The overall count of cases related to COVID-19 coronavirus-borne disease reached 102 million on Friday as health experts were digesting the latest vaccine updates from Novavax Inc. and Johnson & Johnson amid hopes that they will soon gain emergency clearance and bolster supplies.
Novavax NVAX,
said its vaccine candidate Thursday afternoon, which has a different mechanism to those already authorized in the United States – one developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE,
and German partner BioNTech SE BNTX,
and another developed by Moderna Inc. MRNA,
– It appears to be 89% effective, according to initial data from a trial in the UK with 15,000 patients, the PA reported.
The company said about half of the participants in the process who became infected with the virus had the mutated version that has been circulating in the UK for weeks. A preliminary analysis suggested that the vaccine is almost 96% effective against the original virus and almost 86% effective against the new variant.
See also: The Novavax vaccine is effective. Now I seriously expect that they injected me
Scientists have been even more concerned about a strain first discovered in South Africa that carries different mutations, and the results of a smaller Novavax study suggest that the vaccine works but not as well as it does against the variant of United Kingdom.
Read now: Drug manufacturers examine the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments against the new most infectious South African strain
It was a similar story to J&J JNJ,
when he released the first data from a phase 3 trial of his COVID vaccine candidate early Friday, saying it appears to be 66% effective in preventing moderate to severe disease 28 days after vaccination, but less effective (only 57%) African strain.
J&J will send the data to a peer-reviewed journal in the coming weeks and expects to file an emergency use permit in early February. There is a lot of hope in this vaccine as it requires only one dose, unlike the currently authorized ones, which require two separate doses weeks.
The data comes as the United States added at least 165,073 new cases Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, and counted at least 3,862 deaths, though they fell from the more than 4,000 deaths recorded the previous two days.
The number of cases has decreased over the last 14 days. The United States averaged 159,598 new cases a day last week, 34% less than the average two weeks ago.
According to the COVID Monitoring Project, hospitalization rates are also improving. On Thursday, there were 104,303 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals, up from 107,444 the day before. The number has been declining for 17 days in a row and is at its lowest level since December 7.
“Reported deaths increased 7% this week, and states reported a total of 22,797 lives lost against COVID-19,” the COVID Tracking Project wrote in its weekly blog. “Deaths lag behind in cases, both because it takes time to die from the virus and because the process of reporting deaths is very slow. Even with cases falling in the United States, we may have a week or so. more than very high death tolls “.
In this context, President Joe Biden is pushing his pandemic response team to accelerate the pace of vaccinations and buy more doses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine tracker shows that as of 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, 26.2 million doses and 48.4 million doses had been administered to states.
In other news:
• On Friday, the European drug regulator authorized the use of the AstraZeneca AZN vaccine, -2.07% COVID-19 for people over 18, MarketWatch reported Lina Saigol. The European Medicines Agency (EMA), or EMA, said it had assessed the quality, safety and efficacy of AstraZeneca’s shot, which the pharmaceutical company has developed in collaboration with Oxford University. and recommended conditional marketing authorization to the European Union.
Read: When can younger, healthier people be vaccinated? A former Biden COVID-19 adviser says months will pass
• Separately, Europe intensified its fight to get vaccines against COVID-19 on Friday, after Brussels warned it would use all legal means to block gun exports if it does not receive the doses of vaccines promised by pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca AZN,
AZN,
and Pfizer, LW Saigol told MarketWatch. In a letter to four European Union leaders, Charles Michel, President of the European Council, said the 27-member bloc could take “urgent action” by invoking an emergency provision in EU treaties “to address the deficit”. Several EU member states, including France, Portugal and Spain, said this week that they were suspending their inoculation programs due to the shortage of the coronavirus vaccine. of vaccines.
Read: The AstraZeneca vaccine should only be given to children under 65, Germany recommends as the EU’s crisis of scarcity deepens
• Older people are at increased risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19, but many may not have access to online systems that can help facilitate their vaccinations and save lives, according to Meera Jagannathan, of MarketWatch. Thirty-five percent of Americans between the ages of 65 and 80 report that they have not set up an account on their healthcare provider’s online patient portal system, according to a recent analysis of data from the survey. University of Michigan National Survey on Healthy Aging. Some older adults who may face an even higher risk of COVID-19 are less likely to use patient portals, according to the survey: while 39% of older white adults had none, almost 50% of older black adults and 53% of older Hispanic adults did not have them.
Also read: Quick information on COVID-19 vaccines for the elderly: where, when and how to get them
• Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has agreed to help manufacture the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, according to AFP, as many countries are scrambling to secure supplies that are in short supply. The news comes after the French pharmaceutical company earlier this week said it would also help produce 125 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech jab.
• World Health Organization experts are scheduled to begin face-to-face meetings with their Chinese counterparts in central Wuhan on Friday at the start of the team’s long-awaited coronavirus research mission. as reported by the AP. These meetings should be followed by the first field visits to and around the industrial and transport center on Friday, the WHO said on Twitter, but did not give further details on the team’s agenda. He said the team had already requested “detailed underlying data” and planned to speak with first responders and some of the first patients with COVID-19. “All hypotheses are on the table as the team follows science in its work to understand the origins of the COVID19 virus,” the WHO posted in a tweet. “When members begin their field visits on Friday, they should receive the support, access and data they need.”
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The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide exceeded 101.6 million on Friday, according to data added by Johns Hopkins University, and the death toll rose to 2.19 million. About 56 million people have recovered from COVID-19.
The United States leads the world by cases (25.8 million) and fatalities (433,431), about one-fifth of the world total.
Brazil has the second highest number of deaths, with 221,547, and is the third by cases, with 9.1 million.
India is the second in the world in cases with 10.7 million and now the fourth in deaths, with 154,010, after being surpassed by Mexico.
Mexico has the third highest number of deaths at 155,145 and the number 13 of cases, with 1.8 million.
The UK has 3.8 million cases and 103,324 deaths, the highest in Europe and the fifth highest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, has had 99,797 confirmed cases and 4,813 deaths, according to its official figures.
What does the economy say?
Americans cut spending in December for the second month in a row as a record increase in coronavirus cases opened new cracks in the economy and slowed the recovery, MarketWatch’s Jeffry Bartash reported.
Consumer spending sank 0.2%, the government said on Friday.
Falling spending towards the end of the year deprived the economy of momentum. Gross domestic product slowed to 4% annualized growth and left the economy with some gaps open to fill.
If there is a silver lining, spending did not fall as much as expected. Economists surveyed by the Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal have forecast a 0.4% drop. Also, the fall of November was not as strong as originally reported.
Read: The US economy grew 4% slower by the end of 2020, according to GDP
Meanwhile, revenue rose 0.6% in December, suggesting consumers still have money to spend once they regain confidence in the economy. The savings rate remains extremely high, at 13.7%, about twice the normal.
Separately, Americans showed distrust, but had hope in late January about the prospects for an economic renewal by the end of the year, once coronavirus vaccines became widely available, according to a survey.
The second of two readings on consumer sentiment this month fell to 79 from an initial 79.2, according to an index produced by the University of Michigan.
Economists surveyed by the Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal had predicted that the index would remain at 79.2.
However, the index did not change much from the December 80.7 reading, suggesting that Americans are looking forward rather than looking back.
Read: Biden expects consumer confidence to bounce back from the vaccine
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and S&P 500 SPX,
they were lower in the mid-morning trade.