Tag Archives: Coronavirus

WHO’s Tedros “very disappointed” China has not authorized entry of coronavirus experts

ZURICH (Reuters) -The head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday he was “very disappointed” that China has still not authorized the entry of a team of international experts to examine the origins of the coronavirus.

“Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permissions for the team’s arrival in China,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online news conference in Geneva.

“I have been in contact with senior Chinese officials and I have once again made it clear the mission is a priority for the WHO,” he told reporters.

Members of the international team had set out on their journey to China, where the outbreak of the virus was first reported in the city of Wuhan, in the past 24 hours and were due to start working on Tuesday.

China has denied trying to cover up its association with the pandemic that emerged in late 2019, although some including U.S. President Donald Trump have questioned Beijing’s actions during the outbreak.

Mike Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies chief, said the Geneva-based agency had impressed on Chinese officials the critical nature of the mission.

“We trust and hope that is just a logistic and bureaucratic issue that can be resolved very quickly,” Ryan said. “We trust in good faith we can solve these issues in the coming hours.”

(Reporting by John Revill and Emma FargeEditing by Mark Heinrich)

South African variant unlikely to ‘completely negate’ COVID vaccines, scientist says

By Alexander Winning

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A variant of the coronavirus first detected in South Africa is unlikely to completely negate the immunizing effects of vaccines, a researcher studying it told Reuters.

British scientists expressed concern on Monday that COVID-19 vaccines may not be able to protect against the variant identified by South African genomics scientists and which has spread internationally.

Richard Lessells, an infectious disease expert at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, which played a central role in identifying the variant known as 501Y.V2, said his understanding was that the comments were not based on any new data but on shared information.

“They are voicing the same concerns that we articulated when we first released this information, that the pattern of mutations did give us concern,” Lessells said on Tuesday.

South African researchers are studying the effects of mutations in the variant, including whether natural immunity from exposure to older variants provides protection against reinfection by the new variant.

Preliminary results from those studies may be ready by the end of this week, Lessells said.

Scientists have identified more than 20 mutations in the 501Y.V2 variant, including several in the spike protein the virus uses to infect human cells.

One of these is at a site that is believed to be important for neutralizing antibodies and is not found in another coronavirus variant discovered in Britain, Lessells said.

“Why we’ve been a bit cautious about flagging out the concern about the (effectiveness of) vaccines is that for many of the vaccines they are thought to induce quite a broad immune response,” he said.

That broad response could target different parts of the spike protein, not just one, he added.

“That’s why we think that although these mutations may have some effect, they are very unlikely to completely negate the effect of the vaccines,” Lessells said.

South Africa’s health ministry acknowledged questions from Reuters but did not give an immediate response. The country has recorded more than 1.1 million COVID-19 cases and in excess of 30,000 deaths, the most on the African continent.

Public Health England has said there is no evidence to suggest COVID-19 vaccines would not protect against mutated coronavirus variants.

BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin said in an interview last week that his company’s vaccine, which uses messenger RNA to instruct the human immune system to fight the virus, should be able to protect against the British variant.

(Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Joe Bavier and Alexander Smith)

U.S. factory activity near 2-1/2-year high; COVID-19 disrupting supply chains

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. factory activity accelerated to its highest level in nearly 2-1/2 years in December as the coronavirus pandemic continues to pull demand away from services towards goods, though spiraling new infections are causing bottlenecks in supply chains.

The strength in manufacturing reported by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) on Tuesday likely helped to soften the blow on the economy in the fourth quarter from the relentless spread of COVID-19 and government delays in approving another rescue package to help businesses and the unemployed.

The ISM said the virus was “limiting manufacturing growth potential” because of absenteeism and short-term shutdowns to sanitize facilities at factories and their suppliers.

“U.S. manufacturing should fare reasonably well this winter as businesses need to restock inventories and the shift in consumer spending away from services to goods helps manufacturers,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

The ISM’s index of national factory activity rebounded to a reading of 60.7 last month. That was the highest level since August 2018 and followed a reading of 57.5 in November. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in manufacturing, which accounts for 11.9% of the U.S. economy. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index would slip to 56.6 in December.

But some of the surprise rebound in the ISM index was due to an increase in the survey’s measure of supplier deliveries to a reading of 67.6 last month from 61.7 in November.

A lengthening in suppliers’ delivery times is normally associated with a strong economy and increased customer demand, which would be a positive contribution. But in this case slower supplier deliveries also indicate supply shortages related to the pandemic.

Nevertheless, demand for manufactured goods has been strong as the resurgence in new COVID-19 cases has led to fresh business restrictions across the United States, largely impacting the vast services sector.

A large section of the population continues to work and take classes at home, fueling a scramble for electronics, home improvement products and other goods like exercise equipment.

