Category Archives: Corona Virus

(Washington, DC) The Districts reported data for Wednesday, June 23, 2021 includes 13 new positive coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, bringing the Districts overall positive case total to 49,297.

The District reported no additional COVID-19 related deaths.

Tragically, 1,141 District residents have lost their lives due to COVID-19.

Visit coronavirus.dc.gov/data for interactive data dashboards or to download COVID-19 data.

Below is a summary of the Districts current ReOpening Metrics.

Below is the Districts aggregated total of positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by age and gender.

Patient Gender

Total Positive Cases

%

Female

%

Male

%

Unknown

%

All

49,297*

100

25,695

100

23,438

100

164

100

Unknown

64

<1

20

<1

39

<1

5

3

0-18

6,395

13

3,175

12

3,197

14

23

14

19-30

13,269

27

7,288

28

5,928

25

53

32

31-40

9,762

20

5,023

20

4,702

20

37

23

41-50

6,303

13

3,178

12

3,112

13

13

8

51-60

5,825

12

2,872

11

2,939

13

14

9

61-70

4,203

9

2,116

8

2,081

9

6

4

71-80

2,109

4

1,142

5

962

4

5

3

81+

See the original post:

Coronavirus Data for June 23, 2021 | mayormb - Executive Office of the Mayor

(Washington, DC) The Districts reported data for Tuesday, June 22, 2021 includes 9 new positive coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, bringing the Districts overall positive case total to 49,284.

The District reported no additional COVID-19 related deaths.

Tragically, 1,141 District residents have lost their lives due to COVID-19.

Visit coronavirus.dc.gov/data for interactive data dashboards or to download COVID-19 data.

Below is a summary of the Districts current ReOpening Metrics.

Below is the Districts aggregated total of positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by age and gender.

Patient Gender

Total Positive Cases

%

Female

%

Male

%

Unknown

%

All

49,284*

100

25,687

100

23,433

100

164

100

Unknown

64

<1

20

<1

39

<1

5

3

0-18

6,392

13

3,174

12

3,195

14

23

14

19-30

13,266

27

7,286

28

5,927

25

53

32

31-40

9,759

20

5,020

20

4,702

20

37

23

41-50

6,302

13

3,178

12

3,111

13

13

8

51-60

5,823

12

2,871

11

2,938

13

14

9

61-70

4,203

9

2,116

8

2,081

9

6

4

71-80

2,108

4

1,141

5

962

4

5

3

81+

Visit link:

Coronavirus Data for June 22, 2021 | mayormb - Executive Office of the Mayor

Brazil counted a record number of new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, while Russia saw its highest tally since late January, highlighting the unequal state of the pandemic around the world and the need to promote vaccination.

Brazil counted 115,228 new infections in a single day, the most since the start of the outbreak, according to its health department, confirming that a third wave is underway. The nation of 212 million counted 2,392 new deaths, bringing its total to 507,109, the second highest official number after the U.S., according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

Both Brazil and Russia are lagging in getting their citizens vaccinated. Brazil has fully inoculated just 11% of its population, the Johns Hopkins data show, while Russia has achieved vaccination of just 10.8% of its population of about 144 million.

The U.S. program, meanwhile, has slowed in recent days, as fewer people are making vaccination appointments. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions tracker is showing that 150.8 million people, or 45.4% of the overall U.S. population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have have received two doses of the vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE, +0.36% with German partner BioNTech SE BNTX, -0.75% or Moderna Inc. MRNA, +3.82%, or one of Johnson & Johnsons JNJ, +0.46% single-dose vaccine. Thats up from 45.3% a day earlier.

The number of U.S. adults receiving at least one dose of a two-dose regimen increased to 65.6% from 65.5% a day ago. The Biden administration said Thursday thatover 70% of the U.S. population thats 30 or older has received at least one shot.

But experts are concerned over the take-up rate in the South, in particular, where many states are still below 40% of their populations fully vaccinated. The list includes Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. In Ohio, a lottery offering millions of dollars in prize money as an incentive to get a jab has ended, with the state vaccination rate still below 50%.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced the Ohio program in May, and it generated a strong initial response, with a 43% boost in vaccinations in the first week.

