Tag Archives: vaccines

At the urging of nursing homes, a law is amended and COVID court claims are slowed

By Tom Hals

(Reuters) – Garnice Robertson wants accountability for her mother’s death from COVID-19 caught while she was living at a Kansas nursing home that allegedly failed to prevent an outbreak of the disease. An unexpected legal hurdle stands in her way.

The nursing home argues it has complete legal immunity for lawsuits like Robertson’s stemming from COVID-19. It cites recent changes to a 2005 law by the former Trump administration that had been sought by the senior care industry.

The law known as the PREP Act was originally designed to encourage production of emergency vaccines during an epidemic by granting legal immunity to drug developers.

Riverbend Post-Acute Rehabilitation of Kansas City, Kansas, where Robertson’s mother allegedly became infected, is one of at least 36 nursing homes and senior living facilities that have cited the law as a defense.

Facilities across 14 states, where more than 650 residents died, have argued they should be immune from wrongful death cases – an early sign of how the PREP Act could be used by a range of businesses to fend off lawsuits resulting from the pandemic.

No judge has yet adopted the nursing homes’ view of the law, but those arguments, and disputes over which court should hear the case – federal or state – have led to months of delays, preventing Robertson’s lawyers from getting records and interviewing witnesses critical to her case, the lawyers said.

Robertson, whose lawsuit was moved to federal court in Topeka, Kansas by Riverbend, said she was upset by the nursing home’s use of the law.

“If I’m feeling the way I feel, how do you think all these other people feel?” she said. “It’s just not right.”

Riverbend, which is affiliated with the publicly traded Ensign Group Inc, and its lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

IMMUNITY EXTENDED TO FIGHT COVID

The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act was originally meant to jumpstart U.S. defenses against a possible avian flu epidemic or bioterrorist attack.

It authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), during a public health emergency, to shield from liability makers of “countermeasures” such as diagnostic tests, protective gear and vaccines like those developed by Pfizer Inc, Germany’s BioNTech and Moderna Inc.

The PREP Act does not apply in instances of serious injury or death caused by “willful misconduct”.

When the PREP Act shield applies, the injured person instead can seek compensation from a government fund, although most claims are denied.

Former HHS Secretary Alex Azar invoked the PREP Act in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and since then the agency has issued amendments and guidance as recently as Jan. 12 to broaden the reach of the law.

The agency guidance included criticism of rulings that went against defendants, including Riverbend.

“They have made the arguments for the defendants better than the existing defense lawyers,” said Jonathan Steele, Robertson’s lawyer, of the HHS guidance. “It’s unprecedented.”

Some changes were sought by the type of facility operators now defending against lawsuits.

In August, in response to a query from a lawyer at a lobbying firm, then-HHS general counsel Robert Charrow wrote that senior living facilities were covered by the PREP Act if they were using approved products to fight the pandemic.

HHS also said in recent months the PREP Act applied in situations where, while trying to comply with health regulations, an organization failed to take an action such as testing – which is an allegation in most of the nursing home lawsuits.

LeadingAge, a group that represents non-profit nursing homes and other service providers, sought the clarification in March, when masks and other protective gear were in short supply.

LeadingAge, one of several elder care groups that called for greater protection, declined to comment. The group does not represent Ensign.

HHS has said it wants to provide legal certainty to organizations that they will be immune from good-faith mistakes when trying to comply with health guidelines and ensure a unified national response against the spread of COVID-19.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment regarding the agency’s plans under a Biden administration.

Acting HHS Secretary Norris Cochran said in a letter to state governors on Friday that they could expect continued use of PREP Act declarations to support the fight against the pandemic.

More than 100,000 residents of U.S. nursing homes and senior living facilities have died from COVID-19. Some attorneys said that without some form of immunity, litigation over a novel airborne illness that could be spread by asymptomatic carriers could swamp the industry.

BUYING TIME?

So far, seven federal judges have issued preliminary rulings, and all of them sided with the plaintiffs and ordered the cases returned to state court, Reuters found.

Six of the rulings were issued before HHS amended the PREP Act in December to declare that for consistent interpretation of the law the cases should be heard in federal court, which was reshaped by former President Donald Trump and is seen as more favorable to companies.

Only a few of the rulings touched on the question of PREP Act immunity, which nursing homes can still use as a defense in state court.

Just raising the PREP Act defense can complicate procedures in a way that could impact future cases, said Mike Duff, a professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law.

“Time is money and complexity is time and the more complexity in a case means the less likely the wrongful death claimants will find lawyers to represent them,” he said.

Nursing homes have used that HHS guidance to try to move cases from state court, adding delays.

