Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Moderna to supply four million more doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Israel

(Reuters) – Moderna Inc said on Friday it has extended its contract with the Israeli health ministry to supply an additional 4 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Israel has now secured access to 6 million doses of Moderna’s mRNA-1273, currently under review in the country.

Financial terms and delivery timelines related to the deal were not disclosed.

In June, Israel signed an agreement with Moderna for its vaccine to protect its people from the new coronavirus. The country, with a population of 9 million, has reported 339,942 cases and 2,890 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

It has also reached an understanding with AstraZeneca Plc to receive about 10 million doses of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine.

Moderna said it continues to scale up its global manufacturing to boost delivery by about 500 million doses per year, and possibly up to 1 billion doses a year, beginning 2021.

The company has submitted applications seeking emergency use authorization in the United States and EU after full results from a late-stage study showed the vaccine was 94.1% effective with no serious safety concerns.

(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Coronavirus claims 1.5 million lives globally with 10,000 dying each day

By Shaina Ahluwalia and Sangameswaran S

(Reuters) – Over 1.5 million people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 with one death reported every nine seconds on a weekly average, as vaccinations are set to begin in December in a handful of developed nations.

Half a million deaths occurred in just the last two months, indicating that the severity of the pandemic is far from over. Nearly 65 million people globally have been infected by the disease and the worst affected country, United States, is currently battling a third wave of coronavirus infections.

In the last week alone, more than 10,000 people in the world died on average every single day, which has been steadily rising each passing week. Many countries across the world are now fighting second and third waves even greater than the first, forcing new restrictions on everyday life.

The novel coronavirus caused more deaths in the past year than tuberculosis in 2019 and nearly four times the number of deaths due to malaria, according to the World Health Organization.

Robert Redfield, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned on Wednesday that the pandemic will pose the country’s grimmest health crisis yet over the next few months, before vaccines become widely available.

“I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation,” Redfield told a livestream presentation hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

The United States continues to lead in terms of fatalities, with over 273,000 deaths alone. North America and Latin American regions combined have more than 50% of all coronavirus deaths that have been reported.

The Latin American region, the worst-affected globally in terms of fatalities, recently surpassed over 450,000 deaths.

VACCINE HOPES

On Wednesday, Britain became the first country to approve the vaccine candidate developed by Germany’s BioNTech and Pfizer Inc, jumping ahead of the rest of the world in the race to begin a crucial mass inoculation program.

However, supplies are expected to be very limited in the early stages which means that every country beginning the drive will have to prioritize based on risk factors.

U.S. health regulators are expected to approve distribution and administration of the vaccine in mid-December.

Africa aims to have 60% of its population vaccinated against COVID-19 within the next two to three years, the African Union’s disease control group said on Thursday. The continent of 1.3 billion people has recorded more than 2.2 million confirmed coronavirus infections, according to a Reuters tally.

(Reporting by Shaina Ahluwalia and Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Hackers targeting groups involved in COVID-19 vaccine distribution, IBM warns

By Raphael Satter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – IBM is sounding the alarm over hackers targeting companies critical to the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, a sign that digital spies are turning their attention to the complex logistical work involved in inoculating the world’s population against the novel coronavirus.

The information technology company said in a blog post published on Thursday that it had uncovered “a global phishing campaign” focused on organizations associated with the COVID-19 vaccine “cold chain” – the process needed to keep vaccine doses at extremely cold temperatures as they travel from manufacturers to people’s arms.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reposted the report, warning members of Operation Warp Speed – the U.S. government’s national vaccine mission – to be on the lookout.

Understanding how to build a secure cold chain is fundamental to distributing vaccines developed by the likes of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech because the shots need to be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below to avoid spoiling.

IBM’s cybersecurity unit said it had detected an advanced group of hackers working to gather information about different aspects of the cold chain, using meticulously crafted booby-trapped emails sent in the name of an executive with Haier Biomedical, a Chinese cold chain provider that specializes in vaccine transport and biological sample storage.

The hackers went through “an exceptional amount of effort,” said IBM analyst Claire Zaboeva, who helped draft the report. Hackers researched the correct make, model, and pricing of various Haier refrigeration units, Zaboeva said.

“Whoever put together this campaign was intimately aware of whatever products were involved in the supply chain to deliver a vaccine for a global pandemic,” she said.