Clearly the impact went down after that second week, DeWine said Wednesday.

Underscoring the risk posed by new variants of the virus, notably the delta variant that was first detected in India and is now in at least 85 countries, Danish health officials are urging soccer fans who attended the UEFA European Championship group-stage match between Denmark and Belgium on June 17 in Copenhagen to get tested for COVID, having found at least three people testing positive for the highly infectious variant. About 4,000 people were seated close to those individuals, according to the Associated Press.

See also: Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 is now in 85 countries and accounts for 20% of U.S. infections in past two weeks

India and Taiwan are still improving but new cases are increasing or still high South East Asia, Africa, Russia, Mexico and Brazil, Danske Bank analysts wrote in a note. In other words, COVID-19 risks are declining in the developed world due to mass vaccination but not in emerging markets and developing countries with limited access to vaccine.

In medical news, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it plans to add a warning about highly rare cases of inflammation of the heart in adolescents and young adults after being vaccinated with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Reuters reported. Those vaccines use the same mRNA technology. CDC officials meeting Wednesday acknowledged a possible link to the vaccines, while stressing the protection they offer from COVID-19 more than offsets risks.

The U.S. government plans to study the immune responses of pregnant and postpartum women who have received a COVID-19 vaccine. The observational study, which is being funded by the National Institutes of Health, will also evaluate how and if antibodies are passed to infants via the placenta and through breastfeeding.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said in a news release that tens of thousands of women have been immunized against COVID-19 and no safety concerns have emerged, but he noted that there are no robust clinical data about vaccinating this group of individuals. Pregnancy is considered a risk factorfor developing a more serious form of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The global tally for the coronavirus-borne illness headed above 179.7 million on Thursday,according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, while deaths climbed above 3.89 million.

The U.S. continues to lead the world in total cases at 33.6 million, with a death toll of 602,959.

India is second in total cases at 30 million and third by fatalities at 391,981, although those numbers are expected to be undercounted given a shortage of tests.

Brazil has the third highest caseload at 18.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins data, and is second in deaths at 507,109.

Mexico has fourth highest death toll at 231,847 and 2.5 million cases.

In Europe, Russia has overtaken the U.K. in COVID deaths. Russia has recorded 129,278 fatalities, while the U.K. has had 128,312, making Russia the country with the fifth highest death toll in the world and the highest in Europe. Russia reported 20,182 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily total since Jan. 24.

China,where the virus was first discovered late in 2019,has had 103,627 confirmed cases and 4,846 deaths, according to its official numbers, which are widely held to be massively underreported.

Read on: Breakthrough infections in people who have gotten their COVID-19 shots are very rare. But heres why Rick Bright wants the CDC to restart the sequencing of all viral strains.

Visit link:

Brazil and Russia see fresh wave of COVID cases, showing pandemic is far from over in many places - MarketWatch

BANGKOK, June 24 (Reuters) - A former soldier fired gunshots in a coronavirus field hospital in Thailand on Thursday, killing a 54-year-old patient after earlier shooting dead a convenience store employee, police said.

The suspect, 23, believed that the patients in the hospital in Pathum Thani near Bangkok were drug addicts and that he hated drug addicts, regional police chief Amphol Buarabporn told Reuters, after an initial investigation.

The field hospital was once a drug rehabilitation centre and was reorganised to treat COVID-19 patients.

Closed-circuit camera footage that circulated online showed the a man walking into a hospital in combat uniform and red beret brandishing a firearm.

Hours earlier, the suspect shot and killed a convenience store employee in Bangkok over a dispute, Amphol said.

The suspect was later arrested.

Pictures of the scene at the field hospital showed broken glass in front of an area where patients were sat in their beds.

In February last year, a soldier killed 29 people in a rare shooting spree at a Thai shopping mall while, which drew attention to treatment of junior military staff in Thailand.

Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Additional reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Martin Petty

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

More here:

Ex-soldier opens fire in Thai coronavirus field hospital, kills 1 - Reuters

Majorities across much of Western Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region have a favorable view of the European Union, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey of 17 advanced economies. But perceptions of the EUs response to the coronavirus outbreak are mixed, and while many in Europe say economic relief from the Brussels-based institution has been sufficient, substantial shares in most countries feel it has not gone far enough.

A median of 63% across the 17 publics surveyed rate the EU positively. Among the eight member states surveyed, opinions are most favorable in Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands, where at least 70% have a positive view of the EU.

These three countries also have the most positive evaluation in the region of the EUs response to the pandemic; roughly six-in-ten or more say the organization has done a good job handling the coronavirus outbreak. By comparison, a median of only 48% across all 17 publics approve of the EUs response.

This analysis focuses on public opinion of the European Union, including views of the EUs response to the coronavirus outbreak. For non-U.S. data, the report draws on nationally representative surveys of 16,254 adults from March 12 to May 26, 2021, in 16 publics. All surveys were conducted over the phone with adults in Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

In the United States, we surveyed 2,596 U.S. adults from Feb. 1 to 7, 2021. Everyone who took part in the U.S. survey is a member of the Centers American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATPs methodology.

To account for the fact that some publics refer to the coronavirus differently, in South Korea, the survey asked about the Corona19 outbreak. In Japan, the survey asked about the novel coronavirus outbreak. In Greece, the survey asked about the coronavirus pandemic. In Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Taiwan, the survey asked about the COVID-19 outbreak. All other surveys used the term the coronavirus outbreak.

Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses. See our methodology database for more information about the survey methods outside the U.S. For respondents in the U.S., see our U.S. survey methodology. Information on populist party categorization can be found here.

Although majorities in Germany, France and Belgium have a positive assessment of the EU overall, only about half or fewer think it has handled the outbreak well. Greeks are the least likely among those surveyed to view the EU favorably overall, though a majority of Greeks say the EU did well in its response to the pandemic.

The EUs economic response to the pandemic generally receives mixed reviews from the European countries polled. When thinking about the economic consequences of the coronavirus, a median of 48% say the EUs relief efforts have been about right, compared with 40% who say they have not gone far enough and just 6% who think they have gone too far. Here again, people in Sweden and the Netherlands have some of the most positive assessments of the EU, while those in Greece say the EUs economic efforts are insufficient.

Outside the EU, many express a positive opinion of the institution, while Canadians and Americans also rate the EUs response to the outbreak positively. Roughly six-in-ten Americans have a positive view of the EU and say it did a good job in response to the pandemic. But relatively few in the Asia-Pacific region approve of how the EU has handled the outbreak. Only 39% in Australia, 31% in South Korea and 21% in Taiwan think the EU did well in its response.

The sense that the EU has handled the pandemic well is related to positive assessment of the EU in every public surveyed. In France, for example, 83% of those who think the EU handled the outbreak well view the institution favorably, compared with only 38% who think the EU did a bad job dealing with the outbreak. Differences in EU favorability based on how people view its pandemic response tend to be larger in most EU countries surveyed, compared with publics in the Asia-Pacific region.

Similarly, people in the eight EU countries surveyed who rate the EUs economic response to the outbreak positively are much more likely to express a positive opinion of the organization than those who think economic relief efforts did not go far enough.

Despite more mixed ratings of the EUs coronavirus response, overall opinion of the EU has been at its highest in recent years in several countries. Favorable views of the EU in Italy and Sweden saw significant increases since last year, with two-thirds or more in each country now viewing the EU positively. Japan and South Korea also saw similar increases, with Japan going from an all-time low of 47% in 2020 to 61% this year.

On the other hand, there were also notable decreases in public approval of the EU. Belgium and Germany both saw significant decreases in approval of the EU, with Germany dropping from a high of 73% in 2020 to 63% this year. There was a similar drop in the UK, where ratings of the institution were at a historic high in 2020 after the country officially left the EU, though roughly half still have a positive opinion.

