Tag Archives: Coronavirus

COVID maths: All the virus in the world would fit in a coke can

LONDON (Reuters) – All the COVID-causing virus circulating in the world right now could easily fit inside a single cola can, according to a calculation by a British mathematician whose sum exposes just how much devastation is caused by minuscule viral particles.

Using global rates of new infections with the pandemic disease, coupled with estimations of viral load, Bath University maths expert Kit Yates worked out there are around two quintillion – or two billion billion – SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in the world at any one time.

Detailing the steps in his calculations, Yates said he used the diameter of SARS-CoV-2 – at an average of about 100 nanometers, or 100 billionths of a meter – and then figured out the volume of the spherical virus.

Even accounting for the coronavirus’ projecting spike proteins and the fact that the spherical particles will leave gaps when stacked together, the total is still less than in a single 330 milliliter (ml) cola can, he said.

“It’s astonishing to think that all the trouble, the disruption, the hardship and the loss of life that has resulted over the last year could constitute just a few mouthfuls,” Yates said in a statement.

More than 2.34 million people have died in the COVID-19 pandemic so far, and there have been almost 107 million confirmed cases worldwide.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Alexandra Hudson)

White House says no specific decisions on domestic air travel under review

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Thursday rejected media reports it is considering any new domestic air travel restrictions.

“To be clear, there have been no decisions made around additional public health measures for domestic travel safety. The administration is continuing to discuss recommendations across the travel space, but no specific decisions are under consideration,” a White House spokesman told Reuters.

Reports that the administration was considering imposing restrictions on travel to Florida brought denunciations from many Republican lawmakers.

The chief executives of major U.S. airlines are scheduled to meet virtually on Friday with the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator to discuss travel-related issues, Reuters reported Wednesday.

The meeting with coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients and other administration officials involved in COVID-19 issues comes as airlines, aviation unions and other industry groups have strongly objected to the possibility of requiring COVID-19 testing before boarding domestic flights.

Southwest Airlines Co Chief Executive Gary Kelly and the leaders of the airline’s unions urged President Joe Biden in a letter not to mandate COVID-19 testing, saying it would put “jobs at risk.”

“Such a mandate would be counterproductive, costly, and have serious unintended consequences,” said the letter, which was dated Tuesday and released on Wednesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month said the Biden administration was “actively looking” at expanding mandatory COVID-19 testing to U.S. domestic flights. The CDC on Jan. 26 began requiring negative COVID-19 tests or evidence of recovery from the disease from nearly all U.S.-bound international passengers age 2 and older.

One idea that has been under review within the Biden administration is for the CDC to issue recommendations advising against travel to areas of the United States with high COVID-19 caseloads, but no decisions have been made and recommendations would not be binding, officials said.

CDC officials have repeatedly urged Americans not to travel unless necessary.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Not perfect, but saves lives, AstraZeneca says as Africa backs COVID-19 shot

By Pushkala Aripaka and Ludwig Burger

(Reuters) – AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine is not perfect, but will have a big impact on the pandemic, its chief executive predicted on Thursday, as the drugmaker pledged to double output by April and the African Union gave its backing for the shot.

The two-dose inoculation, developed with Oxford University, has been hailed as a “vaccine for the world” because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals.

But its rapid approval in Europe and elsewhere has been clouded by doubts over its most effective dosage and interval between doses.

Data at the weekend also showed it was less effective against a fast-spreading variant of the virus in South Africa, prompting the country to pause rollout of the shot, and the company has also been embroiled in a row with the European Union over supply delays.

“Is it perfect? No, it’s not perfect, but it’s great. Who else is making 100 million doses in February?” CEO Pascal Soriot said on a conference call about the vaccine.

“We’re going to save thousands of lives and that’s why we come to work everyday.”

The company said it aimed to produce more than 200 million doses per month by April, double this month’s level as the world tries to tame a pandemic that has killed 2.35 million.

Head of operations Pam Cheng said on the call that the group was working to further expand global capacity and productivity.

