Tag Archives: vaccines

Leaders of 23 countries back pandemic treaty idea for future emergencies

GENEVA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Leaders of 23 countries and the World Health Organization on Tuesday backed an idea to create an international treaty that would help deal with future health emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic by tightening rules on sharing information.

The idea of such a treaty, also aimed at ensuring universal and equitable access to vaccines, medicines and diagnostics for pandemics, was floated by the chairman of European Union leaders, Charles Michel, at a summit of the Group of 20 major economic powers last November.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has endorsed the proposal, but formal negotiations have not begun, diplomats say.

Tedros told a news conference on Tuesday that a treaty would tackle gaps exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. A draft resolution on negotiations could be presented to the WHO’s 194 member states at their annual ministerial meeting in May, he said.

The WHO has been criticized for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and was accused by the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump of helping China shield the extent of its outbreak, which the agency denies.

A joint WHO-China study on the virus’s origins, seen by Reuters on Monday, said it had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” as a cause. But the study left many questions unanswered and called for further research.

On Tuesday, the treaty proposal got the formal backing of the leaders of Fiji, Portugal, Romania, Britain, Rwanda, Kenya, France, Germany, Greece, Korea, Chile, Costa Rica, Albania, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Senegal, Spain, Norway, Serbia, Indonesia, Ukraine and the WHO itself.

“There will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies. No single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone,” the leaders wrote in a joint opinion piece in major newspapers.

“We believe that nations should work together towards a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response.”

The leaders of China and the United States did not sign the letter, but Tedros said both powers had reacted positively to the proposal, and all states would be represented in talks.

The treaty would complement the WHO’s International Health Regulations, in force since 2005, through cooperation in controlling supply chains, sharing virus samples and research and development, WHO assistant director Jaouad Mahjour said.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

More under-30 Americans report anxiety, depression during pandemic – CDC

By Vishwadha Chander

(Reuters) – More young adults in the United States reported feeling anxious or depressed during the past six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and fewer people reported getting the help they needed, according to a U.S. government study released on Friday.

The percentage of adults under age 30 with recent symptoms of an anxiety or a depressive disorder rose significantly about five months after the U.S. imposed COVID-19 related lockdowns, and reported rising deaths from the fast-spreading virus.

Between August 2020 and February 2021, this number went up to 41.5% from 36.4%, as did the percentage of such people reporting that they needed, but did not receive, mental health counseling.

The study suggests that the rise in anxiety or depressive disorder symptoms reported correspond with the weekly number of reported COVID-19 cases.

The findings are based on a Household Pulse Survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Census Bureau to monitor changes in mental health status and access to care during the pandemic.

“Trends in mental health can be used to evaluate the impact of strategies addressing adult mental health status and care during the pandemic, “the authors of the study wrote in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released on Friday.

The study also found those with less than a high school education were more at risk, though it did not provide an explanation for it.

Even with more vaccines gaining authorization beginning late 2020, the effects of the pandemic on mental health continued into 2021.

During Jan. 20, 2021 through Feb. 1, 2021, about two in five adults aged over 18 years experienced recent symptoms of an anxiety or a depressive disorder, the survey found.

Demand for mental health and meditation apps, and investments in tech startups building these apps have also risen during this period.

(Reporting by Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer and Shailesh Kuber)

U.S. COVID-19 cases top 30 million as states race to vaccinate

By Anurag Maan

(Reuters) – The United States crossed 30 million coronavirus cases on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, as states accelerate the vaccination process by lowering age limits.

Health authorities are racing to vaccinate in the face of the first uptick in new cases on a weekly basis since January. Against the advice of health experts, several states have lifted mask mandates and more infectious variants have also spread across the nation.

Although cases are trending higher in 30 out of 50 states compared with the previous week, health officials hope the vaccinations will prevent a rise in deaths. The United States has lost a total of 544,000 lives to the virus.

New York on Monday joined Florida and a handful of other states that have made vaccines available to people who are at least 50 years old.

In the past two weeks, many states including Alaska, Arizona and Texas have lowered down their eligibility age for coronavirus vaccines.

Arizona lowered the eligibility age to 16 at state-run vaccination sites in three populous southern counties, effective Wednesday. Three other counties already have eligibility at 16, but most are at 55.

Earlier this month, Alaska became the first U.S. state to make vaccine available to everyone 16 and older and currently has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, with 31.5% of its residents having received at least one dose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nearly one-fourth of Americans have received at least one dose while about 13% of the population is fully vaccinated.