Within the publics surveyed, there are considerable divides in approval of the EU across age, education and political groups. Adults ages 18 to 29 are significantly more likely to approve of the EU than those 65 and older in 10 publics, including the UK, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. In France, for example, 80% of younger adults approve of the EU, while just 57% of older adults say the same a 23 percentage point difference.

Similar divides can be seen across education levels in 11 of the publics surveyed. Those who have a postsecondary degree are more likely to approve of the EU. In the UK, for example, 65% of those with higher levels of education are warm to the EU, compared with 46% of those with a secondary degree or less.

Ideology and party backing are often tied to assessment of the EU within the member countries surveyed. In general, supporters of right-wing populist parties are notably less supportive of the EU. This pattern can be seen in Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany. For example, while 68% of those who do not support Alternative for Germany (AfD) approve of the EU, only 41% of AfD supporters say the same. The opposite pattern can be seen among the center and left-wing populist parties in Europe, where supporters of these parties are more likely to have a positive assessment of the EU.

Ideology is related to views of the EU outside the bloc as well. People who place themselves on the left of the political spectrum are significantly more likely than those who place themselves on the right to evaluate the EU positively in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. In the U.S., Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have more positive opinions of the EU (78%) than Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (46%).

Note: Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses, and its U.S. methodology.

View post:

How 17 advanced economies view the EU and its COVID-19 response - Pew Research Center

The Indian authorities launched an investigation after an internal government report concluded that some private agencies responsible for coronavirus testing on pilgrims at a sprawling Hindu festival forged at least 100,000 results.

The festival, Kumbh Mela, which ran throughout April, is widely believed to be responsible for a coronavirus surge in many parts of India, as the pilgrims returning from the festival tested positive days after returning to their villages.

The festival drew millions of faithful to the town of Haridwar on the banks of the river Ganges in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

We have constituted a four-members committee that will submit its report in two weeks, Dr. Arjun Singh Sengar, a Haridwar health officer who was in charge of testing for Kumbh Mela, said in an interview. Initial investigations are pointing toward lapses and fake results.

Dr. Sengar said that out of 251,000 tests in his district, only 2,273 were positive.

But health experts questioned those numbers, saying the state government underreported positive cases. That suggested it was safe to take part in the pilgrimage, despite evidence that the largely unmasked crowds provided an ideal environment for the virus to spread.

According to a sprawling government report on the lab that conducted rapid antigen tests during the festival, at least 100,000 test results out of 400,000 were fake.

Despite warnings by public health experts and doctors, the regional government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modis party advertised the festival in newspapers, inviting pilgrims from across the country.

Before the event, Uttarakhands top elected official, Tirath Singh Rawat, mingled with huge crowds of pilgrims, without a mask. When questioned during one of his three visits to the holy site, Mr. Rawat said, Faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus.

He tested positive for the coronavirus two days after his last visit to the Ganges.

Officials in Uttarakhand began investigating the test results after a man in the neighboring state of Punjab received a negative test from the health department in Uttarakhand, even though he had not visited the state. He filed a complaint with the Indian Council of Medical Research, a top government body.

Officials alerted the state government, which is now leading the investigation and has stopped payments to dozens of private laboratories and agencies involved in testing.

Testing scams have been a persistent problem in India.

Some, according to a report by the state, have simply filled log books with fake names and addresses, then charged the state government for the service.

In Haridwar, the report found that some sample collectors listed for the festival had never even visited the town.

The authorities said they found phone numbers used multiple times to register pilgrims who were tested, and private agencies carrying out the tests wrote fictional addresses for people who were supposedly tested on their arrival for a dip in the holy waters.

When officials called the numbers in the logs, they found they were false.

View original post here:

Fake Coronavirus Tests May Have Helped Fuel India Outbreaks - The New York Times

A standard device in detective stories is a map on which certain buildings are circled. Their locations are thought to be revealing, though often they just create a false trail. When four of the first cases of a strange, pneumonia-like illness seen in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019, were found to have a connection to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, it seemed a key to solving the mystery of the illnesss origin. Live animals were reportedly on sale there, offering a route for pathogens to jump from wild species to humans. But then other cases, some of them earlier, were identified, with no known connection to the market. In due course, more sites were circled on the pandemic map. One was the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which contains a Biosafety Level 4 lab. The institutes work included experiments on the bat coronaviruses that are among the closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.

