Mutations

FDA advisors endorse using only updated Covid vaccines

Thu, 2023-06-15 17:31 — mike kraft

FDA advisers endorse updating COVID vaccines to target latest omicron strain The COVID-19 vaccines are on track for a big recipe change this fall. Today’s vaccines still contain the original coronavirus strain, the one that started the pandemic. But that strain was long ago supplanted by mutated versions as the virus rapidly evolves. Scientific advisers for the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said the next round of shots should only include protection against the newest omicron variants that are now dominant worldwide.

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Monoclonal antibody injection prevented COVID-19 during Delta, Omicron

Thu, 2023-06-15 11:35 — mike kraft

Monoclonal antibody injection shown to prevent COVID-19 during Delta, Omicron The relative risk reduction for participants who received adintrevimab as post-exposure prophylaxis was 75%. CIDRAP

A single injection of the monoclonal antibody (mAb), adintrevimab prevented COVID-19 in the phase 2/3 EVADE trial, finds a study yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

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COVID shots should target XBB variants in 2023-24 campaign, US FDA staff say

Mon, 2023-06-12 18:05 — mike kraft

COVID shots should target XBB variants in 2023-24 campaign, US FDA staff say COVID-19 vaccines being developed and manufactured for the 2023-2024 campaign should target one of the currently dominant XBB variants, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) staff reviewers said on Monday. Reuters Reuters

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Opinion: We've made huge advances against COVID. Why is it still killing so many people?

Tue, 2023-06-06 10:11 — mike kraft

Opinion: We've made huge advances against COVID. Why is it still killing so many people? Many immunocompromised and older Americans feel abandoned. That's a public health failure. Yahoo News

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why are so many people still dying? And how do we reconcile those numbers with the vast improvements in our COVID tools?

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Bivalent COVID vaccine efficacy at 6 months drops 24% against hospitalization, strong against death --CDC study

Tue, 2023-05-30 17:48 — mike kraft

Bivalent COVID vaccine efficacy at 6 months: 24% against hospitalization, strong against death CIDRAP

Estimated bivalent (two-strain) COVID-19 mRNA vaccine effectiveness (VE) against hospitalization dropped from 62% 1 week after receipt to 24% at 4 to 6 months in adults with healthy immune systems, but protection against severe outcomes was sustained, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study.

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Prepare for future pathogens with "even deadlier potential" than COVID, WHO chief warns

Thu, 2023-05-25 17:45 — mike kraft

Prepare for next pandemic, future pathogens with "even deadlier potential" than COVID, WHO chief warns WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is urging the world to be ready for the next pandemic, saying future outbreaks could be even worse than COVID. CBS News

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White House Pushes to Save Key Covid Programs in Debt Ceiling Talks

Thu, 2023-05-25 17:27 — mike kraft

The White House is seeking to preserve funding for key components of the federal coronavirus response in debt limit negotiations with House Republicans, according to senior Biden administration officials familiar with the talks.

Administration officials are trying to protect roughly $5 billion in funding for a program to develop the next generation of coronavirus vaccines and treatments. They are also looking to preserve more than $1 billion in funding for an initiative to offer free coronavirus shots to uninsured Americans, according to the officials.

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Does the end of Covid emergency declarations mean the pandemic is over?

Mon, 2023-05-08 09:12 — mike kraft

Does the end of Covid emergency declarations mean the pandemic is over? What is clear is that Covid isn’t going anywhere, though the damage it is doing to the human species is declining. Helen Branswell STAT

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There are no fixed borders between a pandemic, when a pathogen is new to humans and causing wide scale disease and often high levels of death, and the ensuing endemic phase, when the disease has settled into something that our immune systems can better cope with, explained Marc Lipsitch, an infectious diseases epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health.

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WHO releases strategy paper on COVID disease management and long-term disease prevention

Thu, 2023-05-04 10:55 — mike kraft

From emergency response to long-term COVID-19 disease management: sustaining gains made during the COVID-19 pandemic The updated two-year strategy builds on the objectives of the 2022 SPRP and supports countries as they are working to transition their critical emergency response activities to longer-term sustained COVID-19 disease prevention, control and management.

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Bivalent COVID vaccine shows good Omicron protection while older version wanes --studies

Wed, 2023-05-03 18:25 — mike kraft

Bivalent COVID vaccine shows good Omicron protection while older version wanes CIDRAP

Two studies published today measure the vaccine effectiveness (VE) of COVID-19 vaccines against laboratory-confirmed Omicron variant and subvariants and symptomatic disease. Vaccines that target the newer variants performed well, but primary vaccines offered rapidly waning protection from SARS-CoV-2 infections in the post-Omicron era.

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