For example, the family of Vincent Martin sued Hollywood Premier Healthcare Center of Los Angeles in state court a month after Martin died of COVID-19 in April.

The nursing home, where at least 11 residents died, cited the PREP Act to have the lawsuit moved to federal court.

The federal judge, however, sided with the family and sent it back to state court.

In January, armed with fresh guidance from HHS, Hollywood had the case moved back to federal court a second time, where it is pending.

U.S. District Court Judge Dale Fischer said Hollywood’s request to stay proceedings while it appealed the order sending the case back to state court raised “a serious possibility of such removals being used in a cynical, strategic way to stall cases and to extract concessions … from opposing plaintiffs.”

Hollywood and other facilities are not unreasonably delaying discovery, but are applying the law and HHS guidance which makes clear the cases belong in federal court, said Kim Cruz, a lawyer for Hollywood, in an email.

‘UNFAIR’ TACTICS

Robertson, whose case has been similarly removed to federal court, called Riverbend’s legal tactics unfair and she is waiting to gets answers about her mother’s care.

Her mother, Georgia Clardy, had been a resident since 2017 at Riverbend.

She was taken to a hospital in March for a broken femur and, during her absence, Robertson said coronavirus entered and spread within the Riverbend facility.

The lawsuit alleges Riverbend’s negligence included a lack of adequate staff, allowing infected employees to enter the facility and a failure to adopt social distancing.

Robertson said she would have brought her mother home from the hospital rather than returning her to Riverbend if the facility had told her there was an outbreak.

“Once I found out she was diagnosed with COVID nobody wanted to talk about it,” said Robertson. “That was very disturbing for me.”

The judge in Robertson’s case has set the next hearing for February.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Noeleen Walder)

COVID-19 wreaks havoc on U.S. economy; 2020 performance worst in 74 years

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy contracted at its deepest pace since World War Two in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic depressed consumer spending and business investment, pushing millions of Americans out of work and into poverty.

Though a recovery is underway, momentum slowed significantly as the year wound down amid a resurgence in coronavirus infections and exhaustion of nearly $3 trillion in relief money from the government. The moderation is likely to persist at least through the first three months of 2021.

The economy’s prospects hinge on the distribution of vaccines to fight the virus. President Joe Biden has unveiled a recovery plan worth $1.9 trillion, but some lawmakers have balked at the price tag soon after the government provided nearly $900 billion in additional stimulus in late December.

“The economy will never move further away from the edge of the cliff of recession unless there is a resurgence in final demand, meaning consumers have to come out in force to make the recovery a permanent one,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York.

Gross domestic product decreased 3.5% in 2020, the biggest drop since 1946, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That followed 2.2% growth in 2019 and was the first annual decline in GDP since the 2007-09 Great Recession.

Nearly every sector, with the exception of government and the housing market, contracted last year. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, plunged 3.9%, the worst performance since 1932. The economy tumbled into recession last February.

Delays by the government to offer another rescue package and renewed business disruptions caused by the virus restricted GDP growth to a 4.0% annualized rate in the fourth quarter. The big step-back from a historic 33.4% growth pace in the third quarter left GDP 2.5% below its level at the end of 2019.

The economy is expected to return to its pre-pandemic level in the second quarter of this year.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday left its benchmark overnight interest rate near zero and pledged to continue pumping money into the economy through bond purchases, noting that “the pace of the recovery in economic activity and employment has moderated in recent months.”

With the virus still raging, economists are expecting growth to slow to around a 1.0% rate in the first quarter, before regaining speed by summer as the additional stimulus kicks in and more Americans get vaccinated.

“We foresee record-breaking consumer spending growth in 2021 with households benefiting from a watered-down $1.2 trillion version of Biden’s rescue plan, vaccine diffusion gradually reaching two thirds of Americans by July and employment accelerating this spring,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading higher. The dollar slipped against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were lower.

K-SHAPED RECOVERY

The services sector, especially restaurants, bars and hotels, has borne the brunt of the coronavirus recession, disproportionately impacting lower-wage earners, who tend to be women and minorities. That has led to a so-called K-shaped recovery, where better-paid workers are doing well while lower-paid workers are losing out.

The stars of the recovery have been the housing market and manufacturing as those who are still employed seek larger homes away from city centers, and buy electronics for home offices and schooling. Manufacturing’s share of GDP has increased to 11.9% from 11.6% at the end of 2019.

A survey by professors at the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame showed poverty increased by 2.4 percentage points to 11.8% in the second half of 2020, boosting the ranks of the poor by 8.1 million people.

