Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Canada’s healthcare system ‘very fragile’, even as coronavirus recedes – official

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Healthcare systems across Canada are still very fragile from efforts needed to fight COVID-19, even as signs suggest a fourth wave is starting to recede, a top medical official said on Friday.

Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam said it was important for health workers to get vaccinated and prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.

“Everybody’s exhausted. And if health care workers have to go into quarantine for example, after exposure, the system simply isn’t going to be sustainable,” she told a briefing. “Our health systems are still very fragile.”

Official data show that as of Oct. 8, 81% of Canadians aged 12 and over have received two shots against COVID-19.

That said, COVID-19 is still posing serious problems in the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, which lifted most restrictions in July only to see cases soar.

“Surveillance data from this week indicates that although the virus continues to surge and present ongoing challenges in several areas … overall we’re observing a decline in COVID-19 disease activity nationally,” Tam said.

She also urged Canadians to get their annual shots against the flu, which is worst in the winter months.

“This is definitely not the year to have influenza wreak havoc,” she said.

Ontario, the most populous of the 10 provinces, on Friday began to allow residents to download proof of vaccination on to their devices as a QR code, as well as an application that will allow businesses to verify it.

While businesses such as restaurants and arenas have been required to ask for proof of vaccination since Sept. 22, this took the form of PDFs, which critics noted were easy to edit.

(Additional reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S. FDA removes concessions on hand sanitizer production as supply recovers

(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday companies manufacturing certain alcohol-based hand sanitizers under its previous relaxed guidance must stop making these products by the end of the year as there is no longer a shortage.

The FDA had issued the temporary guidelines in March 2020 to address tight supply conditions for sanitizers, driven by a surge in demand for the products during the coronavirus outbreak.

On Tuesday, the agency withdrew the guidance and said companies that have been manufacturing the sanitizers under the temporary guidelines should stop making the products effective Dec. 31.

“In recent months, the supply of alcohol-based hand sanitizer from traditional suppliers has increased, and now, most consumers and healthcare personnel are no longer having difficulty obtaining these products,” the agency said.

Hand sanitizers manufactured before Dec. 31 or on that date and produced under the previous temporary guidelines must no longer be sold to wholesalers or retailers by March 31, 2022, the agency added.

The FDA said manufacturers that wish to continue making hand sanitizers after Dec. 31 must comply with the agency’s manufacturing requirements.

(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

Russia says at least 49,389 people died from COVID-19 in Aug

MOSCOW (Reuters) – At least 49,389 people died in Russia in August due to the coronavirus and related causes, taking the toll to around 418,000 people since the pandemic began, state statistic service Rosstat said on Friday.

Russian authorities blame the spread of the more contagious Delta variant and a low vaccination rate for the third wave of coronavirus infections, which peaked in July.

In July, Russia saw the highest monthly coronavirus death toll of the pandemic as 51,044 people died from COVID-19 or related causes that month, the figure revised recently after the first publication.

The number reported by Rosstat exceeds the official total death toll of 214,485, published by the Russian coronavirus task force earlier on Friday.

Authorities explained the discrepancy between Rosstat and coronavirus task force data by the fact that the latter reports deaths from COVID-19 on a daily basis that do not need additional confirmation from medical examiners, whereas Rosstat publishes full data on a monthly basis.

Some epidemiologists say that measuring excess mortality is the best way to assess the death toll during a pandemic.

Based on the new data, Reuters calculated that the number of excess deaths in Russia between April 2020 and August 2021 had reached 575,000 in comparison with the average mortality rate in 2015-2019.

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; Writing by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Alison Williams)

COVID infections dropping throughout the Americas, says health agency

BRASILIA (Reuters) – The number of new COVID-19 infections has been dropping over the past month throughout the Americas, even though only 37% of the people in Latin America and the Caribbean have been fully vaccinated, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.

