Breaking—India approves its first 2 #COVID19 vaccines—Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and a locally developed vaccine by Bharat Biotech, called Covaxin, still in Phase 3 and not published efficacy data yet, but “the vaccine has been found to be safe.” nytimes.com/2021/01/03/wor…
2) approvals were announced at a news conference in New Delhi on Sunday—the decision to approve both vaccines came after “careful examination” of both by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, India’s pharmaceutical regulator.
3) “Indian regulators are still considering approvals for other vaccines. One, made by Pfizer and BioNTech, has already been approved in the United States and Europe. Another, Russia’s Sputnik V, appears to be less far along.”
4) On Wednesday, Britain became the first country to grant emergency approval for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Argentina soon followed suit.
Will US approve Oxford-AZ vaccine soon??? It doesn’t need freezing, but does need refrigeration. They are also running a new P3.
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PURE EVIL: Trump EPA just finalized a rule to limit using research to craft public health protections, unless raw data given to EPA—aimed at crippling EPA’s ability to aggressively regulate air and water. Evil catch? Most human health data cannot be legally given to EPA! 😡
2) “The “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” rule, which Trump WH began pursuing early in President Trump’s term, would require researchers to disclose the raw data involved in their public health studies before the agency could rely upon their conclusions”
3) “leading researchers, however, argue that the new criteria will actually restrict the EPA from using some of the most research on human subjects because it often includes confidential medical records and other proprietary data that cannot be released due to privacy concerns.
So... there is a worrying “reasonable concern… that the South African 🇿🇦 #SARSCoV2 variant might be more resistant” to current vaccines, Prof Shabir Madhi, who led trials for Oxford vaccine in SA. Earlier, UK🇬🇧 govt advisors echoed this concern. #COVID19 bbc.com/news/world-afr…
2) “Prof Madhi said a definitive answer would probably come in a matter of weeks, with extensive testing already under way in South Africa. The concern arises from the fact that the virus here has mutated far more than the variant in the UK...
3) “and one of those mutations might mean it can evade attack by antibodies that would normally fight coronavirus.
Prof Madhi said it was "unlikely" that the mutation in South Africa would make the current vaccines useless, but might "weaken the impact".
Sobering—Crisis in Los Angeles hospitals now so dire, US Army Corps of Engineers summoned to solve oxygen shortages: "These 🏥 were not designed to have 100% ICU / people on oxygen".
Crisis also of slow vaccine rollout & half-dose #COVID19 vaccine debated.
2) would half dose Moderna vaccine shots suggested by Operation Warp Speed head work? Maybe but lots of caveats. Here is why and how 👇
Rise of #COVID19 in U.K.🇬🇧 children is quite alarming. We know kids transmit, even if usually less susceptible (unsure yet for new B117 and new 🇿🇦 variants). But we know kids transmit often more than adults (see 🧵 below). The higher R means we have little to no “room to give”.
2) Here is the U.K. SAGE report on children’s transmission. It’s higher.
BREAKING—UK health minister gives new warning—that the other new South Africa 🇿🇦 #SARSCoV2 strain could be more infectious than even the new UK B117 strain.
2) “I’m incredibly worried about the South African variant, and that’s why we took the action that we did to restrict all flights from South Africa,” Hancock told BBC Radio on Monday.”
“This is a very, very significant problem... it’s even more of a problem than UK new variant.”
3) “ITV network’s political editor, citing an unidentified scientific adviser to the British government, said scientists were not fully confident that COVID-19 vaccines would work on the new South African variant...”