Rising poverty was underscored by persistent labor market weakness. In a separate report on Thursday, the Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits totaled a seasonally adjusted 847,000 for the week ended Jan. 23. While that was down 67,000 from the prior week, claims remain well above their 665,000 peak during the 2007-09 Great Recession.

Including a government-funded program for the self-employed, gig workers and others who do not qualify for the regular state unemployment programs 1.3 million people filed claims last week.

The economy shed jobs in December for the first time in eight months. Only 12.4 million of the 22.2 million jobs lost in March and April have been recovered. About 18.3 million Americans were receiving unemployment checks in early 2021.

“The labor market is struggling this winter, but better times are ahead,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Lack of jobs and the temporary expiration of a government weekly jobless subsidy curtailed growth in consumer spending to a 2.5% rate in the fourth quarter after a record 41% pace in the July-September quarter.

But business investment grew at a 13.8% rate, with spending on equipment rising at a 24.9% pace. Spending on nonresidential structures rebounded after four straight quarterly declines.

Businesses also accumulated inventories last quarter, contributing to GDP growth. But the inventory build pulled in more imports, leading to a larger trade deficit, which subtracted from output. The housing market recorded another quarter of double-digit growth, thanks to historically low mortgage rates. Government spending was weak.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)

UK surpasses 100,000 COVID deaths in grim new milestone

LONDON (Reuters) – More than 100,000 Britons have died within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test, official data showed on Tuesday, a grim new milestone as the government battles to speed up vaccination delivery and keep variants of the virus at bay.

Britain has the fifth highest toll globally and reported a further 1,631 deaths and 20,089 cases on Tuesday, according to government figures.

The 100,162 deaths are more than the country’s civilian toll in World War Two and twice the number killed in the 1940-41 Blitz bombing campaign, although the total population was lower then.

“My thoughts are with each and every person who has lost a loved one – behind these heart-breaking figures are friends, families and neighbors,” health minister Matt Hancock said.

“I know how hard the last year has been, but I also know how strong the British public’s determination is and how much we have all pulled together to get through this.”

England, by far the most populous of the UK’s four nations, re-entered a national lockdown on Jan. 5, which includes the closure of pubs, restaurants, non-essential shops and schools to most pupils. Further travel restrictions have been introduced.

In December, Britain became the first country in the world to approve Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and has set itself the task of offering jabs to everyone 70 and over, those who are clinically vulnerable, frontline health and social care workers and older adults in care homes by mid-February.

A total of 6,853,327 people have now received a first dose and 472,446 a second dose.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas; editing by Michael Holden)

Global COVID-19 death toll tops 2 million

By Shaina Ahluwalia and Kavya B

(Reuters) – The worldwide coronavirus death toll surpassed 2 million on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, as nations around the world are trying to procure multiple vaccines and detect new COVID-19 variants.

It took nine months for the world to record the first 1 million deaths from the novel coronavirus but only three months to go from 1 million to 2 million deaths, illustrating an accelerating rate of fatalities.

So far in 2021, deaths have averaged over 11,900 per day or one life lost every eight seconds, according to a Reuters tally.

“Our world has reached a heart-wrenching milestone ,” United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said in a video statement.

“Behind this staggering number are names and faces: the smile now only a memory, the seat forever empty at the dinner table, the room that echoes with the silence of a loved one,” he said, calling for more global coordination and funding for the vaccination effort.

By April 1, the global death toll could approach 2.9 million, according to a forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Given how fast the virus is spreading due to more infectious variants, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned the worst could be ahead.

“We are going into a second year of this. It could even be tougher given the transmission dynamics and some of the issues that we are seeing,” Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies official, said during a Wednesday event.

The United States has the highest total number of deaths at over 386,000 and accounts for one in every four deaths reported worldwide each day. The next worst-affected countries are Brazil, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Combined, the five countries contribute to almost 50% of all COVID-19 deaths in the world but represent only 27% of the global population.

Europe, the worst-affected region in the world, has reported over 615,000 deaths so far and accounts for nearly 31% of all COVID-related deaths globally.

In India, which recently surpassed 151,000 deaths, vaccinations are set to begin on Saturday in an effort that authorities hope will see 300 million high-risk people inoculated over the next six to eight months.

(Reportintg by Shaina Ahluwalia and Kavya B in Bengalaru; Additional reporting by Chaithra J in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Frances Kerry and Jonathan Oatis)

Record daily German COVID deaths spark Merkel ‘mega-lockdown’ plan: Bild

By Andreas Rinke and Caroline Copley

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany recorded a new record number of deaths from the coronavirus on Thursday, prompting calls for an even tighter lockdown after the country emerged relatively unscathed in 2020.

