Tag Archives: vaccines

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

By Nancy Lapid

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

Experts advise against antibody drugs in pediatric COVID-19

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

Disinfecting during pandemic puts asthmatics at risk

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

News reports paint overly rosy picture of blood treatment

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

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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

By Carl O’Donnell and Jonathan Allen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israel speeds vaccines, locks down in hope of February exit from pandemic

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel began what officials hope will be its last coronavirus lockdown on Sunday as they ramp up vaccinations to a pace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said may allow an emergence from the pandemic in February.

If realized, that could help Netanyahu’s re-election hopes after missteps that include lifting a first lockdown with a premature declaration of victory in May, inconsistent enforcement of curbs and sluggish economic relief.

Since beginning vaccinations a week before Sunday’s European Union roll-out, Israel’s centralized health system has administered 280,000 shots, the world’s fastest rate.

The opening of 24/7 vaccination stations is under consideration. Netanyahu wants the daily rate doubled to 150,000 shots by next weekend.

That would enable, by the end of January, administering both first and follow-up shots to the elderly and other vulnerable groups that make up a quarter of Israel’s 9 million citizens and have accounted for 95% of its COVID-19 deaths, Netanyahu said.

“As soon as we are done with this stage … we can emerge from the coronavirus, open the economy and do things that no country can do,” he said in a televised address.

Sunday’s lockdown – the country’s third – will last at least three weeks and aims to tamp down contagions that are currently doubling in scale every two weeks, the Health Ministry said.

The vaccines mean “there is a very high chance that this is our final lockdown,” Sharon Alroy-Preis, acting head of the ministry’s public health services division, told Army Radio.

Israel has logged almost 400,000 COVID-19 cases and 3,210 deaths.

(Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Larry King)

U.S. loses one life every 33 seconds to COVID-19 in deadliest week so far

(Reuters) – In the United States last week, someone died from COVID-19 every 33 seconds.

The disease claimed more than 18,000 lives in the seven days ended Dec. 20, up 6.7% from the prior week to hit another record high, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.

Despite pleas by health officials not to travel during the end-year holiday season, 3.2 million people were screened at U.S. airports on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Health officials are worried that a surge in infections from holiday gatherings could overwhelm hospitals, some of which are already at capacity after Thanksgiving celebrations.

And while the country has begun to administer two new vaccines, it may be months before the inoculations put a dent in the coronavirus outbreak.

The number of new COVID-19 cases last week fell 1% to nearly 1.5 million. Tennessee, California and Rhode Island had the highest per capita new cases in the country, according to the Reuters analysis. In terms of deaths per capita, Iowa, South Dakota and Rhode Island were the hardest hit.

Across the United States, 11.3% of tests came back positive for the virus, down from 12% the prior week, according to data from the volunteer-run COVID Tracking Project. Out of 50 states, 31 had a positive test rate of 10% or higher. The highest rates were in Iowa and Idaho at over 40%.

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)

‘My second life’: California nurse walks out of hospital after 8-month COVID-19 ordeal

By Steve Gorman

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Reuters) – As a veteran ICU nurse whose job is to care for the most critically ill patients at her hospital in Long Beach, California, Merlin Pambuan was well aware of the deadly ravages COVID-19 can inflict on the human body.

Last spring in a tragic role reversal, Pambuan became one of those patients – admitted to the intensive care unit of St. Mary Medical Center, her workplace for the past 40 years, where she was rendered unconscious by paralysis-inducing sedation and placed on a ventilator to breathe. A feeding tube was later added.

She came close to death on several occasions, her doctors later revealed. So dire was her condition at one point that end-of-life options were discussed with her family.

By the time she awoke and could breathe on her own again, she was too weak to stand. But she fought back and struggled through weeks of painful therapy to regain her strength and mobility, celebrating her 66th birthday in St. Mary’s acute rehabilitation ward in late October.

On Monday Pambuan beat the odds of her eight-month ordeal by walking out the front door of the hospital, drawing cheers, applause and exhilaration from colleagues lining the lobby to rejoice in her discharge.

“This is my second life,” Pambuan said moments earlier, as she prepared to leave her hospital room, accompanied by her husband, Daniel, 63, and their daughter, Shantell, 33, an aspiring social worker who spent months at her mother’s bedside as her patient advocate and personal cheerleader.

The spectacle of Pambuan striding slowly but confidently through the hospital lobby – she had insisted on making her exit without assistance of a wheelchair or walker, although was still connected to supplementary oxygen – marked a transformative victory for the diminutive but tough ICU nurse.