However, Alaska has the most serious outbreak in the United States today that is overwhelming emergency rooms, and while South America is continuing to see a drop in infections, Chile has seen a jump in cases in the capital Santiago and port cities Coquimbo and Antofagasta.

PAHO has closed vaccine supply agreements with Sinovac Biotech Inc and AstraZeneca Plc for delivery this year and next and with China’s Sinopharm for 2022, the agency’s director Carissa Etienne told reporters.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle)

Treasury warns Arizona it can’t use federal funds to undermine school mask requirements

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Arizona’s governor on Tuesday that his state could not use federal funds to pay for programs aimed at undermining face mask requirements in schools, and said Arizona could lose funding if it did not change course.

In a letter to Governor Douglas Ducey, Adeyemo raised concerns about two new Arizona state programs funded under the coronavirus relief “American Rescue Plan” which he said would “undermine evidence-based efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19.”

Adeyemo’s letter comes a month after the U.S. Department of Education opened civil rights investigations to determine whether five states – Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah – that have banned schools from requiring masks are discriminating against students with disabilities.

One of the Arizona programs offers grants to school districts on condition they not require the use of face coverings during instructional hours. The second gives families a voucher of up to $7,000 per student to cover tuition or other educational costs at a new school that does not require face coverings if the student’s current school requires them.

Both programs tapped a $350 billion fund established under the American Rescue Plan to mitigate the fiscal effects of the COVID-19 emergency, which has killed over 700,000 people in the United States, Adeyemo said in his letter.

“A program or service that imposes conditions on participation or acceptance of the service that would undermine efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 or discourage compliance with evidence-based solutions for stopping the spread of COVID-19 is not a permissible use of (such) funds,” he said.

Adeyemo asked Ducey to respond within 30 days on how Arizona planned to come into compliance with the federal requirements, warning that “failure to respond or remediate may result in administrative or other action.” Such action included federal efforts to recoup the funds, a Treasury official said.

Florida, Texas and Arkansas have also banned mandatory masking orders in schools. The Education Department left those states and Arizona out of its inquiry because court orders or other actions have paused their enforcement, it said in a news release.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Mark Porter and Sonya Hepinstall)

Coronavirus can transform pancreas cell function; certain genes may protect an infected person’s spouse

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

Coronavirus transforms pancreas cell function

When the coronavirus infects cells, it not only impairs their activity but can also change their function, new findings suggest. For example, when insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas become infected with the virus, they not only produce much less insulin than usual, but also start to produce glucose and digestive enzymes, which is not their job, researchers found. “We call this a change of cell fate,” said study leader Dr. Shuibing Chen, who described the work in a presentation on Tuesday at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, held virtually this year. It is not clear whether the changes are long-lasting, or if they might be reversible, the researchers noted earlier in a report published in Cell Metabolism. Chen noted that some COVID-19 survivors have developed diabetes shortly after infection. “It is definitely worth investigating the rate of new-onset diabetes patients in this COVID-19 pandemic,” she said in a statement. Her team has been experimenting with the coronavirus in clusters of cells engineered to create mini-organs, or organoids, that resemble the lungs, liver, intestines, heart and nervous system. Their findings suggest loss of cell fate/function may be happening in lung tissues as well, Chen, from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, told Reuters.

Certain genes may protect an infected patient’s spouse

A study of couples in which both partners were exposed to the coronavirus but only one person got infected is helping to shed light on why some people may be naturally resistant to the virus. The researchers had believed such cases were rare, but a call for volunteers who fit that profile turned up roughly a thousand couples. Ultimately, they took blood samples from 86 couples for detailed analysis. The results suggest resistant partners more often have genes that contribute to more efficient activation of so-called natural killer (NK) cells, which are part of the immune system’s initial response to germs. When NKs are correctly activated, they are able to recognize and destroy infected cells, preventing the disease from developing, the researchers explained in a report published on Tuesday in Frontiers in Immunology . “Our hypothesis is that the genomic variants most frequently found in the susceptible spouse lead to the production of molecules that inhibit activation of NKs,” study leader Mayana Zatz of the University of São Paulo, Brazil, said in a statement. The current study cannot prove this is happening, she added. Even if the findings are confirmed with more research, the contributions of other immune mechanisms would also need to be investigated, the researchers said.