The market and the institute have at times served as shorthand for two broad sets of possible answers about the origin of the virus: that it was zoonotic, meaning that it travelled directly from animals, or that it was transmitted by an accidental lab leak, from a place such as the Wuhan Institute. On May 26th, President Joe Biden, in a statement, described U.S. intelligence agencies as being uncertain about which scenario is more likely, with a majority of them believing that firm evidence for either is lacking. Biden asked them to redouble their efforts and come back with a better answer in ninety days.

The debate has become, to an unfortunate degree, loud, contentious, and infused with politics. Former President Donald Trump has insinuated that the Chinese government intentionally spread the virus as part of a plan to have it take hold in this country and destroy our economy. Republican members of Congress have turned a recently disclosed e-mail mentioning a possible lab source, which Anthony Fauci received in February, 2020, into yet another argument for firing him, apparently because he didnt instantly condemn Beijing. Earlier this month, Fauci told the Financial Times that he still thinks its most likely that the coronavirus jumped species, but that we need to keep on investigating until a possibility is proven.

The Chinese government has not helped by failing, at almost every stage, to respond transparently to questions or to share information. Beijings decision, earlier this year, to seriously constrain the work of an investigation sponsored by the World Health Organization meant that the resulting report, which perfunctorily dismissed the lab-leak theory, was not seen as credible. (The director-general of the W.H.O. pointedly told member states, All hypotheses remain on the table.) There is some concern that exploring the theory will further incite xenophobiawith China being blamed for every consequence of a pandemic that the United States also failed to control. Yet Chinese citizens have consistently pushed back against censorship, often at personal risk. According to official figures, COVID-19 has killed almost four million people; a study by The Economist concludes that the true number may be close to thirteen million. Partisanship, in whatever form, cant be the guide here.

From the beginning, it made sense that SARS-CoV-2 would have a zoonotic origin, because that is how other novel pathogens, such as the viruses causing Ebola, SARS, and MERS, have emerged. The genome of SARS-CoV-2 implies that it is descended from a coronavirus that infected a horseshoe bat, but when it was identified in Wuhan it had already adapted very well to infect humans. This may suggest that it spent time either in another animalSARS and MERS are believed to have moved from bats to civets and camels, respectively, before reaching humansor in people elsewhere. An intermediate population hasnt been identified, but there are a lot of places to look: even if Huanan Seafood is not the source, there are more than a dozen markets selling live animals in the city. Wuhan is a metropolis of eleven million inhabitants, and it is crisscrossed by travellers, with an international airport and an expansive subway system. Its worth noting that the natural zoonotic path for novel pathogens often relies on some distinctly unnatural disruption, such as climate change, poaching, or urban sprawl, to spur encounters between species.

Meanwhile, lab leak has come to describe at least two related theories. The first starts with the observation that the Wuhan Institute has worked with bat coronaviruses; its researchers have collected samples from sites hundreds of miles away, including a disused mine where, in 2012, six workers fell ill with sars-like symptoms. All that activity involved a great deal of interaction between researchers, locals, and many bats, and in that context its conceivable that a novel virus could emerge, or be transmitted, or be collected and then accidentally mishandled. This might be better called the lab nexus theory, because it envisions the lab as a crossroads for people and viruses. According to information from a U.S. intelligence report published by the Wall Street Journal, three workers at the institute became sick in November, 2019, with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and seasonal illnesses, and sought hospital care. Fauci has said that hed like to see their medical records.