‘WHAT WE LIVE FOR’

The outpouring of affection she received from colleagues – including many of the physicians, fellow nurses and therapists who took part in her care – also reflected a rare moment of communal triumph for the pandemic-weary hospital staff.

“This is what we live for … seeing our patients going home alive and in good condition,” said Dr. Maged Tanios, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at St. Mary. He said Pambuan’s recovery was especially rewarding since she is part of the hospital’s extended “family.”

Tanios said he was not aware of other St. Mary medical staff being admitted to the ICU for COVID. However, studies show frontline healthcare workers’ frequent, close contact with coronavirus patients puts them at higher risk of contracting the disease, hence the decision to give them top priority in getting immunized.

Pambuan’s discharge, ironically, coincided with the recent rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to medical workers, as well as a crushing surge in coronavirus infections that have overwhelmed hospitals, and ICUs in particular, across California.

Pambuan said she has no recollection of the four months she spent hooked to a breathing machine – from early May to early September – but recalls first waking up from deep sedation unable to move her extremities.

With encouragement from nursing staff and her daughter Pambuan said she grew determined to regain her mobility and her life.

“I said, ‘No, I’m going to fight this COVID,'” she recounted. “I start moving my hand (and) a physical therapist come and say, ‘Oh, you’re moving your hands,’ and I said, ‘Oh, I’m going to fight, I’m going to fight. I’m trying to wiggle my toes. I’m going to fight it.'”

Pambuan spent the last few months of her hospital stay undergoing physical and respiratory rehabilitation and will continue recuperation from home, while making peace, she said, with a change in pace.

“It’s going to be very difficult for me,” she said. “But I have to accept it, that I’m going to be on oxygen for a while and slow down a little bit.”

When or if she will return to work in the ICU remains an open question, she said.

In the meantime, Pambuan said she feels indebted to her co-workers for their “really professional” care, grateful for the support of loved ones and newly convinced of the power of optimism.

Her message to others in her shoes – “Don’t lose hope. Just fight. Fight, because look at me, you know. I’m going home and I’m walking.”

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Long Beach, California; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Biden to spotlight economy as Trump vows more court challenges to election

By Trevor Hunnicutt and John Whitesides

WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Joe Biden on Monday will focus on reviving a pandemic-battered U.S. economy as he prepares to take office, while outgoing President Donald Trump has promised more lawsuits of the type that so far have failed to alter his election defeat.

With coronavirus cases surging, Biden will receive a briefing and give a speech in his home state of Delaware on rebuilding an economy that has suffered millions of job losses as the pandemic has killed more than 245,000 Americans.

Biden’s scientific advisers will meet this week with pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines to prevent COVID-19, a top aide to the president-elect said, in preparation for the logistical challenges of widespread vaccination after the Democrat takes office on Jan. 20.

Trump, a Republican, briefly appeared to acknowledge defeat on Sunday only to backtrack, saying on Twitter that he concedes “nothing” and repeating his unfounded accusations of voter fraud.

He later promised on Twitter to file “big cases showing the unconstitutionality of the 2020 Election,” even though he has made no headway with his legal challenges in multiple states so far.

Election officials from both parties have said there is no evidence of major irregularities. Federal election security officials have decried “unfounded claims” and expressed “utmost confidence” in the integrity of the elections, according to a statement last week by the lead U.S. cybersecurity agency.

LEGAL SETBACK

In another blow to Trump’s legal strategy, his campaign on Sunday dropped a major part of a lawsuit it had brought seeking to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its results, narrowing the case to an issue affecting a small number of ballots. Biden won the state by more than 68,000 votes.

Biden beat Trump in the Nov. 3 election by the same 306-232 margin in the state-by-state Electoral College that Trump proclaimed a “landslide” when he won in 2016. The former vice president also won the national popular vote by at least 5.5 million votes, or 3.6 percentage points, with ballots still being counted.

Former President Barack Obama, a Democrat who campaigned against Trump, said it was past time for Trump to concede, and criticized Republicans who also refuse to accept the victory of his former vice president.

“When your time is up, then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego,” Obama told the CBS News show “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired on Sunday.

“I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, will hold a hearing on Tuesday titled: “Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression and the 2020 Election.”

STILL NO CONCESSION

The Trump administration has still not recognized Biden as president-elect, preventing his team from gaining access to the government office space and funding normally provided to an incoming administration.