Experimental pill shows promise against coronavirus variants

Laboratory studies show that Merck & Co’s experimental oral COVID-19 antiviral drug, molnupiravir, is likely to be effective in patients infected with any of the known variants of the coronavirus, including the dominant, highly transmissible Delta, researchers said on Wednesday in a presentation during IDWeek 2021, the virtual annual meeting of infectious disease organizations. Molnupiravir does not target the spike protein of the virus, which is the target of all current COVID-19 vaccines. Instead, it targets an enzyme the virus uses to make copies of itself. It is designed to work by introducing errors into the genetic code of the virus. Data showed that the drug is most effective when given early in the course of infection, Merck said. The company is conducting two large late-stage trials of the drug – one for treatment of COVID-19 and another as a preventive.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Deena Beasley; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Factbox-Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – Japan will lift a state of emergency in all regions on Thursday as the number of new cases falls, while India reported the smallest daily rise in COVID-19 deaths since mid-March.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

EUROPE

* Sweden will offer additional groups, including people aged 80 and above, to top up their COVID-19 vaccinations with a third dose, the Nordic country’s health minister said.

* Italy’s health ministry said on Tuesday it had given the go-ahead for travel to six non-European tourist spots without the need for quarantine as a COVID-19 precaution either on arrival or return.

AMERICAS

* New York hospitals began firing or suspending healthcare workers for defying a state order to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and resulting staff shortages prompted some hospitals to postpone elective surgeries or curtail services.

* Brazil will provide COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to all its people over 60-years-old, Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said.

* A Brazilian hospital chain tested unproven drugs on elderly COVID-19 patients without their knowledge as part of an effort to validate President Jair Bolsonaro’s preferred ‘miracle cure,’ a lawyer for whistleblowing doctors told senators on Tuesday.

* Authorities in Costa Rica said on Tuesday all state workers will need to be vaccinated against COVID-19, making it one of the first countries in Latin America to impose a coronavirus vaccination mandate.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* China administered about 3.0 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines on Sept. 27, bringing total doses to 2.203 billion, data from the National Health Commission showed.

* India’s drug regulator has allowed vaccine maker Serum Institute to enroll kids aged 7-11 years for its trial of U.S. drugmaker Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine.

* Sydney residents who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 risk being barred from various social activities even when they are freed from stay-at-home orders in December.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Egypt is now providing immediate COVID-19 vaccinations at youth centers across the country without prior online registration, a step aimed at encouraging vaccinations and relieving pressure on hospitals and health units amid a fourth wave of infections.

* Algeria will start production of COVID-19 vaccine Sinovac in partnership with China on Wednesday with the aim of meeting domestic demand and exporting the surplus, the prime minister’s office said on Tuesday.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Pfizer and BioNTech have submitted initial trial data for their COVID-19 vaccine in 5-11 year old’s and said they would make a formal request with U.S. regulators for emergency use in the coming weeks.

* Sanofi is dropping plans for its own mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine because of the dominance achieved by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna in using the technology to fight the pandemic, the company said.

* As Merck & Co and Pfizer prepare to report clinical trial results for experimental COVID-19 antiviral pills, rivals are lining up with what they hope will prove to be more potent and convenient oral treatments of their own.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Global shares fell for a third successive day on Tuesday, with tech stocks plummeting, as anxiety over when central banks might raise interest rates led to rising bond yields on both sides of the Atlantic.

* Profits at China’s industrial firms grew at a weaker pace in August from a year earlier, slowing for a sixth consecutive month, as manufacturers struggled with high commodity prices, COVID-19 outbreaks and shortages of some key components.