Chancellor Angela Merkel wanted a “mega-lockdown,” mass-selling newspaper Bild reported, shutting down the country almost completely for fear of fast-spreading variant of the virus first detected in Britain.

She was considering measures including shutting down both local and long-distance public transport, though such steps had not yet been decided, Bild reported.

While Germany’s total deaths per capita since the pandemic began remain far lower than the United States, its daily per capita mortality since mid-December has often exceeded that of the United States.

Germany’s daily death toll currently equates to about 15 deaths per million people, versus a 13 U.S. deaths per million.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 25,164 new coronavirus cases and 1,244 fatalities, bringing Germany’s total death toll since the start of the pandemic to 43,881.

Germany initially managed the pandemic better than its neighbors with a strict lockdown last spring, but it has seen a sharp rise in cases and deaths in recent months, with the RKI saying people were not taking the virus seriously enough.

RKI president Lothar Wieler said on Thursday restrictions were not being implemented as consistently as they were during the first wave and said more people should work from home, adding that the current lockdown needed to be tightened further.

Germany introduced a partial lockdown in November that kept shops and schools open, but it tightened the rules in mid-December, closing non-essential stores, and children have not returned to classrooms since the Christmas holidays.

Hospitals in 10 out of Germany’s 16 states were facing bottlenecks as 85% of intensive care unit beds were occupied by coronavirus patients, Wieler said.

A meeting of regional leaders planned for Jan. 25 to discuss whether to extend the lockdown into February should be brought forward, said Winfried Kretschmann, the premier of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Merkel was due to speak to ministers on Thursday about ramping up production of vaccines.

So far only about 1% of the German population has been vaccinated, or 842,455 people, the RKI reported.

Germany has so far recorded 16 cases of people with the fast-spreading strain of the virus first detected in Britain and four with the strain from South Africa, Wieler said, although he admitted gene sequencing of samples was not being done broadly.

Wieler urged people who were offered a COVID-19 vaccination to accept it.

“At the end of the year we will have this pandemic under control,” Wieler said. Enough vaccines would then be available to inoculate the entire population, he said.

(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle and Thomas Escritt, Writing by Caroline Copley and Emma Thomasson, Editing by Riham Alkousaa, Angus MacSwan, William Maclean and Nick Macfie)

U.S. to require negative COVID-19 tests for international air passengers: sources

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expected to sign an order on Tuesday expanding coronavirus testing requirements for nearly all international air travelers, not just from Britain, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The new rules are to take effect two weeks from the day they are signed by CDC Director Mark Redfield, which would be Jan. 26.

The CDC has been urgently pressing for an expansion of the requirements with the Trump administration for weeks. One remaining issue is how to address some countries that have limited testing capacity and how the CDC would address travel to those countries, the sources said.

The CDC on Dec. 28 began requiring almost all airline passengers arriving from Britain – including U.S. citizens – to test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of departure. Those under 2 and passengers connecting through the UK are exempt.

Canada imposed similar rules for nearly all international arrivals starting Jan. 7, as have many other countries.

At a White House meeting on Monday, Redfield again made an urgent case to adopt the testing requirements as new strains of COVID-19 are identified in different parts of the world. He raised concerns that vaccines could potentially not be effective against new strains, sources said.

U.S. officials do not plan to drop restrictions that were adopted starting in March that ban most non-U.S. citizens who have been in most of Europe, the United Kingdom and Brazil as soon as possible, the sources said. They added that public health officials are sympathetic to the push to lift the restrictions that apply only to a limited number of countries.

Earlier this month, major U.S. airlines backed the CDC’s push to implement a global testing program requiring negative tests for most international air passengers returning to the United States.

Airlines for America, a group that represents American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and other major carriers, also urged the Trump administration to lift European and Brazilian entry restrictions as part of the testing expansion.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese and Dan Grebler)

COVID-19 patients still have symptoms 6 months later; interferon may be helpful treatment after all

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.

Half a year later, COVID-19 patients still have symptoms

Most patients hospitalized with COVID-19 have at least one symptom six months after falling ill, according to findings from a study in Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus first emerged in late 2019. Doctors there tracked 1,733 patients who were diagnosed and hospitalized between January, 2020 and May. Six months later, 76% had at least one symptom including fatigue or muscle weakness (seen in 63%), sleep difficulties and anxiety or depression. Most of those who had been severely ill had ongoing lung problems and chest abnormalities that could indicate organ damage, while 13% of patients whose kidneys functioned normally in the hospital went on to develop kidney problems later, researchers reported on Friday in The Lancet. “We are only beginning to understand” some of the long-term effects of COVID-19, study coauthor Bin Cao from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing said in a statement. “Our analysis indicates that most patients continue to live with at least some of the effects of the virus after leaving hospital,” highlighting the need for post-discharge care.