AstraZeneca has set a target to produce 3 billion doses this year, with India’s Serum Institute making much of that aimed at poorer nations.

On Wednesday, the company enlisted Germany’s IDT Biologika as a contract manufacturer, but the bulk of IDT’s contribution will only come onstream late next year.

AstraZeneca said it expected much-anticipated data from the U.S. trial of the vaccine before the end of March, and that it was confident the shot offered relatively good protection against severe disease and death for the South African variant. Its disappointing results were against milder cases.

However, after rising to become Britain’s most valuable company last summer, the company has now slipped to sixth, in a move some analysts attribute to doubts over the vaccine.

“In a year or two we will look back and everybody will realize we made a big impact,” Soriot said.

POSTER CHILD

AstraZeneca’s shares were up 0.95% in afternoon trade, paring some earlier gains, after the company forecast a pick up in earnings growth this year on strong demand for its cancer and other new therapies.

It has pledged not to make any money from its COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic.

It has been a tumultuous week for the drugmaker after South Africa put on hold giving the shot to its citizens, choosing one developed by its U.S. rival Johnson & Johnson instead.

That came after the trial data raised concerns about the AstraZeneca vaccine’s effectiveness on mild symptoms from the more infectious 501Y.V2 variant of the virus dominant in South Africa, which has spread to 41 nations around the world.

Despite that blow, the World Health Organization endorsed the British vaccine on Wednesday and the African Union said it would target its use in countries that have not reported cases of the variant.

Kenya and Morocco are also planning to administer it.

AstraZeneca said it expected 2021 revenues to rise by a low teens percentage and core earnings of $4.75 to $5.00 per share, as it beat expectations for fourth-quarter sales.

The earnings guidance equates to 18-24% growth, after 15% in 2020, but was a little lower than the $5.10 per share analysts were expecting, as the company flagged more spending this year.

The COVID-19 vaccine is not included in the guidance and the company said its sales would be reported separately from the first quarter of 2021.

While public interest is focused on the vaccine, AstraZeneca’s core business of diabetes, heart, kidney, and cancer medicines has been steadily growing, helping the company to turn around years of decline.

“The company is arguably the poster child for big pharma turnarounds,” said Third Bridge senior analyst Sebastian Skeet.

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka and Ludwige Burger. Editing by Josephine Mason and Mark Potter)

COVID-19 surge takes toll on Portugal’s undertakers

By Catarina Demony

LISBON (Reuters) – Standing next to the sealed coffin of yet another COVID-19 victim in Portugal, funeral parlor worker Carlos Carneiro wept as the bereaved family played a record of a traditional fado song as a final goodbye.

Carneiro, 37, has been in the undertaking business for two decades helping people cope with loss, but never felt as affected by sorrow and fear as now.

Portugal fared better than others in Europe in the first wave of the pandemic in March-April, but the new year brought a devastating surge in infections and deaths, overwhelming the health service and funeral homes.

More than 14,700 people have died of COVID-19 in Portugal, with cumulative infections since the start of the pandemic at nearly 775,000.

“I have never felt this emotional, with so many consecutive funerals,” Carneiro told Reuters in a quavering voice outside the crematorium where the body of 77-year-old Matilde Firmino was turned into ashes.

“It’s hard on us. We feel it when we get home.”

Due to coronavirus rules in place to reduce the risk of contagion, funeral homes like Carneiro’s Funalcoitao near Lisbon had to quickly adapt.

Workers must wear protective gear from head to toe, bodies are placed inside white plastic bags and then in a coffin, without embalming or makeup.

Families are rarely able to see the deceased before they are buried or cremated, and Firmino’s daughter was at one point worried if it was really her mother inside the coffin.

A priest blessed the coffin in a short service held outside as family and friends sheltered from the pouring rain. “I ask God to free us from this pandemic we are living,” he said.

Carneiro said he always seeks to honor the lives of the dead, but not being able to give families the full closure they seek is taking a toll on his well-being.

“These people are not numbers…People sit on their sofas and worry about (coronavirus) numbers, but we see people and their families. We have to deal with the drama,” Carneiro said.