Messages sent to the email addresses used by the hackers were not returned.

IBM said the bogus Haier emails were sent to around 10 different organizations but only identified one target by name: the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union, which handles tax and customs issues across the EU and has helped set rules on the import of vaccines.

In a statement, the European Commission said it was aware that it had been targeted by a hacking campaign.

“We have taken the necessary steps to mitigate the attack and are closely following and analyzing the situation,” the statement said.

IBM said other targets included companies involved in the manufacture of solar panels, which are used to power vaccine refrigerators in warm countries, and petrochemical products that could be used to derive dry ice.

Who is behind the vaccine supply chain espionage campaign is not clear.

Reuters has previously documented how hackers linked to Iran, Vietnam, North Korea, South Korea, China, and Russia have on separate occasions been accused by cybersecurity experts or government officials of trying to steal information about the virus and its potential treatments.

IBM’s Zaboeva said there was no shortage of potential suspects. Figuring out how to swiftly distribute an economy-saving vaccine “should be topping the lists of nation states across the world,” she said.

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; editing by Grant McCool and Rosalba O’Brien)

How COVID upended life as we knew it in a matter of weeks

By Alexandra Hudson

(Reuters) – On Jan. 1, 2020, as the world welcomed a new decade, Chinese authorities in Wuhan shut down a seafood market in the central city of 11 million, suspecting that an outbreak of a new “viral pneumonia” affecting 27 people might be linked to the site.

Early lab tests in China pointed to a new coronavirus. By Jan. 20 it had spread to three countries.

For most people, it was a minor health scare unfolding half a world away.

Nearly a year later it has changed lives fundamentally. Almost everyone has been affected, be it through illness, losing loved ones or jobs, being confined at home and having to get used to a whole new way of working, relaxing and interacting.

Almost 1.5 million people have died globally from the COVID-19 disease related to the coronavirus, and some 63 million people have been infected.

After the initial “wave” of the pandemic was brought under some semblance of control in many countries, nations are now fighting second and third waves even greater than the first, forcing new restrictions on everyday life.

Among the most haunting images to emerge from the pandemic in 2020 are those of medics on the frontlines of the battle against the virus.

In Milan’s San Raffaele hospital, seven intensive care unit staff attended to an 18-year-old patient suffering from COVID-19, pushing the bed into the ward and holding medical equipment and monitors.

Doctors and nurses like them swathed in protective gear – gowns, gloves, masks, and visors, some with their names or initials written on their uniforms – have become a familiar sight.

So, too, have images of medics collapsing from exhaustion or grief at losing one of their own to the disease.

By March and April many countries began to impose lockdowns and social distancing to slow the spread of the highly contagious virus.

Structures to separate and protect people sprang up – from transparent screens at supermarket checkouts to the plastic sheet which allowed 83-year-old Lily Hendrickx, a resident at a Belgian nursing home, to hug Marie-Christine Desoer, the home’s director.

The effects on the natural world of the shutdown were sometimes astonishing. Birdsong could be heard like never before in towns and wild animals ventured into newly empty cities.

At the usually crowded Golden Gate Bridge View Vista Point across from San Francisco, a coyote stood by the roadside.

Even the streets of Manhattan were eerily empty.

Ballet dancer Ashlee Montague donned a gas mask and danced in the middle of Times Square, New York.

In Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, Catholic priest Jonathan Costa prayed alone at the Santuario Dom Bosco church, among photographs of the faithful, attached to the pews.

Wearing masks to combat the spread of the virus became commonplace the world over.

At Tokyo’s Shinagawa train station, crowds of commuters wore face masks, as did prisoners crowded into a cell in El Salvador’s Quezaltepeque jail.

In private homes, families learned to live together 24 hours a day and how to entertain and teach their children.

The pandemic hit some of the world’s poorest people the hardest – exposing the inequalities in access to medical treatment and in government funds to compensate people who lost their livelihoods.

In South Africa in May, at the Itireleng informal settlement near Laudium suburb in Pretoria, people waited in a queue that stretched as far as the eye could see to receive food aid.

As 2020 heads to its close, vaccines are on the horizon. There is hope that some aspects of life as we knew it will return.