Computer and electronic products manufacturers said they continued to have “tailwinds from the COVID-19 pandemic research support for vaccines and treatments,” adding that “business picked up for us in the last month.”

Makers of miscellaneous products said “sales are now exceeding pre-COVID-19 levels.” Electrical equipment, appliances and components producers reported that business was stronger than expected, “with higher demand for many products.”

Despite strong demand, manufacturing output is still about 3.8% below its pre-pandemic level, according to the Federal Reserve. That could persist for a while as the new wave of infections causes disruptions to labor and the supply chain.

Food manufacturers complained the virus was “affecting us more strongly now than back in March.” Similar sentiments were echoed by transportation equipment makers who said the outbreaks were constraining suppliers. Plastics and rubber products also reported that their suppliers were having difficulty finding and retaining labor.

STRONG ORDERS GROWTH

The ISM report followed on the heels of data on Monday showing strong construction spending in November and October. Strength in the two sectors supports economists’ predictions that the economy grew at around a 5% annualized rate in the fourth quarter after a record 33.4% pace in the third quarter.

The manufacturing boost to gross domestic product would come through an accumulation of inventory by businesses.

The virus and depleted government pandemic money took a bite out of consumer spending in November. More than $3 trillion in government pandemic relief fueled growth in the July-September quarter after the economy contracted at a historic 31.4% rate in the second quarter. Nearly $900 billion in fiscal stimulus was approved in late December.

The ISM’s forward-looking new orders sub-index rose to a reading of 67.9 last month from 65.1 in November. Strong orders growth boosted manufacturing employment, which had contracted in November. The ISM’s manufacturing employment gauge rebounded to 51.5 from a reading of 48.4 in November.

But the supply chain gridlock is driving up costs for manufacturers. The survey’s prices paid index jumped to a reading of 77.6 last month, the highest since May 2018, from 65.4 in November. That raises the risk of higher inflation this year, though high unemployment could limit price pressures.

The labor market has lost steam in tandem with the economy since job growth peaked at a record 4.781 million in June.

According to an early Reuters survey of economists, nonfarm payrolls probably increased by 100,000 jobs last month after rising by 245,000 in November. That would mean the economy recouped about 12.5 million of the 22.2 million jobs lost in March and April. The government is scheduled to publish December’s employment report on Friday.

(Reporting by Lucia MutikaniEditing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao)

New York finds first case of more contagious, ‘UK’ strain of coronavirus

(Reuters) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says his state has found its first case of the more contagious, “UK” strain of the coronavirus, raising concerns about threats to hospital capacity should it spread rapidly in the state.

Cuomo says on Monday that a man in his 60’s living in a town north of Albany has the new strain. The man, who is recovering, had not traveled recently, suggesting community spread is taking place. New York has carried out 5,000 tests for the new strain – and so far has only found the one case. Cuomo says it could be a “game changer” if the new strain increases hospitalizations and forces regions to close down.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks, Editing by Franklin Paul)

Pediatric use of COVID-19 antibody drugs not advised by experts; disinfectant use can cause asthma flares

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Experts advise against antibody drugs in pediatric COVID-19

As of now, antibody therapies for COVID-19 should not be used to treat infections with the new coronavirus in children or adolescents, “including those … at high risk of progression to hospitalization or severe disease,” according to a panel of experts from 29 hospitals across North America who reviewed the available evidence. The antibody drugs – bamlanivimab from Eli Lilly and Co and the combination of casirivimab plus imdevimab from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc – were authorized in November by the U.S Food and Drug Administration for emergency use in certain groups of adolescents and adults with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. But in a paper published on Sunday in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the panel of experts said: “The course of COVID-19 in children and adolescents is typically mild and there is no high-quality evidence supporting any high risk groups. There is no evidence for safety and efficacy of monoclonal antibody therapy for treatment of COVID-19 in children or adolescents, limited evidence of modest benefit in adults, and evidence for potential harm.” (https://bit.ly/3b2kVyG)

Disinfecting during pandemic puts asthmatics at risk

Increased cleaning by people with asthma during the pandemic may be triggering flares of their disease, a new report suggests. Researchers who surveyed 795 U.S. adults with asthma between May and September found the proportion who disinfected surfaces with bleach at least five times a week rose by 155% after the pandemic started. Use of disinfectant wipes, sprays, and other liquids also increased, the researchers reported in Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology: In Practice. After accounting for other behaviors and risk factors, higher odds of having uncontrolled asthma were linked with greater household use of disinfectant wipes, disinfectant sprays, bleach and water solutions, and other disinfecting liquids. The study does not prove that increased frequency of disinfecting caused uncontrolled asthma. Still, the authors say, people with asthma need safer cleaning options. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises asthmatics to ask someone else to clean and disinfect surfaces and to stay in another room when cleaners or disinfectants are used and right afterward. It also said soap and water may be sufficient for surfaces and objects that are seldom touched.