The scientific work itselfsome of which benefitted from National Institutes of Health fundingforms the basis for what might be called the lab-experiment leak theory. The Wuhan Institute is one of a number of labs around the world, including in Europe and the United States, that have engaged in gain of function studies. This means that viruses are in some way engineered, in many cases to make them more infectious or more virulent. The ideaand there is disagreement about whether it is a good oneis that doing so will better prepare scientists to fight future viruses. But, in the short run, additional novel pathogens are in close proximity to humans; the provocative question is whether SARS-CoV-2 was one of them. Scientists who have examined its genome are divided about whether it shows signs of engineering, specifically in an area known as the furin cleavage site, and about whether such signs would even be discernible. A leading scientist at the Wuhan Institute, Shi Zhengli, known as the Bat Woman, has said that she is confident that the virus was not one worked on in her lab.

There are wilder theories, too, involving intimations of biowarfare plots. But, although the lab-leak scenario figures in many conspiracy theories, it is not itself a conspiracy theory; the consensus is that it is unproved, but plausible. That possibility alone should prompt serious reflection on the practices in virological labs. Yet what is striking is that none of the theories are reassuring. Each implicates something about how we, collectively, live on the planet. And each suggests that many things need to change.

Read more:

The Battle Over the Coronavirus Lab-Leak Theory - The New Yorker

Memorials hang from the front gate of Greenwood Cemetery in New York City during an event organized by Naming the Lost Memorials to remember and celebrate those who died during the COVID-19 pandemic. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption

Memorials hang from the front gate of Greenwood Cemetery in New York City during an event organized by Naming the Lost Memorials to remember and celebrate those who died during the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 15 months since the first confirmed death due to COVID-19 in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic has claimed more than 600,000 lives across the country.

But that trend has slowed from thousands to hundreds per day in recent weeks, thanks largely to the ready availability of vaccines.

Over the winter, the nation was adding about 100,000 deaths each month. But as more and more people were vaccinated particularly older Americans the death rate fell precipitously. There are now about 375 deaths per day on average down from more than 3,000 per day in January.

Worldwide, the U.S. still is reporting the greatest total deaths, followed by Brazil, India and Mexico. The total global death toll stands at 3.8 million.

The U.S. death toll, according to Johns Hopkins University, stood at 600,012 on Tuesday afternoon.

Even so, the cumulative number of deaths in the country clearly shows the recent positive impact of vaccines: Barely a month passed between 400,000 and a half-million deaths, but it has taken nearly four times as long to reach the 600,000 mark. At the same time, the trend in the number of new infections, which has closely mirrored deaths, reached a peak in January of more than 300,000 in a single day. Now the U.S. is hovering around an average of fewer than 15,000 confirmed infections, according to Johns Hopkins.

The positive trends have led many states to lift their coronavirus restrictions with some dropping mask mandates altogether for vaccinated individuals and eliminating other social distancing requirements.

At the same time, however, many Americans have shown a reluctance to get vaccinated, with just over half of U.S. adults fully immunized. In parts of the Midwest and South, in particular, vaccine rates per 100,000 people still remain relatively low compared with the Northeast and parts of the West Coast, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The divide has been particularly marked between rural and urban areas of the country.

Tuesday's figures follow a study this week showing that a new vaccine, one made by Novavax, is 100% effective against the original strain of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and 93% effective against other variants.

The next step is for the company to seek regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which has issued emergency authorizations for three other vaccines ones made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

More:

COVID Deaths Top 600,000 In The US : Coronavirus Updates - NPR

The Twitter account @FacesofCOVID, says creator Alex Goldstein, helps people mourn. And as long as COVID-19 persists, he plans on running the account. Michele Abercrombie/NPR hide caption

The Twitter account @FacesofCOVID, says creator Alex Goldstein, helps people mourn. And as long as COVID-19 persists, he plans on running the account.

Alex Goldstein started the Twitter account @FacesofCOVID in March of 2020 to help him make sense of grief.

The account has been his way to honor some of the nearly 600,000 people who have died in the U.S.

Even back in March 2020, Goldstein knew something was wrong. The communications specialist's home city of Boston was hit early and harshly from virus. As the death toll climbed and businesses shut down, he started to feel overwhelmed. How could a virus kill so many and yet he knew so few of its victims? Who were the people who had passed away from COVID, and what were their stories?