Biden’s top advisers said Trump’s refusal to begin a transition could jeopardize the battle against the virus and inhibit vaccine distribution planning.

The number of U.S. coronavirus cases passed 11 million on Sunday, up a million in a week and the fastest increase since the pandemic began.

Biden has promised to make the health crisis a top priority as president. Ron Klain, who will be White House chief of staff when Biden takes office, said Biden’s scientific advisers would meet with Pfizer Inc and other unnamed drugmakers this week.

Pfizer said last week its vaccine candidate had proved more than 90% effective in initial trials, giving hope that widespread vaccination in the coming months could help get the pandemic under control.

Moderna Inc said on Monday its experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19, based on interim data from a late-stage clinical trial.

Other companies also are in advanced stages of developing promising vaccines.

Biden will also resume work on building his governing team. Although Klain, his first appointment, is a white man, the president-elect has vowed that his administration will “look like America” and be represented by women and minorities.

Some 46% of his transition staff are people of color and 52% are women, CNN reported, citing data provided by the transition team.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Wilmington and John Whitesides in Washington; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Jan Wolfe, David Shepardson, David Morgan and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Peter Cooney and Kevin Liffey)

Breathing with face mask does not alter oxygen level; virus can last nine hours on skin

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.

Breathing with face masks does not affect the lungs

The average face mask may be uncomfortable but does not limit the flow of oxygen to the lungs, even in people with severe lung diseases, researchers say. They tested the effect of wearing surgical masks on gas exchange – the process by which the body adds oxygen to the blood while removing carbon dioxide – in 15 healthy physicians and 15 military veterans with severely impaired lungs via a quick paced six-minute walk on a flat, hard surface. Oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood were measured before and after the walking test. Neither the healthy doctors nor the patients with diseased lungs showed any major changes in gas exchange measurements after the walking test or up to 30 minutes later. Mask discomfort is likely not due to rebreathing of carbon dioxide and decreases in oxygen levels, the researchers reported on Friday in the journal Thorax. Instead, masks may be causing discomfort by irritating sensitive facial nerves, warming inhaled air, or inducing feelings of claustrophobia. Any such discomfort should not cause safety concerns, researchers said, as that could contribute to reduction of “a practice proven to improve public health.”

New coronavirus survives nine hours on human skin

Left undisturbed, the new coronavirus can survive many hours on human skin, a new study has found. To avoid possibly infecting healthy volunteers, researchers conducted lab experiments using cadaver skin that would otherwise have been used for skin grafts. While influenza A virus survived less than two hours on human skin, the novel coronavirus survived for more than nine hours. Both were completely inactivated within 15 seconds by hand sanitizer containing 80% alcohol. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends using alcohol-based hand rubs with 60% to 95% alcohol or thoroughly washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Studies have shown that COVID-19 transmission largely occurs via aerosols and droplets. Still, the authors of the new study conclude in a report published on Saturday in Clinical Infectious Diseases, “Proper hand hygiene is important to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infections.”

Obstructive sleep apnea linked with worse COVID-19

A common sleep disorder appears to put COVID-19 patients at higher risk for critical illness, a new study finds. Using Finnish national databases, researchers found that while the rates of infection with the new coronavirus were the same for people with and without obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), among people who did become infected, those with OSA had a five-fold higher risk of hospitalization. When people with OSA are asleep, their breathing stops briefly and then restarts, often multiple times during the night. OSA is associated with health problems like obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, but was linked with a higher risk for severe COVID-19 even after researchers took all these other factors into account. The study cannot prove that OSA caused the more severe outcomes. But in a paper posted on medRxiv ahead of peer review, researchers advise doctors evaluating patients with suspected or confirmed coronavirus infection to recognize that the sleep disorder is a risk factor for severe COVID-19.

Infrared thermometers may be inaccurate in adults

Non-contact infrared thermometers, long used in children and now being used to screen for fever in public places, may not accurately measure body temperature in adults, a small study suggests. The devices are held a short distance from the forehead. Because they never touch the skin, they help prevent transmission of germs and do not need to be sterilized after each use. In a study of 265 adults at two hospitals, Australian researchers compared infrared thermometers with “temporal artery” thermometers, which are rubbed across the forehead. When body temperatures were below 99.5 degrees F (37.5 C), the devices yielded similar results. But for higher body temperatures, the non-contact thermometers “demonstrated poor accuracy,” with greater discrepancies as temperatures rose, according to a report published on Friday in the American Journal of Infection Control. As only 37 study participants had fever, larger studies are needed to confirm these findings, researchers said. Meanwhile, they added, when an infrared thermometer shows a temperature above 99.5 F in an adult, it might be wise to get a direct measurement with a thermometer that makes contact with the body.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

T cell shortage linked to severe COVID-19 in elderly; antiseptic spray may limit virus spread

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.