(Writing by Alexandra Hudson; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

U.S. pandemic death toll mounts as danger season approaches

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. deaths from the coronavirus pandemic have surged past 2,000 for two days in a row as the most dangerous season of the year approached, taxing an overwhelmed healthcare system with U.S. political leadership in disarray.

The toll from COVID-19 reached its second-highest level ever on Wednesday with 2,811 lives lost, according to a Reuters tally of official data, one short of the record from April 15.

Nearly 200,000 new U.S. cases were reported on Wednesday, with record hospitalizations approaching 100,000 patients.

The sobering data came as the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday warned that December, January and February were likely to be “the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that the United States could start losing around 3,000 people – roughly the number that died in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – each day over the next two months.

“The mortality concerns are real and I do think unfortunately before we see February, we could be close to 450,000 Americans that have died from this virus,” Redfield said. The U.S. death toll since the start of the pandemic stands at around 273,000.

Hospitals are filling up with COVID-19 patients, reducing care for people needing treatment for other ailments. Redfield said 90% of U.S. hospitals were in areas designated as coronavirus “hot zones.”

Rural and suburban hospitals were particularly affected, threatening their economic viability, Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told MSNBC on Thursday.

“There’s no end in sight because there’s so much community spread,” Adalja said, warning that the pandemic could force hospital closures.

Still, rapid vaccine development, aided by the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” program, offered a ray of hope.

Britain on Wednesday gave emergency approval to Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine, a sign that U.S. regulators may soon follow suit and allow inoculations within weeks.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Daniel Trotta; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

U.S. health agency shortens quarantine guidance following coronavirus exposure

By Manas Mishra and Carl O’Donnell

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday said a shorter quarantine period of seven days with a negative COVID-19 test and 10 days without a test would work for individuals showing no symptoms after virus exposure, providing alternatives to the current 14-day standard.

The CDC said it still recommends a 14-day quarantine period for those exposed to COVID-19 as the best way to reduce its spread, calling the shorter options alternatives it hopes will increase compliance.

“Reducing the length of quarantine may make it easier for people to follow critical public health action by reducing the economic hardship associated with a longer period, especially if they cannot work during that time,” CDC official Henry Walke told reporters on a conference call.

People must still watch for symptoms for 14 days, Walke said.

Last week, a top U.S. health official said people might be more likely to comply with a shorter quarantine period, even if it meant some infections might be missed.

“I think it’s the right move based on epidemiological data and the difficulty people have in adhering to 14 days,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

The World Health Organization has recommended a 14-day period for quarantine.

Studies show that people usually start showing symptoms of the disease within five days of exposure, but the CDC had earlier said between 40% and 50% of people with COVID-19 are asymptomatic.

The CDC updated its definition of what constitutes close contact in October to include direct physical contact, sharing food utensils, or exposure of 15 minutes spent six feet (1.83 m)or closer to an infected person.

The two shorter quarantine periods are based on analysis of new research and data, CDC said.

“Agencies like ours have to have the courage to change when we have data that says we need to change,” CDC director Robert Redfield told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Obviously, 14 days of quarantine has an impact on productivity; 14 days of quarantine also has an impact on whether people quarantined,” he said.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra Bengaluru and Carl O’ Donnell in New York, additional reporting by Mrinalika Roy and Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. employers could mandate a COVID-19 vaccine, but are unlikely to do so: experts

By Tina Bellon

(Reuters) – Private U.S. companies have the right under the law to require employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but are unlikely to do so because of the risks of legal and cultural backlash, experts said.

Companies are still in the early stages of navigating access and distribution of vaccines against the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, but inoculation is considered the key to safely resume operations at crowded warehouses, factory lines and on sales floors.

“Companies have every good reason to get all of their employees vaccinated and also have an obligation to keep all employees and customers safe,” said Lawrence Gostin, a global health law professor at Georgetown University.

Gostin and five other health law experts said private companies in the United States have broad liberties to set health and safety standards, which would allow them to mandate vaccinations as a condition of employment with some exceptions.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May said employers were allowed to compel employees to get a coronavirus test before allowing them to return to work, a decision that some experts said might be extended to vaccine mandates.

But Robert Field, a law and public health professor at Drexel University, said companies considering mandates should wait for vaccines to undergo a full-fledged regulatory review process.