(Reporting by Anurag Maan in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

COVID-19 surging dangerously in Brazil, WHO Americas branch warns

BRASILIA (Reuters) – The coronavirus is surging “dangerously” across Brazil, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional director for the Americas, Carissa Etienne, warned on Tuesday, urging all Brazilians to adopt preventive measures to stop the spread.

“Unfortunately, the dire situation in Brazil is also affecting neighboring countries,” Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), said in a briefing.

Cases have risen in Venezuela’s Bolivar and Amazonas states, and in border regions of Peru and Bolivia, she said.

“The COVID-19 virus is not receding, nor is the pandemic starting to go away,” Etienne said.

In the Southern Cone, cases continue to spike in Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, according to PAHO.

In Paraguay, a majority of intensive care unit (ICU) beds are occupied, and the health system is buckling under the pressure. Uruguay has reported more than 1,000 cases per day several times in the past few weeks, an alarming number given the size of the country.

In Central America, cases have declined in Panama, but in Guatemala the rise in hospitalizations is straining ICU bed capacity.

“Vaccines are coming but they are still several months away for most people in our region.” Etienne said.

The COVAX facility led by WHO and the Gavi coalition to provide equitable access to vaccines has delivered 2,161,800 doses to the region so far, including more than 1 million doses to Brazil last weekend.

PAHO expects over 100,000 vaccine doses to be delivered this week to El Salvador, Belize and Suriname, and 1.2 million additional doses have already been procured.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. administers 118.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines: CDC

(Reuters) – The United States has administered 118,313,818 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 154,199,235 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The tally is for Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Friday, the agency said.

According to the tally posted on March 18, the agency had administered 115,730,008 doses of the vaccines, and distributed 151,108,445 doses.

The agency said 77,230,061 people had received at least one dose while 41,934,629 people are fully vaccinated as of Friday.

A total of 7,630,706 vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

U.S. plans to use real world, trial data to determine when vaccines need to be updated

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. officials plan to use data gathered from people who have already been vaccinated against COVID-19 as well as data from ongoing clinical trials to determine when and whether current vaccines need to be updated to address viral variants.

Peter Marks, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a hearing on Wednesday that his agency has already started getting data on vaccine safety from surveillance systems.

Those systems have been set up to gather reports of vaccine side effects from individuals and physicians and are managed in partnership with the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The FDA is also working with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to mine data in health information systems to look for possible safety signals.

Marks told a hearing of the House Committee on Energy & Commerce that his agency has already begun to receive data on vaccine safety.

He said the FDA intends to use these surveillance systems to determine whether vaccines continue to be effective in the presence of new variants of the coronavirus, especially those that may be capable of evading protection from vaccines.

Marks told the panel he expects to start receiving data on whether vaccines are continuing to work within the next few months. He is also continuing to monitor clinical trials for signs of vaccine failure.

Large numbers of breakthrough infections in which vaccinated people get COVID-19 would suggest that booster shots – using the same or a retooled vaccine targeting specific variants – are needed.

Moderna Inc, Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax Inc have announced they have begun work on vaccines to address variants should they be needed.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; additional reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul and Aurora Ellis)

U.S., India, Japan and Australia agree to provide a billion vaccine doses in Asia

By David Brunnstrom, Michael Martina and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan agreed in a summit on Friday to cooperate in providing up to a billion coronavirus vaccine doses to developing countries in the Indo-Pacific by the end of 2022, a move to counter China’s widening vaccine diplomacy.

Biden, hosting the first leader-level meeting of a group central to his efforts to counter China’s growing military and economic power, said a free and open Indo-Pacific region was “essential” to all four countries.

“The United States is committed to working with you, our partners, and all our allies in the region, to achieve stability,” he said.

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the leaders addressed key regional issues at the virtual meeting, “including freedom of navigation and freedom from coercion” in the South and East China Sea, the North Korean nuclear issue, and the coup and violent repression in Myanmar.

Sullivan told a news briefing the meeting discussed the challenges posed by China, although this was not the focus. He said that among the issues discussed were recent cyberattacks and semi-conductor supply-chain issues.

The Quad leaders committed to delivering up to one billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Southeast Asia by the end of 2022, Sullivan said .

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he wanted the four “to forge strongly ahead toward the realization of a free and open Indo-Pacific” and that Japan had agreed to cooperate in providing vaccine-related support to developing countries.