Interferon boosts proteins that deny entry to coronavirus

An experimental inhaled form of interferon being tested for treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients may not have a limitation researchers had feared. A potential problem with interferon is that it increases levels of a protein called ACE2, which the new coronavirus uses as a gateway into cells. In test tube experiments, researchers looked at cells that line the path from the nose into the lungs and discovered there are actually two forms of ACE2 – the well known one and a short form that lacks the entryway used by the virus. Interferon increases the short form of ACE2 but not the longer form, they found, which means it does not appear to boost entry points for the virus. “We were excited to discover a new form of ACE2,” Dr. Jane Lucas of the University of Southampton, who co-led the study reported on Monday in Nature Genetics, said in a statement. “We believe this may have important implications for managing COVID-19 infection.” An inhaled interferon from Synairgen Plc is being tested in late-stage trials.

Saliva viral load improves prediction of COVID-19 severity

The amount of the new coronavirus in saliva might help guide doctors’ care of patients because it is a better predictor of disease course than viral load in swab samples obtained from the nose and the back of the throat, researchers said. They studied 26 mildly ill COVID-19 patients, 154 hospitalized patients – including 63 who became critically ill and 23 who eventually died – and 108 uninfected individuals. Saliva viral load, but not nasopharyngeal viral load, was linked with COVID-19 risk factors like age and gender, and with immune system responses. Saliva viral load was also superior to nasopharyngeal viral load at predicting critical illness and death, the researchers reported on Wednesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Saliva contains inhaled germs that are cleared from the lungs by the body’s protective mechanisms, coauthor Akiko Iwasaki of Yale University explained in a tweet on Sunday. The saliva viral load therefore reflects how well the virus is making copies of itself all the way through the respiratory tract, from the nose to the lungs, and not just in the nose and back of the throat, Iwasaki said.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Global coronavirus cases surpass 90 million in battle on new variant

By Roshan Abraham and Anurag Maan

(Reuters) – Worldwide coronavirus cases surpassed 90 million on Monday, according to Reuters tally, as nations around the globe scramble to procure vaccines and continue to extend or reinstate lockdowns to fight new coronavirus variants.

The new COVID-19 variants discovered initially in the United Kingdom and South Africa are rapidly spreading globally.

The novel coronavirus has picked up pace in the past few months with about one-third of total cases registered in the last 48 days, according to a Reuters tally.

Europe, which became the first region to report 25 million cases last week, remains the worst-affected area in the world, followed by North and Latin Americas with 22.4 million and 16.3 million cases respectively.

Europe has reported around 31% of about 1.93 million coronavirus-related deaths globally.

The United Kingdom, the worst-affected European country, crossed 3 million cases last Friday.

The nation is on course to have immunized its most vulnerable people against COVID-19 by mid-February and plans to offer a shot to every adult by autumn.

To control the spread of new coronavirus variant, countries across the globe have started to extend movement and business restrictions.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel and state premiers last week agreed to restrict non-essential travel for residents of hard-hit areas all over Germany for the first time, after a lockdown decreed in December failed to significantly reduce infection numbers.

French authorities imposed a stricter evening curfew in Marseille after authorities said the new variant of the COVID-19 virus initially found in the UK had been discovered in the Mediterranean city.

The United States, world’s worst affected country, reported its highest death toll on Wednesday, with over 4,000 fatalities in a single day.

The nation has recorded more than 22 million cases since the pandemic started, reporting on average 245,000 new infections a day over the last seven days, according to a Reuters analysis.

In Asia, India crossed 150,000 deaths last Tuesday, becoming the third nation to reach the grim milestone.

The south Asian nation has approved two COVID-19 vaccines and will start its vaccination drive from Jan. 16 with priority given to about 30 million healthcare and frontline workers.

(Reporting by Roshan Abraham and Anurag Maan in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Michael Perry)

17 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed, 4.8 million administered: U.S. CDC

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 4,836,469 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Tuesday morning and distributed 17,020,575 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 Tuesday, the agency said.

According to the tally posted on Jan. 4, the agency had administered 4,563,260 first doses of the vaccines and distributed 15,418,500 doses.

A total of 3,260,775 vaccine doses were distributed for use in long-term care facilities and 429,066 people in the facilities got their first dose, the agency said.

The agency also reported 20,732,404 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 173,915 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,800 to 352,464.

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

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

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

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)