“Employers are on shakier grounds because of the emergency use authorization,” Field said, adding there was no precedent for vaccine mandates during that phase.

U.S. courts that have ruled on lawsuits by healthcare workers opposing employer-mandated flu vaccines have largely sided with hospitals as long as they provided reasonable exemption policies, court records showed.

REGULATORY PATCHWORK

In Europe, companies face a patchwork of national vaccine regulation, with some countries mandating childhood vaccines, but European employers overall are unlikely to be able to mandate vaccination for staff, experts said.

In France, which in 2018 began mandating some childhood vaccines, some vaccinations are obligatory for professionals in the social and healthcare industry. President Emmanuel Macron has said a coronavirus vaccine will not be mandatory.

In Germany currently, only measles vaccines are mandatory for some employees and companies have no sufficient legal basis to order COVID-19 vaccination, said Pauline Moritz, a Frankfurt-based employment law attorney.

And in the UK, the government has no legal power to compel vaccination and employers attempting to mandate vaccines would likely confront human rights concerns, employment lawyers at Morgan Lewis wrote in a blog post.

U.S. agencies to date have not weighed in on COVID-19 vaccine mandates, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the past has said employers have the right to mandate vaccines.

OSHA referred a request for comment to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which did not respond.

VACCINE MANDATES UNLIKELY

U.S. companies so far are shying away from discussing vaccine mandates, ahead of formal approval for a vaccine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Ford Motor Co, which has ordered a dozen ultra-cold freezers to distribute vaccines to employees, said they would be made available on a voluntary basis.

A spokeswoman for Kellogg Co said the company was working with a medical expert and industry trade associations to make vaccines available to employees on a voluntary basis, in compliance with local and regional regulations.

“Companies could theoretically issue a mandate, but in the current political climate it is very unlikely they will do so,” said Peter Meyers, a law professor at George Washington University Law School. “Americans tend to shy away from mandates.”

Surveys have shown many Americans have safety concerns about a COVID vaccine, with nearly half of the 10,000 respondents polled in a September Pew research survey saying they would definitely or probably not get the vaccine.

Some experts said any vaccine mandates would prompt litigation. Cases alleging infringement on religious freedom could make it to a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court.

Vaccine mandates are common in the U.S. healthcare industry, where many hospitals require staff to take annual flu shots and all U.S. states mandate vaccines for school children.

Employees and parents can object to vaccines largely on two grounds: medical conditions that contraindicate vaccination or – depending on the U.S. state – religious or personal believes.

Some union contracts with individual employers, particularly in the healthcare industry, also prevent mandatory vaccines.

If an employee rejects vaccination on religious grounds, an employer has to make a reasonable effort to accommodate the worker, such as offering a transfer to a different department with fewer personal interactions or mandating masks, said Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a law professor at UC Hastings.

So far two companies, Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc, have asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization of their vaccine candidates.

The chief adviser of the U.S. government’s COVID-19 vaccine program said on Tuesday that 20 million people could be vaccinated by the end of 2020, and that by the middle of 2021 most Americans will have access to highly effective vaccines.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Additional reporting by Richa Naidu in Chicago; Editing by Joe White and Nick Zieminski)

U.S. plans for first COVID vaccines as pandemic deaths surge again

By Julie Steenhuysen and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top U.S. health officials announced plans on Tuesday to begin vaccinating Americans against the coronavirus as early as mid-December, as nationwide deaths hit the highest number for a single day in six months.

Some 20 million people could be inoculated against COVID-19 by the end of 2020 and most Americans will have access to highly effective vaccines by mid-2021, the chief adviser of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program said.

“Within 24 hours, maybe at most 36 to 48 hours, from the approval, the vaccine can be in people’s arms,” Moncef Slaoui, a former GlaxoSmithKline executive who is overseeing the vaccine portion of the U.S. program, said at an event conducted by The Washington Post newspaper.

His comments came on the same day that another 2,295 fatalities nationwide were linked to COVID-19, even before California, the most populous U.S. state, reported full results. Officials in several states said numbers were higher in part due to a backlog from the Thanksgiving holiday.

A statement from the public health director for Los Angeles County highlighted the ravages of the surging pandemic. Barbara Ferrer, the public health director, said that while Tuesday was the county’s “worst day thus far” of the pandemic, “…it will likely not remain the worst day of the pandemic in Los Angeles County. That will be tomorrow, and the next day and the next as cases, hospitalizations and deaths increase.”

