Thread: Covid 19 C&P

Europe in chaos, the third wave of COVID. From the New York Times. Plus thumbs up for AstraZeneca

"Leading public health agencies, including the World Health Organization, have said that millions of people have received the vaccine without experiencing blood clotting issues, and they caution that experts have not found a causative link between the vaccine and the conditions. AstraZeneca has defended its vaccine as safe."

Chaos returns to Europe

A third wave of infections is hammering Europe, and the situation is looking startlingly similar to the early days of the pandemic.

Cases are surging. Street protests are becoming violent. Hospitalizations are soaring in places like France and Hungary. And in Italy, new restrictions were put in place today, blanketing the country in an eerie silence one year after it became the first European country to impose a national lockdown.

For months Italy relied on a color-coded system of restrictions that tried to target outbreaks while avoiding a national lockdown, but it doesn’t seem to have worked. A surge of new, more contagious variants, paired with a lackluster vaccine rollout, sent cases and hospitalizations skyrocketing.

“History repeats itself,” Massimo Galli, one of Italy’s top virologists, told the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. “Unfortunately we all got the illusion that the arrival of the vaccines would reduce the necessity of more drastic closures,” he said. “But the vaccines did not arrive in sufficient quantities.”

The vaccine rollout was thrown into further chaos today after Germany, France and Italy pulled AstraZeneca’s vaccine from use after some recipients experienced blood clotting. In some of those cases, people died, but it is unclear whether the vaccine — one of the most commonly available on the continent — caused the clots. The European Medicine Agency, or E.M.A. said it was investigating.

Leading public health agencies, including the World Health Organization, have said that millions of people have received the vaccine without experiencing blood clotting issues, and they caution that experts have not found a causative link between the vaccine and the conditions. AstraZeneca has defended its vaccine as safe.

While European countries said the suspension was a temporary precaution as they wait for more information from the E.M.A., officials and immunologists are worried that the pause would cost vital time in the race against fast-spreading variants, and that it would embolden vaccine skeptics.

What else the N. Y. Times is following.

What else we’re following

The Biden administration will spend $10 billion to expand coronavirus screening for students returning to in-person learning and another $2.25 billion to increase testing in underserved communities. Poland, which has had a significant upswing in coronavirus cases, will temporarily close many businesses and move schools entirely online starting on Saturday. Covid-19 units in Brazil’s hospitals are nearing capacity as the country logged 2,841 deaths within the last day, a record, the BBC reports. People with social anxiety are worried about returning to in-person life. Here are 14 lessons for the next pandemic, according to experts. The Times asked scientists, community leaders and public health experts to look back on the coronavirus pandemic and complete this phrase: “In 100 years, people will say …” Double masking is hard. Here’s a hack to keep it all safely in place. Our colleague Anemona Hartocollis, who covers higher education, sampled some of the more than 900 college application essays sent to The Times by high school seniors. “Reading them is like a trip through two of the biggest news events of recent decades: the devastation wrought by the coronavirus, and the rise of a new civil rights movement,” she wrote. In The Times Opinion section, Dr. Zeynep Tufekci, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, called for the U.S. to start exporting doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to other countries. (The F.D.A. has not yet authorized it.) The Times is hosting a live event centered on the coronavirus on March 23.Marc Lacey, assistant managing editor, will interview Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland and San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, about how we reckon with the pandemic’s toll and our path to normalcy. R.S.V.P. here.

Madonna King on the vaccine rollout.

Madonna King: Australia's vaccine rollout lays bare government immaturity (thenewdaily.com.au)

I got vaccinated, now can I hug my Mum? Some questions answered from the N Y. Times


Opinion | I Got a Covid Vaccine. What Can I Do? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

US trial finds AstraZeneca 79% effective, with no side effects, offering complete protection against the worst outcomes of the disease. From the N.Y. Times

AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 Vaccine Found to Be 79% Effective in U.S. Study - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

US health officials question the results of the Astrazeneca trial. I guess the bottom line is no serious side effects were found. From the N.Y.Times.

AstraZeneca’s relationship with the U.S. authorities has been fraught since last year, when senior health officials believed the company was not being forthright about the design of its clinical trials, its results and safety issues. That skepticism carried over to last week, when senior officials at a number of federal health agencies grew suspicious about why AstraZeneca had not announced data from its U.S. study.
That U.S. trial, which involved more than 32,000 participants, was the largest test of its kind for the shot. The results AstraZeneca released on Monday were from an interim look at the data after 141 Covid-19 cases had turned up among volunteers.

U.S. health officials question results from AstraZeneca’s vaccine trial, less than a day after they came out. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

How to stop a coronavirus anxiety spiral. From the N.Y.Times;


How to Stop a Coronavirus Anxiety Spiral | WIRED

The Brazilian strain could be our next big worry. Bring on the vaccine.

The risk to Australia

Keeping the Brazilian strain out of Australia until our vaccine rollout is complete is crucial to keeping us safe, Professor McLaws said.
“When you start partially vaccinating a community and you have a particular variant of concern circulating, then that virus learns how to get around a partial immune response,” she said.
For example, if you’ve only had one jab of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine and then come into contact with the Brazilian strain, the virus can learn how to get around your partial immune response and mutate.
It’s not until you’ve got two shots of the vaccine that you’re fully vaccinated and protected from serious illness.






Coronavirus: Brazil strain devastating country, leaving 300,000 dead (thenewdaily.com.au)