* The East Asia and Pacific region’s recovery has been undermined by the spread of the Delta variant, which is likely slowing economic growth and increasing inequality in the region, the World Bank said.

(Compiled by Ramakrishnan M., Vinay Dwivedi and Juliette Portala; Edited by Arun Koyyur and Shounak Dasgupta)

Protein found on infected cells protects virus from immune system; remdesivir helps prevent hospitalization

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

Virus-infected cells protected from immune system by protein

A protein called CD47 that helps damaged cells avoid destruction by the immune system may be contributing to severe cases of COVID-19, researchers believe. Drugs in development targeting CD47 may result in improved COVID-19 therapies, they suggested in a report published in Current Issues in Molecular Biology. “We may have identified a major factor associated with severe COVID-19,” coauthor Martin Michaelis of the University of Kent said in a statement. “We can now look forward to further progress in the design of therapeutics.” In lab experiments, the researchers found that CD47 – which in effect tells the immune system, “Do not eat me!” – is present in increased amounts on the surfaces of cells infected with the coronavirus. SARS-CoV-2 infection also increases levels of another protein, SIRPalpha, that partners with CD47 to trick the immune system into ignoring the sick cells. Previous studies have shown that CD47 levels are also elevated in conditions that put people at higher risk for critical illness from COVID-19, such as old age, diabetes, high blood pressure, and clogged blood vessels. In these groups, “high CD47 levels may predispose… to severe COVID-19,” the researchers said. “Further research will be needed to define the roles of CD47 and/or SIRPalpha in COVID-19 in more detail,” they added.

Remdesivir keeps high-risk patients out of the hospital

Gilead Sciences Inc’s intravenous antiviral drug remdesivir helped keep high-risk COVID-19 patients out of the hospital in a randomized trial, the company announced. The 562 patients in the study all had conditions that increased their risk for becoming critically ill. Half received three days of treatment with remdesivir – sold under the brand name Veklury – while the rest received a placebo. Four weeks later, 5.3% of patients in the placebo group had been hospitalized or died, compared to 0.7% of those who received remdesivir. That translated into an 87% lower risk of hospitalization or death. Remdesivir-treated patients also had significantly fewer medical visits, the company said. The drug is currently authorized for emergency use in hospitalized patients. “These latest data show remdesivir’s potential to help high-risk patients recover before they get sicker and stay out of the hospital altogether,” study leader Dr. Robert Gottlieb of Baylor University Medical Center said in a statement. His team plans to formally report the data at an upcoming medical conference.

Pandemic cuts life expectancy by most since WWII

The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced life expectancy in 2020 by the largest amount since World War II, with the life expectancy of American men dropping by more than two years, according to new data. In the 29 countries studied – the United States, Chile, and 27 in Europe – all but two showed reductions in life expectancy. There were greater drops in life expectancy for men than women in most countries. “The large declines in life expectancy observed in the United States can partly be explained by the notable increase in mortality at working ages observed in 2020,” study co-leader Ridhi Kashyap of the University of Oxford said in a statement. “In the United States, increases in mortality in the under 60 age group contributed most significantly to life expectancy declines, whereas across most of Europe increases in mortality above age 60 contributed more significantly.” The largest declines were found in U.S. men, who saw life expectancy drop by 2.2 years relative to 2019, followed by a 1.7-year decline for Lithuanian men. Women in the United States and Spain had drops in life expectancy of 1.5 years or more. Overall, men had more than a year shaved off in 15 countries, compared to women in 11 countries. Females from 15 countries and males from 10 ended up with lower life expectancy at birth in 2020 than in 2015, the research team reported on Sunday in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Victor Jack; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Gas price surge, just one more headwind for world economy

By Dhara Ranasinghe

LONDON (Reuters) – Soaring gas prices that threaten to push up winter fuel bills, hurt consumption and exacerbate a near-term spike in inflation are another blow to a world economy just getting back on its feet after the coronavirus shock.