Health officials pleaded with Americans to stick with coronavirus restrictions even with a vaccine in sight.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is moving to shorten the length of self-quarantine recommended after potential exposure to the coronavirus to 10 days, or seven days with a negative test, a federal spokesperson said on Tuesday. The CDC currently recommends a 14-day quarantine in order to curb the transmission of the virus.

TIMELINE ON A VACCINE

Some 60 million to 70 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine could be available per month beginning in January, after the expected regulatory approval of products from Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc, Slaoui said.

A Food and Drug Administration panel of outside advisers will meet on Dec. 10 to discuss whether to recommend emergency use authorization of the Pfizer vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech SE. Moderna’s vaccine candidate is expected to be reviewed a week later.

The timeline described by Slaoui and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar appeared to assume that the FDA’s authorization of the first vaccine would come within days of the Dec. 10 meeting.

But the head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Dr. Peter Marks, told patient advocacy groups last week that it might take “a few days to a few weeks.”

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, likewise, has said the process could take longer.

The U.S. Transportation Department said on Tuesday it has made preparations to enable the “immediate mass shipment” of COVID-19 vaccines and completed all necessary regulatory measures.

An estimated 21 million healthcare workers and 3 million residents of long-term care facilities should be first in line to receive a vaccine, according to a recommendation voted on by a CDC panel of advisers on Tuesday.

Nursing homes are experiencing the worst outbreak of weekly coronavirus cases since the spring, according to the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living.

HOLIDAY TRAVEL SPIKE

State and local officials have returned to imposing restrictions on businesses and activities in response to the latest surge of a pandemic that killed 37,000 people in November.

A record nearly 96,000 COVID-19 patients were reported in U.S. hospitals on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally.

Hospitalizations and deaths are expected to spike even higher during the holiday travel season, a trend that officials warn could overwhelm already strained healthcare systems.

The monthly death toll from COVID-19 is projected to nearly double in December to a pandemic-high of more than 70,000 and surpass 76,000 in January before ebbing in February, according to a widely cited model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Pandemic-related restrictions have ravaged the U.S. economy. A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday unveiled a $908 billion COVID-19 relief bill aimed at breaking a deadlock over emergency assistance for small businesses, industries and the unemployed.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Julie Steenhuysen; Additional reporting by Lisa Shumaker, Maria Caspani, Peter Szekely, Jonathan Allen, David Shepardson, Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Berkrot, Bill Tarrant and Leslie Adler)

New California stay-home order weighed as COVID hospitalizations surge

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday he may impose tougher coronavirus restrictions over the next two days, including a possible stay-at-home order, to counter surging COVID-19 hospitalizations that threaten to overwhelm intensive care units.

Newsom said projections show ICU admissions are on track to exceed statewide capacity by mid-December unless public health policies and social behavior patterns are altered to further curb the spread of the virus.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler)

U.S. reports over 10,000 coronavirus deaths last week

(Reuters) – The United States recorded 10,000 coronavirus deaths and over 1.1 million new cases last week, although state and health officials have said the Thanksgiving holiday likely caused numbers to be under-reported.

New cases fell 3.8% in the week ended Nov. 29, while deaths fell 3.9%, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports. Many testing centers were closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving and some private labs had reduced staffing or were closed on Friday, according to state and health officials.

They said that figures for cases and deaths this week may be abnormally high due to a backlog of data from last week.

Hospitals, which were not closed due to holidays, may provide the most accurate data for last week. Hospitalized COVID-19 patients reached a record high of nearly 93,000 on Sunday, up 11% from last week and double the number reported a month ago, according to the Reuters analysis.

Cases rose by 91% in Washington state last week, the biggest percentage increase in the country, followed by California at 31% and New York with a 25% increase.

Illinois reported 831 COVID-19 deaths last week, the highest for any state, followed by Texas with 806 deaths.

Across the United States, 9.8% of tests came back positive for the virus for a third week in a row, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak. Out of 50 states, 29 had positive test rates above 10%. The highest rates were Iowa at 50%, Idaho at 44% and South Dakota at 41%.

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)