The reported deaths rose 7 percent this week, while states lost a total of 22,797 lives to COVID-19,” the COVID Tracking Project wrote in its weekly blog. ‘Deaths lag behind in cases – both because it takes time to die from the virus, and because the reporting process for deaths is very slow. Even with cases falling in the US, we could face another week or more with very high mortality rates. ”
Against this backdrop, President Joe Biden is pushing his pandemic response team to accelerate the rate of vaccinations and he is buying more doses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccination tracker shows that as of 06:00 ET, 26.2 million doses were administered on Thursday and 48.4 million doses were delivered in states.
In other news:
• Europe’s drug regulator on Friday allowed the use of the AstraZeneca AZN, -2.07% COVID-19 vaccine, for people over 18, reports Lina Saigol of MarketWatch. The European Medicines Agency, or EMA, said it had assessed the quality, safety and efficacy of AstraZeneca’s shot, which the pharmaceutical company had developed in partnership with the University of Oxford, and recommended it for marketing authorization in the European Union.
Read: When can younger, healthy people be vaccinated? A former advisor to Biden COVID-19 says it will take months
• Separately, Europe on Friday intensified its fight to secure COVID-19 vaccines after Brussels warned it would use all legal means to block the export of shots if it did not receive the vaccine dose promised by drug companies such as AstraZeneca AZN .
AZN,
and Pfizer, reports Lina Saigol of MarketWatch. In a letter to four leaders of the European Union, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, said that the 27-member bloc could take ‘urgent measures’ by calling for an emergency provision in the EU treaties to reduce the deficit. to address the coronavirus vaccine, which is approaching a crisis point. Several EU member states – including France, Portugal and Spain – said this week that they were suspending their vaccination programs due to vaccine shortages.
Read: AstraZeneca vaccine should only be given to people under 65, Germany recommends as EU deficit crisis worsens
• Elderly people are at greater risk of COVID-19 hospitalization and death, but many may not have access to the online systems that can facilitate their vaccinations, and save their lives, MarketWatch Meera Jagannathan reported. Forty-five percent of Americans between the ages of 65 and 80 report that they have not set up an account for their healthcare provider’s online portal system, according to a recent survey by the University’s National Poll on Healthy Aging. Michigan. Some older adults who have an even higher COVID-19 risk are less likely to use patient portals, the survey found: While 39% of older white adults did not have an account, almost 50% of the older black adults and 53% of older adults. Spanish adults did not have one.
Also read: Quick information on COVID-19 vaccines for the elderly – where, when and how to get them
• According to AFP, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has agreed to help manufacture the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, as many countries are scrambling to find stocks that are running short. The news comes after the French drug company said earlier this week that it would also help produce 125 million doses of Pfizer / BioNTech jab.
• World Health Organization experts will begin face-to-face with their Chinese counterparts in central Wuhan city on Friday at the start of the team’s long-awaited fact-finding mission to the origin of the coronavirus, the AP reported. The meetings should be followed on Friday by the first field visits in and around the industrial and transport center, WHO said on Twitter, but did not provide further details on the team’s agenda. The team is said to have already requested ‘detailed underlying data’ and plans to talk to early responders and some of the first COVID-19 patients. “All hypotheses are on the table as the team follows science in their work to understand the origin of the COVID19 virus,” WHO tweeted. “As members begin their field visit on Friday, they should receive the support, access and information they need.”
Latest scores
According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide climbed above 101.6 million, and the death toll rose to 2.19 million. About 56 million people have recovered from COVID-19.
The US leads the world with 25.8 million cases and deaths at 433,431, or about a fifth of the world total.
Brazil has the second highest death rate at 221,547 and is third in cases at 9.1 million.
India is second in cases worldwide with 10.7 million and now fourth in deaths at 154,010, after Mexico surpassed it.
Mexico has the third highest death toll at 155,145 and the 13th highest fall is 1.8 million.
The UK has 3.8 million cases and 103,324 deaths, the highest in Europe and the fifth highest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, had 99,797 confirmed cases and 4,813 deaths, according to official figures.
What does the economy say?
Americans cut spending in December for the second month in a row as a record increase in coronavirus cases causes new cracks in the economy and hampers recovery, reports MarketWatch’s Jeffry Bartash.
Consumer spending fell 0.2 percent, the government said on Friday.
The decline in spending by the end of the year robbed the economy of momentum. The gross domestic product slows to an annualized growth of 4% and the economy has some gaps to fill.
If there is a silver lining, spending has not dropped as much as expected. Economists polled by the Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal predicted a 0.4% drop. In addition, the decline in November was not as steep as originally reported.
Read: The US economy grew by 4% at the end of 2020, GDP shows
Meanwhile, revenue rose 0.6% in December, indicating that consumers still have money to spend once they regain confidence in the economy. The savings rate is still extremely high at 13.7%, about twice as much as normal.
Separately, Americans in late January were but hopeful about the prospect of an economic renewal later in the year once coronavirus vaccines became widely available, a survey showed.
The second reading of consumer sentiment this month dropped to 79 from an initial 79.2, according to an index produced by the University of Michigan.
Economists polled by the Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal predicted the index would remain at 79.2.
Yet the index has changed little since December 80.7, indicating that Americans are looking ahead instead of looking back.
Read: Consumer confidence rises again against vaccine, hopes Biden
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and S&P 500 SPX,
was lower in the morning trade.