He also told reporters he had expressed strong opposition to attempts by China to change the status quo in the region and that the four leaders had agreed to cooperate on the issue.

India and Australia also emphasized the importance of regional security cooperation, which has been enhanced by previous lower-level Quad meetings.

India Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said the meeting had agreed U.S. vaccines would be manufactured in India, something New Delhi has called for to counter Beijing’s widening vaccine diplomacy.

In a joint statement the leaders pledged to work closely on COVID-19 vaccine distribution, climate issues and security.

“We strive for a region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic  values, and unconstrained by coercion,” they added, without mentioning China by name.

The meeting also agreed to set up a group of experts to help distribute vaccines, as well as working groups for cooperation on climate change, technology standards, and joint development of emerging technologies.

The leaders agreed to hold an in-person meeting later this year.

India, Australia and Japan have all faced security challenges from China, strengthening their interest in the Quad. Quad cooperation dates back to their joint response to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004.

The Quad was revived under the Trump administration, which saw it as a vehicle to push back against China. The United States hosted a foreign ministers’ meeting in 2019, which was followed by another in Japan last year and a virtual session in February.

Friday’s meeting coincided with a major U.S. diplomatic drive to solidify alliances in Asia and Europe to counter China, including visits next week by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to Japan and South Korea.

Blinken will also meet in Alaska with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and State Councillor Wang Yi – the first high-level in-person contact between the world’s two largest economies under the Biden administration.

Washington has said it will not hold back in its criticism of Beijing over issues ranging from Taiwan to Hong Kong and the genocide it says China is committing against minority Muslims.

Modi told the session the Quad had “come of age” and would “now remain an important pillar of stability in the region.” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the meeting “a whole new level of cooperation to create a new anchor for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.”

A fact sheet issued after the meeting said the United States, through its International Development Finance Corp, would work to finance Indian drugmaker Biological E Ltd to produce at least 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses by end of 2022.

It also said Japan was in discussions to provide concessional yen loans for India to expand manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines for export.

The Biden administration told Reuters on Tuesday the United States and Japan would help fund Indian firms manufacturing vaccines for U.S. drugmakers Novavax Inc and J&J.

However, Indian government sources say U.S. curbs on exports of critical materials could hamper that effort and those to start large-scale distribution to Southeast Asia.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Michael Martina, Jeff Mason and Doina Chiacu; additonal reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo; Editing by Gareth Jones and Alistair Bell)

Texas sheds coronavirus mask, occupancy restrictions

By Brad Brooks

LUBBOCK, Texas (Reuters) – Texans awoke on Wednesday with a statewide mask mandate and occupancy restrictions in businesses lifted, a move some heralded as freedom and others as foolishness.

On paper, Texas’ rollback of coronavirus mitigation efforts is the most sweeping seen in the United States, along with a similar measure in Mississippi. In practice, vast swaths of Texas have rarely enforced mask or occupancy mandates in the past year, anyway.

Several major retailers, grocery and restaurant chains in Texas said they would still require that masks be worn in their stores, which under Abbott’s order relaxing restrictions is their right to do.

Still, some expected to see standoffs between maskless customers and store employees on Wednesday.

Texas was one of the first states to reopen its economy after the first wave of pandemic cases last May, and the nation’s second most populous state led the way again last week when Governor Greg Abbott announced the relaxation amid declines in new daily COVID-19 cases and with the rollout of vaccines.

As of Sunday, 18% of the U.S. population had received at least one dose of a vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

County officials in regions where COVID patients take up 15% or more of hospital beds for seven consecutive days can enact new mask and occupancy restrictions, under Abbott’s order, but no regions are currently in that situation.

Austin’s city council voted to still require masks – and dared state officials to sue the city.

“In Austin, we’re committed to saving lives,” city council member Greg Casar wrote on Twitter.

The Texas Education Agency’s guidance for public schools is for the continued use of masks, while nursing homes in the state will not loosen restrictions.

The Dallas Jewish Conservatives organization plans to host a party Wednesday evening with about 200 people. There will be a moment of silence for the pandemic’s dead, refreshments for the guests and a bonfire into which folks will be encouraged to toss masks.

“It’s about freedom, liberty and personal responsibility,” said Benjie Gershon, founder of the group. “The act of throwing a mask into the bonfire … is in no way meant to belittle or undermine the tragic numbers of individuals who have fallen ill to COVID.”

