Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]

Death numbers and articles about people losing loved ones get the most coverage.

However, more and more, US media is reporting on the long-haulers, people who are not able to work or do physical activities to the same extent as before. This is months after getting infected.
 
Arnold Beckenbauer said:
that's interesting: U.S. backs waiving patent protections for Covid vaccines, citing global health crisis (cnbc.com)

But I think the EU will vote against the TRIPS waiver.
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I don't think that this IP waiver will have immediate effect.

Canada doesn't have factories so it's not like they could start making the mRNA vaccines on their own right now.

Even if they had the factories, the processes for making the vaccines are not that easy to set up. So without their cooperation they won't get that far.

India has the biggest vaccine manufacturing infrastructure but again, they're not going to be cranking out mRNA vaccines the day after the IP waiver without Pfizer and Moderna's cooperation.
 
The mRNA stuff is so new that pretty much nobody but Pfizer and Moderna can produce these vaccines at present, (though GSK/CureVac and Sanofi probably aren't too far away from the capability). IP waivers would potentially allow the adenovirus vaccines to be produced elsewhere, but you would be talking many months before these could be ramped up effectively. We've seen from the licensing deals with the AZ/Oxford vaccine that it's not necessarily an easy thing to get new manufacturing plants up and running quickly, even with support from the original manufacturers.

If an IP waiver was brought about, I think it would be AZ/J&J doing most of the legwork. Novavax is a very interesting vaccine, but they are reliant on the special saponin adjuvant which is also used in the new Oxford malaria vaccine. Not something which can be mass produced as there aren't enough Chilean soapbark trees around (fascinating article about this: https://www.theatlantic.com/science...cies-may-hold-key-coronavirus-vaccine/616792/)
 
Yeah Novavax is having difficulties ramping up supplies for the contracts it signed with the US and Europe, let alone the rest of the world.

Might be a good choice for a booster.
 
mRNA isn't really that new, just the first approved for mass distribution.

A canadian company actually developed and produces nanoparticles used in the pfizer vaccine.

Novavax has an agreement to produce in Canada and will probably begin doing so early next year.

It doesn't look like covid-19 is ever going away. New strains, slow world roll out and vaccination hesitancy mean achieving herd immunity is increasingly unlikely.

We will be needing these vaccines in an ongoing fashion, in a faster rate than they have been delivered to date.

There are still many vaccines in the pipe and it's likely they will be needed.
 
Seychelles brings back curbs despite vaccination success - BBC News
May 5, 2021
The Seychelles, which has fully vaccinated over 60% of its population against Covid-19, is bringing back restrictions amid a rise in cases. The archipelago of nearly 100,000 people recorded close to 500 new cases in the three days to 1 May and has about 1,000 active cases.
A third of the active cases involved people who had had two vaccine doses, the country's news agency said.
The rest had either had a single dose or were unvaccinated.
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The Seychelles, which relies on tourism for much of its income, began vaccinating its population in January using Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine doses donated by the United Arab Emirates.
By mid-April about 60% of the vaccine doses administered in the country were Sinopharm, with the rest Indian-made AstraZeneca vaccine doses, Bloomberg reported.
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Researchers are mapping the parts of the spike protein which are targeted by different levels of antibodies.

For instance, they found that 84% of antibodies targeted parts of the spike protein outside the RBD.

One such part is the NTD:

Many of these non-RBD-directed antibodies the team identified act as a potent weapon against the virus by targeting a region in a part of the spike protein located in what would be the umbrella's canopy called the N-terminal domain (NTD). These antibodies neutralize the virus in cell cultures and were shown to prevent a lethal mouse-adapted version of the virus from infecting mice.

The NTD is also a part of the viral spike protein that mutates frequently, especially in several variants of concern. This suggests that one reason these variants are so effective at evading our immune systems is that they can mutate around one of the most common and potent types of antibody in our arsenals.
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210505130541.htm

OTOH, researchers have identified other parts which are less likely to have mutations yet still are targeted by relatively high levels of antibodies:

Despite these maneuvers by SARS-CoV-2, the researchers said about 40% of the circulating antibodies target the stalk of the spike protein, called the S2 subunit, which is also a part that the virus does not seem able to change easily.

"That's reassuring," Ippolito said. "That's an advantage our immune system has. It also means our current vaccines are eliciting antibodies targeting that S2 subunit, which are likely providing another layer of protection against the virus."

That's also good news for designing vaccine boosters or next-generation vaccines against variants of concern, and even for developing a vaccine that can protect against future pandemics from other strains of the coronavirus.

"It means we have a strong rationale for developing next-generation SARS-CoV-2 vaccines or even a pan-coronavirus vaccine that targets every strain," Ippolito said.
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I would imagine the designers of the first vaccines didn't have this level of detail about the different parts of the spike protein when they locked in their designs over a year ago.

