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Coronavirus Facts and Information thread:

Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
How Pfizer vaccine could be cold comfort for some Asian nations

TOKYO/SEOUL/MANILA (Reuters) - With tropical heat, remote island communities and a dearth of ultra-cold freezers, many Asian countries aren’t betting on Pfizer’s experimental vaccine solving their COVID-19 crisis any time soon.
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The world cheered on Monday when Pfizer Inc announced its shot, jointly developed with BioNTech SE, was more than 90% effective based on initial trial results.

Yet health experts cautioned that the vaccine, should it be approved, was no silver bullet - not least because the genetic material it’s made from needs to be stored at temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below.

Such requirements pose a particularly daunting challenge for countries in Asia, as well as in places like Africa and Latin America, where intense heat is often compounded by poor infrastructure that will make it difficult to keep the “cold chain” intact during deliveries to rural areas and islands.

That is a problem for everyone in the world, given the World Health Organization estimates about 70% of people must be inoculated to end the pandemic, and Asia alone is home to more than 4.6 billion - or three-fifths of the global population.

Some Asian countries are prioritising containing the novel coronavirus rather than looking to stockpile vaccines, while others are looking for alternatives to the messenger RNA technology used by Pfizer that requires such ultra-cold storage.

“On the cold chain requirement of -70 degrees, that is a hefty requirement. We do not have such facility,” Philippines’ Health Secretary Francisco Duque told Reuters.
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r
 
sun rise

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
5 Important Questions About Pfizer’s COVID Vaccine

1. How long will the vaccine protect patients?
Normally, vaccines aren’t licensed until they show they can protect for a year or two.

2. Will it protect the most vulnerable?
many vaccines, particularly for influenza, may fail to protect the elderly though they protect younger people.

3. Can it be rolled out effectively?
The Pfizer vaccine, unlike others in late-stage testing, must be kept supercooled, on dry ice around 100 degrees below zero, from the time it is produced until a few days before it is injected.

(and two questions are about the impact on other vaccines:

4. Could a premature announcement hurt future vaccines?
5. Could the Pfizer study expedite future vaccines?
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
In the news....
https://nypost.com/2020/11/11/black-market-for-negative-covid-19-tests-pop-up-across-the-globe/
Excerpted...
A black market for negative COVID-19 tests has popped up across the globe as more countries require travelers to prove their negative status before entering, a report said Wednesday.

In France, seven people were arrested last week for allegedly hawking doctored coronavirus tests at Charles de Gaulle International Airport, the Associated Press reported. The suspects, who were not identified, were charging up to $360 for the fake tests.

Authorities tracked the ring down after finding a man bound for Ethiopia with a fake test, according to the report. The alleged scammers face up to five years in prison if convicted.
 
Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Will Thanksgiving Be a COVID-19 Disaster? In Canada, the Answer Was 'Yes'

As coronavirus cases and hospitalizations spike across the United States, public-health officials, local leaders and others are urging Americans to rethink their typical Thanksgiving plans this year. “I would encourage everyone to follow the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s] guidelines and plan for a smaller dinner, with your immediate household family only,” New Jersey governor Phil Murphy said during a Nov. 5 press briefing; his state, like many others, is facing a frightening new wave. “We do not want anyone’s Thanksgiving to lead to more cases of COVID-19.”
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Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October, and they saw a spike in cases.

Will this year’s Thanksgiving gatherings lead to more viral spread in the U.S.? For a decent prediction, we need only look to our friends to the north, as Canada celebrated its version of Thanksgiving almost exactly a month ago, on Oct. 12. While Canada was already on an upward trajectory for COVID-19 even before Thanksgiving, several Canadian experts told me that, yes, the holiday almost definitely made things even worse.

“It’s not that we were flat and all of a sudden Thanksgiving happened and there we see an increase,” says Dr. Laura Rosella, associate professor and epidemiologist at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. But, she adds, “the reason why we’re fairly confident Thanksgiving did increase cases is that we saw our highest numbers yet in the two weeks following Thanksgiving, which is consistent with the incubation period, when people would show symptoms and get reported.”

Furthermore, Rosella says Canada’s post-Thanksgiving increases are coming even as it’s getting harder for some Canadians to get tested; more cases with less testing suggests truly explosive growth. “Because our testing was getting strained, the requirements for getting a test actually became stricter,” she says. “So we’re seeing more cases even though we had to change the criteria for testing such that only those who are in high-risk situations and are symptomatic are getting tested.”
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Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
FDA authorizes first at-home COVID-19 test

Nov. 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an emergency authorization for the first rapid coronavirus test that can be administered at home.

The federal agency announced the emergency use authorization for the all-in-one test kit late Tuesday in response to a request by Kelly Lewis Brezoczky of Lucira Health, the California-based company that developed the test.
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The company's website said the test is intended to cost under $50 and is designed to provide results within 30 minutes.

"Today's authorization for a complete at-home test is a significant step toward FDA's nationwide response to COVID-19," Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a statement.
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