News reports paint overly rosy picture of blood treatment

News reports about critically ill COVID-19 patients treated with a last-ditch procedure known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, may be painting an unrealistic picture of outcomes, a study suggests. During ECMO, blood is pumped outside of the body through a machine that removes carbon dioxide and adds oxygen before returning the blood back to the body. In a review of media reports about ECMO treatment of COVID-19, doctors found that 92% of patients in the stories survived, whereas average survival rates after ECMO in large studies have ranged from 53% in children to 63% in young and middle-aged adults. Patients receiving the ECMO treatment “remain at substantial risk” of complications and death, but most news reports of COVID-19 patients treated with ECMO did not address these risks, the researchers said on Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. They say recognition of the exaggerated benefit suggested by media reports may help intensive care unit doctors, patients and families have more realistic discussions about prognosis after ECMO.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

New York, Florida tell hospitals to speed COVID-19 vaccinations or lose supply

By Carl O’Donnell and Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The governors of New York and Florida sought to accelerate the slower-than-expected rollout of coronavirus vaccines by warning hospitals on Monday that they would reduce future allocations to those that fail to dispense shots quickly enough.

In New York, hospitals must administer vaccines within a week of receiving them or face a fine and loss of future supplies, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

“I don’t want the vaccine in a fridge or a freezer, I want it in somebody’s arm,” the governor said. “If you’re not performing this function, it does raise questions about the operating efficiency of the hospital.”

The U.S. federal government has distributed more than 15 million vaccine doses to states and territories around the country, but only around 4.5 million have been administered so far, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released on Monday.

The U.S. government has fallen far short of its target of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of 2020. Officials said they expect the rollout will pick up significantly this month.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams told CBS News that there are 15 million to 20 million doses of vaccine available.

“We should be hopeful about that while acknowledging we have got to do better and we are going to keep doing better,” Adams said. “And I promise you, you will see in these next two weeks numbers increase substantially.”

The United States had reported a total of 20.5 million COVID-19 cases and 351,480 deaths as of midnight on Sunday. On a seven-day rolling average, it is reporting 210,190 cases and 2,636 coronavirus deaths per day.

In Florida, where officials have put senior citizens ahead of many essential workers for getting the vaccine, Governor Ron DeSantis announced a policy under which the state would allocate doses to hospitals that dispense them most quickly,

“Hospitals that do not do a good job of getting the vaccine out will have their allocations transferred to hospitals that are doing a good job at getting the vaccine out,” DeSantis said at a briefing.

“We do not want vaccine to just be idle at some hospital system,” he added, though he did not say they would face fines.

Florida will also deploy an additional 1,000 nurses to administer vaccines and will keep state-run vaccination sites open seven days a week, he said.

New York has dispensed about 175,000 doses of the 896,000 it has received since mid-December, according to CDC data. Florida has dispensed 265,000 of the 1.14 million doses it received.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said obstacles were slowing his goal to have 1 million residents receive a first of two vaccine doses by the end of January. A little over 110,000 residents have received their first dose so far, according to city data.

De Blasio urged the state to broaden early eligible groups beyond healthcare workers and nursing home residents to include essential workers such as teachers, police officers, fire fighters, grocery store personnel and people who are more than 75 years old.

New York City currently has 125 vaccination sites and plans to double that by the end of the month, the mayor said.

“This has got to be a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour reality going forward,” de Blasio said.

Monday also marked the first day when some Americans were due to receive their second vaccine shot, three weeks after getting the first dose. Among them was Maritza Beniquez, a healthcare worker in Newark, New Jersey.

“I now have body armor,” she said after receiving the dose in a video posted on Facebook by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who was part of a small gathering that witnessed the event.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen, Carl O’Donnell, Rebecca Spaulding and Peter Szekely in New York; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg, Anurag Maan, Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

In deadliest week so far, U.S. loses more than 18,400 lives to COVID-19

(Reuters) – December was the deadliest month of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States with nearly 78,000 deaths, and health officials warned that even more people will likely die in January despite the rollout of vaccines.

In the week ended Jan. 3, more than 18,400 people died from COVID-19, bringing the pandemic’s total to over 351,000 deaths, or one in every 930 U.S. residents, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.

The country reported nearly 1.5 million new infections last week, up 16.5% from the previous seven days.

Many testing centers were closed for the year-end holiday, likely reducing the number of cases reported last week. Health officials have warned that figures this week may be abnormally high due to a backlog of data.

More than 126,000 COVID-19 patients are currently in hospitals, up 25% from one month ago. The rise in hospitalizations, which have hit new records almost every day in recent weeks, is the main reason health experts predict further increases in deaths in coming weeks.