He created FacesofCOVID to learn those answers. He has posted over 5,000 virtual obituaries from newspapers and families of those who have died.

"I think that the story at the beginning of the pandemic was largely a data story. We were getting thrown all these numbers thrown at us hospitalizations and cases and deaths," Goldstein tells Morning Edition. "I found it really hard to process and I felt like, we were missing the human element of that story."

One of the things that made this pandemic especially difficult was the lack of mourning rituals. Families saw their loved ones one last time from iPads in isolation wards. Many funeral homes did not let more than 10 mourners at a time attend a service due to regulations. In a time of immense grief, people couldn't mourn in familiar ways.

"It's a place where they can share their loved one's story and see people from all over the country and all over the world saying, 'Your loved one meant something, and even if I didn't know them, we are all less because they're not here anymore, and we all share in your sadness,' " Goldstein says.

As long as COVID-19 continues to exist and take lives, Goldstein plans on running the account.

"I don't want us to immediately lose sight just because things are reopening," he says. "There's a lot of pain out there, and if FacesofCOVID can help people slow down a little bit on their impulse to change the channel, I think that can be a good thing."

Tori Dominguez is an intern at Morning Edition.

View original post here:

Faces Of COVID Honors Victims By Telling Their Stories : Coronavirus Updates - NPR

Novavax says its vaccine is 100% effective against the original strain of the coronavirus and had 93% efficacy against more worrisome variants. Alastair Grant/AP hide caption

Novavax says its vaccine is 100% effective against the original strain of the coronavirus and had 93% efficacy against more worrisome variants.

The first results from a large efficacy study of a new kind of COVID-19 vaccine are now out, and they are good. Very good.

According to Novavax, the vaccine's manufacturer, it had a 100% efficacy against the original strain of the coronavirus and 93% efficacy against more worrisome variants that have subsequently appeared.

In addition to efficacy, the PREVENT-19 (the PRE-fusion protein subunit Vaccine Efficacy Novavax Trial COVID-19) trial showed the Novavax vaccine was safe for users. Like other COVID-19 vaccines, it caused headaches, chills and muscle aches after injection, but few of these side effects were considered serious or severe.

The study involved 29,960 volunteers in the United States and Mexico. In the study, two-thirds of the volunteers received two shots of the vaccine and one-third received two shots of a placebo.

A total of 77 cases of COVID-19 occurred during the study: 63 in the placebo group and 14 in the vaccine group. According to the Novavax statement describing the results, none of the cases of COVID-19 in the vaccine group were related to the original strain of the virus, hence the 100% efficacy against the original strain.

The breakthrough cases were all caused by the newer, more worrisome variants, and all of the breakthroughs in the vaccine group were mild. By contrast, 10 in the placebo group were considered moderate and four severe. Novavax's statement did not specify which variants in particular were prevented.

The company says it intends to file for authorization from regulators in the U.S., Europe and the United Kingdom later this summer. Novavax says it will be able to deliver 100 million doses per month by the end of September and 150 million doses per month by the end of the year.

The Novavax vaccine is what's known as a protein subunit vaccine. All COVID-19 vaccines are based on something called the coronavirus spike protein. That's the protein that prompts the immune system to make antibodies to the virus.

The vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech deliver the genetic instructions for the spike protein in the form of messenger-RNA, and the cells of the person receiving the vaccine make the spike protein. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine delivers those instructions using a viral vector, again relying on the vaccine recipient's cells to make the protein.

Novavax, on the other hand, makes the protein in cell cultures grown in giant bioreactors in manufacturing facilities and delivers the fully formed vaccine along with a substance for priming the immune system in its vaccine.

The Novavax vaccine was one of the vaccines chosen for development as part of Operation Warp Speed. The U.S. government is providing $1.75 billion to the company to support the vaccine's development.

It's not clear at this point whether the Food and Drug Administration is prepared to continue to grant emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines. The FDA may require Novavax to go through the standard licensure process, which can take considerably longer than an EUA.

Read more:

Novavax Says Its COVID Vaccine Is Extremely Effective - NPR