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Robert Birsel)

As pandemic eases elsewhere, some Caribbean states face worst outbreaks yet

By Kate Chappell and Sarah Marsh

KINGSTON (Reuters) – In Jamaica, which won praise for containing its coronavirus outbreak last year, patients now overflow into corridors on chairs and stretchers in some hospitals, prompting the Caribbean nation to open three emergency field hospitals.

While global new infections start to decline, a handful of countries across the Caribbean, including the larger islands of Jamaica and Cuba, are suffering their worst outbreaks since the start of the pandemic following social gatherings over year-end, quarantine violations by visitors and growing complacency.

The number of total confirmed cases has almost doubled in the first two months of the year in Jamaica. It has risen around fourfold in Cuba, eightfold in Barbados and around tenfold in St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, according to Oxford University’s Our World in Data database.

In one of the most tourism-dependent regions of the world, authorities have had to reimpose lockdowns and curfews, while reducing flights and hiking quarantine restrictions, further delaying a revival of their fragile economies.

Some Caribbean nations have started inoculating citizens – thanks, in particular, to an Indian donation of the AstraZeneca vaccine – yet broad coverage still looks far off. Cuba is launching late phase trials of two of its own vaccine candidates this month.

“Once the capacity of the health system becomes threatened, we could see a spike not only in the numbers infected but also in those dying from the disease,” Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness warned in a broadcast address to the nation on Sunday.

The effect of COVID-19 in Caribbean countries has been mixed. In Jamaica, deaths have risen 1.4 times since the end of the year and now stand at 422. Cuba’s death toll of 324 is well under the world average per capital – a statistic the government largely puts down to a good healthcare system and experimental treatments – but the number of deaths has doubled there so far in 2021.

Tiny St Vincent and Grenadines registered its first COVID-19 death this year and has now had eight fatal victims.

While most of the Caribbean islands still have adequate hospital capacity to deal with the crisis, in Jamaica, all beds dedicated to COVID-19 isolation were full as of Feb. 26, according to the health ministry.

Holness announced more capacity was being added and lockdown restrictions tightened, including a new stay-at-home order for those aged 60 and above and a ban on access to beaches.

“We are not coping. We are physically and emotionally drained,” said a nurse who did not want to be named for fear of losing her job.

SLOW VACCINE ROLLOUT

Caribbean leaders have complained about difficulty accessing vaccines and hoarding by rich nations amid a slow rollout of vaccines by the United Nations-backed COVAX alliance created to ensure poor countries across the world are not left behind.

Jamaica, which has nearly 3 million inhabitants, will receive a donation from India of 50,000 vaccine doses on or before Thursday, Health minister Christopher Tufton said on Sunday at the briefing alongside Holness.

The island nation should also start receiving its 124,800 doses via the COVAX facility this month, and 1.8 million via the African Medical Supply Platform from April.

But depending on which vaccine is secured, Jamaica still needed to source up to an extra 1.5 million doses to fulfill its aim of inoculating at least 65 % of the population by March 2022, Tufton said.

The prospects for an immediate economic recovery in the face of a slow vaccine roll-out are dim, said Therese Turner-Jones, general manager of the Caribbean Country Department for the Inter-American Development Bank.

“It’s going to be another difficult two years ahead,” Turner-Jones said. “Absent a healthy environment, there is not much you are going to do that will get back to business as usual.”

The Caribbean Development Bank said last Thursday it projected growth of 3.8% in its 19 borrowing member countries this year after a contraction of 12.8% last year, with vaccine availability one risk to that forecast.

Still, Cuba could hold a ray of light. It already came through for the Caribbean in terms of sending doctors to neighboring islands throughout the pandemic.

Now, the regional biotech heavyweight says it is already mass producing two of its four vaccine candidates in order to launch late phase trials in March.

Should its vaccine candidates triumph – becoming the first Latin American homegrown COVID vaccines to be approved – then its neighbors and regional allies could benefit.

(Reporting by Kate Chappell in Kingston; Additional Reporting by Sarah Marsh in Chester, UK, and Rob Edison Sandiford in Bridgetown; Editing by Alistair Bell)

One year into pandemic, sky begins to clear over U.S. economy

By Ann Saphir and Howard Schneider

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Despite the U.S. economy’s near miss with a depression last year and an ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has brought travel to a virtual halt, Jeff Hurst, the chief executive of vacation rental firm VRBO, sees a boom on the horizon.