The gas market chaos, which has driven prices 280% higher in Europe this year and led to a 100%-plus surge in the United States, is being blamed on a range of factors from low storage levels to carbon prices to reduced Russian supplies.

So high are tensions that several European Parliament lawmakers have demanded an investigation into what they said could be market manipulation by Russia’s Gazprom.

Whatever the causes, the surge carries major market implications:

1/GROWTH

Analysts say it’s too early to downgrade economic growth forecasts but a hit to economic activity looks inevitable.

Morgan Stanley reckons the impact in the United States, the world’s biggest economy, should be small. While over a third of U.S. energy consumption in 2020 was supplied by natural gas, users were predominantly industrial, it notes.

Overall though, higher gas prices raise the risk of stagflation – high inflation, low growth.

“It is quite clear there is a growing sense of unease about the economic outlook as a growing number of companies look ahead to the prospect of rising costs,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

2/INFLATION

Euro zone wholesale power prices are at record highs, potentially exacerbating inflation pressures inflicted by COVID-related supply bottlenecks. In Germany, 310,000 households face an 11.5% increase in gas bills, data showed on Monday.

Noting German factory gate prices were already the highest since 1974, Citi analysts predicted 5% hikes for electricity and gas prices in January, adding 0.25 percentage points to consumer inflation next year.

Higher food costs are another side effect, given a shortage of carbon dioxide which is used in slaughterhouses and to prolong the shelf-life of food. Cuts in fertilizer production could also lift food prices.

Goldman Sachs predicts higher oil demand, with a $5 per barrel upside risk to its fourth-quarter 2021 Brent price forecast of $80 a barrel. Brent is trading at about $74 currently.

3/CENTRAL BANKS

Central banks are sticking with the line that the spike in inflation is temporary — European Central Bank board member Isabel Schnabel said on Monday she was happy with the broad-based rise in inflation.

But as market- and consumer-based measures of inflation expectations rise, gas prices will be on central banks’ radar.

“If we have higher inflation, transitory or structural, and have slower growth – it will be a very tricky situation for markets and central banks to assess, navigate and communicate,” said Piet Haines Christiansen, chief strategist at Danske Bank.

This week’s central bank meetings could test policymakers’ resolve. The Bank of England meeting on Thursday is in particular focus, given UK inflation has just hit a nine-year high.

With UK producer price inflation soaring, shipping costs showing little sign of cooling, commodity prices higher up and job vacancies tipping 1 million, there is a growing chance that higher prices will stick around for longer, said Susannah Streeter, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“If they do, more (BoE) members may move quickly to vote for a rate rise sooner than expected next year, but it would be an unpopular course of action with looming tax rises already hard to digest for many consumers,” she said.

4/ STATE BAILOUTS

Britain is considering offering state-backed loans to energy firms after big suppliers requested support to cover the cost of taking on customers from companies that went bust under the impact of gas prices. One firm, Bulb, is reportedly seeking a bailout.

France meanwhile plans one-off 100 euro ($118) payments to millions of households to help with energy bills.

“The story emerging from the UK energy sector will soon be more relevant to the European market than Evergrande,” said Althea Spinozzi, senior fixed income Strategist at Saxo Bank.

And in a week packed with central bank meetings, she added that markets were “right to fret.”

5/COMPANIES

Spain shocked the utility sector last week by redirecting billions of euros in energy companies’ profits to consumers and capping increases in gas prices. Revenue hits at Iberdrola and Endesa were estimated by RBC at one billion euros and shares in the companies sold off heavily.

Since the move, investors have fretted about contagion to other countries, Morgan Stanley said. While seeing those fears as overdone, the bank acknowledged there was a risk of margin squeezes at European utilities in coming months.