Shortage of ‘naive’ T cells raises COVID-19 risk in elderly

A lower supply of a certain type of immune cell in older people that is critical to fighting foreign invaders may help explain their vulnerability to severe COVID-19, scientists say. When germs enter the body, the initial “innate” immune response generates inflammation not specifically targeted at the bacteria or virus.

Within days, the more precise “adaptive” immune response starts generating antibodies against the invader along with T cells that either assist in antibody production or seek out and attack infected cells.

In a small study published on Wednesday in Cell, COVID-19 patients with milder disease had better adaptive immune responses, and in particular, stronger T-cell responses to the coronavirus.

People over age 65 were much more likely to have poor T cell responses, and a poorly coordinated immune response in general, coauthor Shane Crotty of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology said in a news release.

As we age, our supply of “naive” T cells shrinks, he explained. Put another way, we have fewer “inexperienced” T cells available to be activated to respond to a new invader. “Ageing and scarcity of naive T cells may be linked risk factors for failure to generate a coordinated adaptive immune response, resulting in increased susceptibility to severe COVID-19,” the researchers said.

Antiseptic nasal spray may help limit coronavirus spread

An antiseptic nasal spray containing povidone-iodine may help curb transmission of the new coronavirus, preliminary research suggests.

In test tube experiments, a team of ear, nose and throat doctors found that a povidone-iodine nasal spray inactivated the virus in as little as 15 seconds. The nasal spray they tested is typically used to disinfect the inside of the nose before surgery. Formulations designed for use on skin are not safe in the nose, the researchers note.

They reported on Thursday in JAMA Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery that they now have their patients use the spray before intranasal procedures, to reduce the risk of virus transmission through the air via droplets and aerosol spread.

They also suggest instructing patients to perform nasal decontamination before coming to appointments, to “further decrease intranasal viral load and … prevent spread in waiting areas and other common areas.” They caution, however, that routine use of povidone-iodine would not be safe for some people, including pregnant women and patients with thyroid conditions. Larger clinical trials have not yet proved that viral transmission is curbed by intranasal povidone-iodine solutions, but “these studies are already underway,” the researchers said.

Not all COVID-19 antibody tests are equal

Some COVID-19 antibody tests are much more reliable than others. But even with the best ones, reliability varies among patient subgroups, a new study suggests. Some tests look for IgM or IgA antibodies, the first antibodies produced by the immune system in response to an invader, which do not remain long in the body.

Other tests – the most common kind – look for IgG antibodies, which generally develop within seven to 10 days after symptoms begin and remain in the blood for some time after the patient recovers.

In a study posted on medRxiv on Wednesday in advance of peer review, researchers analyzed data from 11,809 individuals whose COVID-19 had been diagnosed with highly rated tests to see how well the various antibody assays would “recall” that the patient had been infected.

The most commonly used assays, which look for IgG, had a 91.2% recall rate. But the IgA and IgM assays had estimated recall rates of 20.6% and 27.3%, respectively, coauthor Natalie Sheils of UnitedHealth Group told Reuters. “Recall varies significantly across sub-populations and according to timing of the tests, with performance becoming relatively stable after day 14,” she said. “The tests performed better for men versus women, for non-whites versus whites and for individuals above age 45.” More research is needed to understand why these variations occur, Sheils added.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. could have capacity of 3 million COVID-19 tests per day, HHS official says

(Reuters) – The United States could have a capacity of 3 million coronavirus tests per day this month, and scale up to a high of as much as 135 million tests a month by October, a top health official told a U.S. Congress panel on Wednesday.

Half of the three million tests would be rapid point-of-care tests, said Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The average turnaround time for lab-based tests was now about 1.5 days on average, Giroir told the U.S. Senate panel.

Officials also stressed that coronavirus vaccines would not be immediately available to the broader public after regulatory clearance.

It would take around 6 to 9 months for enough people to be vaccinated for effective immunization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru and Carl O’ Donnell in New York; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Shounak Dasgupta)