‘THERE’S FEAR’

His brother Alvaro, 44, said January, when Portugal reported almost half of all its COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic, was the hardest month in his 24 years in the funeral business.

“We are scared of being infected, of infecting our family members at home,” he said at their family-run funeral home, which on Tuesday alone organized six services. “There’s fear.”

Funeral business associations have urged Portuguese authorities to vaccinate the sector’s around 5,000 workers as soon as possible.

“We are on the frontline so we should be considered a priority for vaccination but according to the news we are seeing there are not enough shots for everyone,” Alvaro Carneiro said. “We will have to endure this a little longer.”

A July 2020 article by two public health researchers said high death rates, restrictions, a fear of being infected and worries about their families’ wellbeing could affect funeral workers’ mental health, especially in the longer run after the daily pressure subsides.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Miguel Pereira and Pedro Nunes; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Angus MacSwan)

65.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines delivered, 44.7 million administered: U.S. CDC

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 44,769,970 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Wednesday morning and delivered 65,972,575 doses.

The tally of vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, the agency said.

According to the tally posted on Tuesday, the agency had administered 43,206,190 doses of the vaccines, and delivered 62,898,775 doses.

The agency said 33,783,384 people had received 1 or more doses while 10,469,514 people have got the second dose as of Wednesday.

A total of 5,176,499 vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.

(Reporting by Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)

Germany extends lockdown until March 7

By Sabine Siebold and Andreas Rinke

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will extend restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus until March 7, though schools and hair salons may open sooner, Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of the 16 federal states agreed on Wednesday.

The number of new daily infections in Germany has been falling, prompting some regional leaders to push for a timetable to ease the lockdown, but concerns are growing about the impact of more infectious variants of the virus on case numbers.

“We know that these mutants are a reality now, and with that it (the infection rate) will increase. The question is how quickly it will increase,” Merkel told journalists in a news conference.

Under the agreement, some exceptions will be made to a strict lockdown which has been in place since mid-December.

Hairdressers will be allowed to reopen from March 1 and individual states can decide on how to re-start school classes. Merkel, who has adopted a cautious approach throughout the pandemic, has said nurseries and primary schools take priority.

The rest of the economy can start to re-open gradually where the spread of the virus drops to no more than 35 new cases per 100,000 people over seven days.

On Wednesday, that number was 68, having fallen from a high near 200 in late December. It was last below 50 in October.

BUSINESS ANGST

Some business and industry associations have pushed for an easing of the restrictions as soon as possible, citing the damage inflicted on Europe’s biggest economy, which shrank by 5% last year.

“The situation is serious,” the BDI industry and BDA employers groups said. “We urgently call for an easing plan.”

However, the Ifo economic think-tank said a lockdown extension until mid-March was bearable and that a swifter easing that triggered a surge in cases could create greater damage.

Germany reported 8,072 new cases on Wednesday and a further 813 deaths, bringing the total death toll to 62,969.

(Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Maria Sheahan, Gareth Jones and Cynthia Osterman)

Double-masking, knotting-and-tucking for snug fit reduces COVID-19 spread, U.S. study shows

By Manas Mishra

(Reuters) – Making sure a mask fits snugly on the face and use of two masks is likely to significantly reduce a person’s exposure to the coronavirus, laboratory experiments described by U.S. health officials on Wednesday showed.

The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in January conducted experiments to see how well wearing a cloth mask over a three-ply medical procedure mask, and knotting the ear loops of a surgical mask and then tucking the excess material close to the face, protects against COVID-19.

They found that both these methods helped reduce the exposure to potentially infected aerosols by more than 90% in laboratory simulations.

Results from one experiment demonstrated that the un-knotted medical procedure mask alone blocked 42.0% of the particles from a simulated cough, and the cloth mask alone blocked 44.3%.

The double mask combination blocked 92.5% of the cough particles.

In another experiment, the CDC tried to simulate the spread of COVID-19 during breathing when one or both people are properly masked. In the first scenario with only the source of the aerosols wearing a mask, they found coronavirus exposure was reduced by 82.2% when double-masking, and 62.9% with a snug fitting, knotted and tucked surgical mask.