“Every house is going to be taken this summer,” Hurst said, as the expected protection from vaccines arrives in step with warmer weather, unleashing a cooped-up population with record savings stashed away. “There’s so much built-up demand for it.”

That sort of bullish sentiment has increasingly taken root among executives, analysts and consumers who see the past year of comparative hibernation – from the government-ordered business closings last spring to continued risk avoidance by the public – giving way to a cautious re-emergence and green shoots in the economy.

Data from AirDNA, a short-term rental analytics firm, showed vacation bookings for the end of March, which traditionally coincides with college spring breaks, are just 2% below their pre-pandemic level. Employment openings on job site Indeed are 4% above a pre-pandemic baseline. Data on retail foot traffic, air travel and seated diners at restaurants have all edged up.

And economists’ forecasts have risen en masse, with firms like Oxford Economics seeing a “juiced-up” economy hitting 7% growth this year, more typical of a developing country.

In a symbolic milestone, Major League Baseball teams took to the field on Sunday, as scheduled, for the first games of the spring training season. Crowds were required to observe social distancing rules and limited to around 20% of capacity, but MLB has a full schedule penciled in following a truncated 2020 season that did not begin until July and saw teams playing in empty stadiums.

DEPRESSION DODGED

As of Feb. 25, about 46 million people in the United States had received at least their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine – still less than 15% of the population and not enough to dampen the spread of a virus that has killed more than half a million people in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The emergence of coronavirus variants poses risks, and a return to normal life before immunity is widespread could give the virus a fresh foothold.

Nor is optimism global. The European short-term rental market, for example, is suffering, with tens of thousands of Airbnb offerings pulled. Up to one-fifth of the supply has disappeared in cities like Lisbon and Berlin, as owners and managers adjust to a choppy vaccine rollout and doubts about the resumption of cross-border travel.

In the United States, the vaccine rollout and a sharp decline in new cases has produced an economic outlook unthinkable a year ago when the Federal Reserve opened its emergency playbook in a terse promise of action and Congress approved the first of several rescue efforts.

The fear then was years of stunted output similar to the Great Depression of the 1930s, while some projections foresaw millions of deaths and an extended national quarantine. Instead, the first vaccines were distributed before the end of 2020, and a record fiscal and monetary intervention led to a rise in personal incomes, something unheard of in a recession.

“We are not living the downside case we were so concerned about the first half of the year,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers on Wednesday. “We have a prospect of getting back to a much better place in the second half of this year.”

‘ROCK ON’

U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, may top its pre-pandemic level this summer, approaching the “V-shaped” rebound that seemed unrealistic a few weeks ago.

That would still mean more than a year of lost growth, but nevertheless represents a recovery twice as fast as the rebound from the 2007-2009 recession.

Jobs have not followed as fast. The economy remains about 10 million positions short of where it was in February 2020, and that hole remains a pressing problem for policymakers alongside getting schools and public services fully reopened.

It took six years after the last recession to reach the prior employment peak, a glacial process officials desperately want to shorten.

While recent months have seen little progress, the outlook may be improving. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in mid-February the country had a fighting chance to reach full employment next year.

It may take more than vaccines, however. Officials are debating how fully and permanently to rewrite the rules of crisis response – and specifically how much and what elements of the Biden administration’s proposed $1.9 trillion rescue plan to approve.

Fiscal leaders last year cast aside many old totems, including fear of public debt and a preoccupation with “moral hazard” – the bad incentives that generous public benefits or corporate bailouts can create. For Republicans, that meant approving initial unemployment insurance benefits that often exceeded a laid-off worker’s salary; for Democrats, it meant aiding airlines and temporarily relaxing banking regulations.

It worked, and so well that an odd consortium of doubters has emerged to question how much more is necessary: Republicans arguing help should be aimed only at those in need, and some Democrats worrying that so much more government spending in an economy primed to accelerate may spark inflation or problems in financial markets.

If the outlook is improving, however, it’s in anticipation that government support will continue at levels adequate to finish the job.

“Rock on,” Bank of America analysts wrote in a Feb. 22 note boosting their full-year GDP growth forecast to 6.5%, an outcome premised on approval of $1.7 trillion in additional government relief, “unambiguously positive” health news, and stronger consumer data. Given all that, “we expect the economy to accelerate further in the spring and really come to life in the summer.”

And the view back at VRBO? In most prime vacation spots, Hurst said, “You won’t be able to find a home.”

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Paul Simao)