But they may not yet incorporate this information for boosters. Rather, we may have to wait for universal vaccines against different covid mutations or against different coronaviruses.
 
Putas said:
Just like Chile. Only western vaccines seem reliable.
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The Sinovac vaccine in Chile has actually been pretty effective. A study released last month showed 67% reduction in symptomatic infection, 85% reduction in hospitalisation, 89% reduction in admissions to ICU, 80% reduction in deaths. The issue is that this is based on data from 2 weeks after full vaccination. Lots of first doses given in Chile but a relatively low number of second doses. The Sinovac vaccine doesn't appear to be as effective after 1 dose as the Western vaccines in use.
 
wco81 said:
They vaccinated with Sinopharm.
would be interesting to see how many breakthrough infections.
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I read it as, by April 60% Sinopharm and 40% AstraZeneca (Indian made) made up vaccinated population.
It would be helpful if they gave some numbers regarding re-infection and initial vaccine used.
 
Mucormycosis: The 'black fungus' maiming Covid patients in India - BBC News
May 9, 2021
Even as a deadly second wave of Covid-19 ravages India, doctors are now reporting a rash of cases involving a rare infection - also called the "black fungus" - among recovering and recovered Covid-19 patients.
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Mucormycosis is a very rare infection. It is caused by exposure to mucor mould which is commonly found in soil, plants, manure, and decaying fruits and vegetables. "It is ubiquitous and found in soil and air and even in the nose and mucus of healthy people," says Dr Nair.
It affects the sinuses, the brain and the lungs and can be life-threatening in diabetic or severely immunocompromised individuals, such as cancer patients or people with HIV/AIDS.

Doctor believe mucormycosis, which has an overall mortality rate of 50%, may be being triggered by the use of steroids, a life-saving treatment for severe and critically ill Covid-19 patients.
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Dr Nair - who works in three hospitals in Mumbai, one of the worst-hit cities in the second wave - says he has already seen some 40 patients suffering from the fungal infection in April. Many of them were diabetics who had recovered from Covid-19 at home. Eleven of them had to have an eye surgically removed. Between December and February, just six of his colleagues in five cities - Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Pune - reported 58 cases of the infection. Most of the patients contracted it between 12 to 15 days after recovery from Covid-19.
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Patients suffering from the fungal infection typically have symptoms of stuffy and bleeding nose; swelling of and pain in the eye; drooping of eyelids; and blurred and finally, loss of vision. There could be black patches of skin around the nose. Doctors say most of their patients arrive late, when they are already losing vision, and doctors have to surgically remove the eye to stop the infection from reaching the brain.
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Putas said:
Just like Chile. Only western vaccines seem reliable.
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Something something transparency...

This has really highlighted some bad things about the current culture in different countries. Now the US has plenty of effective vaccine and people won't utilize it ...
 
Arnold Beckenbauer said:
The documents reveal 15 cases of B16172 were found in one London care home where residents had their second doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in the week prior to the outbreak. Four of the cases were hospitalised with non-severe illness, and there were no deaths.
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If the cases arose less than a week after the second dose, it would have been too soon for the 'boost' of the second dose to have had an impact. And, of course, the vaccines aren't 100% effective against any of the variants. The fact that all 15 survived with non-severe illness is encouraging as the mortality rate in care homes is likely to be pretty high. Hopefully, the vaccines do provide some decent protection against the "Indian" variants.
 
Putas said:
Just like Chile. Only western vaccines seem reliable.
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Perhaps a counter example, a small Brazilian city in the Amazon vaccinates most of its adults with CoronaVac, which is a Chinese vaccine showing only 50% efficacy in trials.

As most adults have been vaccinated in Serrana, Marques says he believes the results will show collective protection — or effectiveness — with CoronaVac, even if individual protection seems low comparatively. This is important not only to Brazil, “but to all countries adopting the vaccine, like Indonesia and Turkey. The results in Serrana will weigh immensely in COVID-19 vaccination policies wherever CoronaVac is used,” he says. Communities in other countries are attempting something similar with other vaccines.

Outcomes may show whether the impact of Serrana’s mass vaccination spills beyond city limits. “Around 15,000 of Serrana’s 45,000 inhabitants commute large distances to work, so we’ll see how it all unfolds with a highly mobile population,” Borges says.

Projeto S is yielding some tantalizing early results. Local media reported that the number of daily COVID-related infections decreased from 28 on March 20 to seven a month later. The share of cases that were severe dropped from a peak of 70 percent this March to 10 percent in early April.
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https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-pandemic-serrana-brazil-covid-mass-vaccine
 
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