When the source and receiver of simulated breathing aerosols were both fitted with double masks, or knotted and tucked medical masks, the exposure of the receiver was reduced 96.4% and 95.9%, respectively, the experiments found.

The data underscore that a good, tight fit with no spaces around the sides or use of a second cloth mask to improve the fit of the first mask increases overall efficiency and reduces virus transmission risk, the CDC said.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

62.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines delivered, 43.2 million administered: U.S. CDC

Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 43,206,190 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Tuesday morning and delivered 62,898,775 doses.

The tally of vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday, the agency said.

The agency said 32,867,213 people had received 1 or more doses while 9,840,429 people have got the second dose as of Tuesday.

A total of 5,015,224 vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.

(Reporting by Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)

Greek premier orders full lockdown in Athens after surge in coronavirus cases

By Angeliki Koutantou

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday announced a full lockdown in the capital Athens and the surrounding region to curb a resurgence in coronavirus cases and ease pressure on badly stretched health services.

The new restrictions in the Athens region, where half of Greece’s population of 11 million lives, include closing non-essential shops and schools from Feb. 11 until the end of the month, Mitsotakis said in a televised address.

“I will not hide: In the next two months, restrictions may be imposed and lifted depending on the level of alarm,” he said after chairing an emergency meeting with ministers and health experts. “But this is also the last mile towards freedom.”

Authorities registered 1,526 infections on Tuesday, more than double the number recorded a day earlier – half of them in the wider Athens area, with COVID-19 related deaths reaching 6,017 since the coronavirus was first detected.

Greece, which has fared relatively better than others in Europe during the pandemic, was forced to impose a partial lockdown in November after infections began climbing, threatening to overwhelm a health system badly weakened by a decade-long financial crisis.

It has since eased restrictions on the retail sector to help struggling businesses. But Mitsotakis said a fresh rise in hospital admissions in Athens and the detection of more contagious variants of the coronavirus have alarmed authorities.

Greece has administered more than 400,000 inoculations so far with the Pfizer/BionTech and Moderna vaccines and is due to start vaccinating people aged 60-64 with the AstraZeneca shots on Feb. 15.

Mitsotakis said vaccinations will soon reach 500,000 and the most vulnerable will be protected by the end of spring, when the government hopes the vital tourism sector will be able to open.

“We will be much better from April,” he said.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou and Renee Maltezou; Editing by Alison Williams and Grant McCool)

Canada to demand negative COVID tests from people returning across U.S. land border

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will step up its fight against COVID-19 by obliging citizens returning home over land from the United States to show they do not have COVID-19, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday.

Everyone arriving by air already has to prove they tested negative within the previous 72 hours and this rule is being expanded to land crossings starting on Feb. 15, Trudeau said.

Although non-essential travel between the two nations is banned, hundreds of thousands of Canadians have second homes in the United States, and Ottawa is obliged to allow them to return if they wish. People who arrive without test results can be fined C$3,000 ($2,360).

The measure only affects around 5% of returning Canadians because the majority arrive by air.

“We’re using every tool in the toolbox to get us all through this crisis,” Trudeau told reporters. Essential workers such as truck drivers are exempt from the new rules.

Canada has recorded a total of 20,835 deaths and 808,120 cases of COVID-19. Many provinces reimposed restrictions to combat a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic and as a result the number of new daily cases over the last week fell to around 3,500 from 8,000 in early January.

“This is gratifying progress,” chief medical officer Theresa Tam told reporters.

Trudeau also promised the supply of vaccines from Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc would ramp up next week.

His Liberal government has been attacked by critics over the slow pace of vaccinations, caused in part by a temporary reduction in supplies from Pfizer.

Separately, officials said Canada would allow a sixth dose to be taken from each vial of Pfizer’s vaccine rather than the originally intended five.

They told reporters that six doses could be extracted provided a special syringe was used, mirroring moves taken by the United States and some European nations.

($1=1.2704 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Mark Heinrich)