Despite pleas to avoid traveling for the holidays, U.S. airports screened 1.3 million people on Sunday, the highest since mid-March.

Arizona, Tennessee and South Carolina reported the most new cases per capita last week, according to the Reuters analysis. In terms of deaths per capita, Kansas, Wyoming and New Mexico were the hardest hit last week.

Across the United States, 13.6% of tests came back positive for the virus, up from 10.3% the prior week, according to data from the volunteer-run COVID Tracking Project. The highest rates were in Iowa at 64%, Idaho at 56% and Alabama at 47%.

The World Health Organization considers positive test rates above 5% concerning because it suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been uncovered.

(Graphic by Chris Canipe, writing by Lisa Shumaker, editing by Tiffany Wu)

15.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed, 4.5 million administered: U.S. CDC

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 4,563,260 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Monday morning and distributed 15,418,500 doses.

The tally of vaccine doses distributed and the number of people who received the first dose are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, vaccines as of 9:00 a.m. ET on Saturday, the agency said.

According to the tally posted on Jan. 2, the agency had administered 4,225,756 first doses of the vaccines and distributed 13,071,925 doses.

A total of 2,533,925 vaccine doses were distributed for use in long-term care facilities and 365,294 people in the facilities got their first dose, the agency said.

The agency also reported 20,558,489 cases of the coronavirus, an increase of 212,117 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,418 to 350,664.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 p.m. ET on Jan. 3 versus its previous report a day earlier.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

(Reporting by Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel)

Italy reports 348 coronavirus deaths on Monday, 10,800 new cases

ROME (Reuters) -Italy reported 348 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday against 347 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 10,800 from 14,245.

However, the number of swab tests also fell, as often happens at the weekend, amounting to just 77,993 against a previous 102,974.

Italy has registered 75,680 COVID-19 deaths since its outbreak came to light on Feb. 21, the highest toll in Europe and the fifth highest in the world. The country has also reported 2.166 million cases to date, the health ministry said.

Patients in hospital with COVID-19 stood at 23,317 on Monday, up 242 on the day before. There were 136 admissions to intensive care units, compared with 154 on Sunday.

The current number of intensive care patients fell by four to 2,579, reflecting those who died or were discharged after recovery.

When Italy’s second wave of the epidemic was accelerating fast in the first half of November, hospital admissions were rising by about 1,000 per day, while intensive care occupancy was increasing by about 100 per day.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Angelo Amante)

U.S., EU criticize China for jailing citizen-journalist who reported on COVID-19

BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The European Union and United States on Tuesday criticized the jailing of a citizen-journalist in China who reported on the early outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic from Wuhan.

A Chinese court handed down a four-year jail term on Monday to Zhang Zhan, who reported at the peak of the crisis in the city where the coronavirus first emerged. Her lawyer said Zhang was jailed on the grounds of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that he strongly condemned Zhang’s conviction and called for her immediate and unconditional release, accusing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of restricting and manipulating information about the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.

“Her hasty trial, to which foreign observers were denied access, shows how fearful the CCP is of Chinese citizens who speak the truth,” Pompeo said, adding that the United States would always support the right of Chinese citizens to express themselves freely.

U.S.-China relations have plunged to their worst level in decades as the world’s top two economies spar over issues ranging from the coronavirus outbreak, Beijing’s national security law for Hong Kong, trade and espionage.

The EU also called for Zhang’s immediate release, as well as for freedom for jailed human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, and several other detained and convicted human rights defenders and individuals who engaged in reporting in the public interest.

“According to credible sources, Ms. Zhang has been subject to torture and ill-treatment during her detention and her health condition has seriously deteriorated,” an external affairs spokesman for the 27-nation EU said in a statement.

Separately, the EU called on China to “guarantee procedural fairness and due process of law” for 10 Hong Kong activists on trial in China after being caught at sea and accused of trying to flee to Taiwan.

In a statement it called for the immediate release of the group and their swift return to Hong Kong from Shenzhen, where they went on trial on Dec. 28 in a closed court and without appointed lawyers of their choice.

The EU criticism over the cases comes a day before EU and Chinese leaders are expected to clinch a deal to give European companies better access to the Chinese market.

Citizen-journalist Zhang was among a handful of people whose firsthand accounts from crowded hospitals and empty streets painted a more dire picture of the pandemic epicenter than the official narrative.

Critics say that China deliberately arranged for Zhang’s trial to take place during the holiday season in the West, to minimize scrutiny.

“The restrictions on freedom of expression, on access to information, and intimidation and surveillance of journalists, as well as detentions, trials and sentencing of human rights defenders, lawyers, and intellectuals in China, are growing and continue to be a source of great concern,” the EU spokesman said.

(Reporting by John Chalmers in Brussels and Daphne Psaledakis in Washingtond; editing by Jonathan Oatis)