Sector shares are down for the third week straight

(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe; graphics by Saikat Chatterjee and Dhara Ranasinghe; additional reporting by Yoruk Bahceli and Sujata Rao; Editing by Sujata Rao and Hugh Lawson)

New kidney problems linked to ‘long COVID;’ loss of smell may be followed by other smell distortions

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

‘Long COVID’ tied to higher kidney risks

COVID-19 symptoms that persist long after infection, known as “long COVID,” has been tied to a higher risk for new kidney problems, according to a new study. Analyzing data on more than 1.7 million U.S. veterans, including nearly 90,000 COVID-19 survivors with symptoms lasting at least 30 days, researchers found the “long haulers” were at higher risk for new kidney problems compared to people who had not been infected with the coronavirus. This was true even when survivors had not been hospitalized, although declines in kidney function were “more profound” with more severe infection, they reported on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Roughly 5% of the Long COVID group developed at least a 30% drop in a critical measure of kidney function known as the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. Overall, people with long COVID were 25% more likely than uninfected people to develop a 30% decline in eGFR, with higher risks in survivors of more severe disease. While kidney function often declines with age, the damage in these patients “was in excess” of what happens with normal aging, study coauthor Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, of Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement. “Our findings emphasize the critical importance of paying attention to kidney function and disease in caring for patients who have had COVID-19,” he said.

Loss of smell may be followed by smell distortions

Many people who lose their sense of smell due to COVID-19 eventually regain it, but some survivors later report smell distortions and unexplained smells, a new study found. Researchers analyzed survey responses from 1,468 individuals who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 between April and September 2020 and had suffered loss of smell and taste at the start of their illness. Early on, about 10% also reported smell distortions, or parosmia, and unexplained smells, known as phantosmia. At an average of six to seven months after becoming ill and first reporting loss of smell, roughly 60% of women and 48% of men had regained less than 80% of their pre-illness smell ability, and rates of smell distortions and imaginary smells had increased, the researchers reported on Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Roughly 47% reported parosmia, saying, for example, “some things now smell like chemicals.” About 25% reported phantosmia. “Sometimes I can smell burning but no one else around me can,” one respondent reported. Persistent smell problems were seen more often in survivors with more symptoms overall, “suggesting it may be a key marker of long-COVID,” the authors said.

Vaccines induce antibodies despite cancer, immunocompromise

The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines trigger protective immune responses in most cancer patients with solid tumors and in many people taking immunosuppressive medications, two small studies suggest. In Israel, researchers found that six months after the second dose of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, 79% of 154 patients with solid tumors had developed antibodies, as had 84% of 135 similar people without cancer, a difference that was not deemed statistically significant. Antibody levels were similar in the two groups, the researchers reported on Thursday in Cancer Discovery. Separately, U.S. researchers studied 133 adults taking immunosuppressive medications for chronic inflammatory diseases and 53 healthy volunteers. At three weeks after the second shot of an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna Inc, nearly 90% of the immunosuppressed participants had developed antibodies, although many had lower responses compared to the control group, according to a report published on Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Antibody therapy cuts hospitalization rates

People with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who were treated with a monoclonal antibody “cocktail” had lower hospitalization rates than similar people who did not receive the treatment, researchers reported on Monday in EClinicalMedicine. They looked at nearly 1,400 such patients, roughly half of whom had received Regeneron Pharmaceutical Inc’s combination monoclonal antibody therapy. Among those who received the treatment, about 45% were older than 65, and many had high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, lung disease and other risk factors. By four weeks after the treatment, 1.6% of them had been hospitalized, compared to 4.8% of patients not treated with the monoclonal antibodies. The study was not randomized and cannot prove the treatment caused the better outcomes. However, it “suggests that when patients who are at high risk due to a range of comorbidities contract a mild or moderate case of COVID-19, this combination of monoclonal injections gives them a chance of a non-hospitalized recovery,” study leader Dr. Raymund Razonable of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in a statement.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)