Category Archives: Covid-19

BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) CEO Uur ahin thinks that new COVID-19 vaccines could be needed by the middle of 2022.In this Motley Fool Live video recorded on Oct. 6, Motley Fool contributors Keith Speights and Brian Orelli discuss ahin's reasoning and how vaccine stocks could be affected if he's right.

Keith Speights: Speaking of BioNTech, the company's CEO, Uur ahin, told The Financial Times earlier this week that a new COVID-19 vaccine could be needed by the middle of next year. What was his reasoning behind this prediction, and if he's right, how would this potentially shake up vaccine stocks?

Brian Orelli: The theory is that mutations in the virus will develop that allow it to escape the immune system's reaction to the vaccines. I'm not really sure I buy this argument.

The coronavirus isn't the next influenza virus because they change in a different way. Coronavirus mutates primarily through point mutation. While it's copying its DNA or RNA, it creates some mutations. Some are negative and that molecule ends up not being viable. Some don't matter at all, and some end up being positive and that's how we end up getting variants. But their changes are one at a time.

The reason why we need to have influenza vaccines every year is because the influenza virus changes by recombining with other influenza viruses. Someone gets infected with two different influenza viruses and then they recombine to make a new virus. That's the reason why the influenza virus is constantly changing and the reason why we have to constantly get it a new booster vaccine every year.

If the coronavirus vaccines create good enough memory B cells, maybe a three-dose regimen, so two and a booster are able to protect us against the slow mutation rates and we're creating antibodies from those vaccines that don't just bind to one spot on the virus, they bind to a whole bunch of different spots in the virus. One mutation on one part of the virus isn't necessarily going to escape the immune system.

In theory, maybe you get enough mutations and maybe there's one that escapes. But for the most part, I think as long as people are getting vaccinated, I don't think this is going to be a major problem and I'm not 100% convinced that we're going to need annual boosters and we're going to need to change the vaccine every year to keep up with the virus.

That said, if he's right and I'm wrong, then the impact on the vaccine stocks is obviously going to be pretty large. If they can sell, let's say 10 billion in annual sales, and I think Moderna's (NASDAQ:MRNA) looking at 20 billion right now so if they can cut that in half, I think that can justify the current market caps, especially BioNTech, which is around 60 billion and maybe even getting into Moderna's, which is more double than that. But obviously, they have a larger percentage of the vaccine that they're taking home and profits.

Speights: Any time I hear a prediction from a CEO of one of these companies, in this case BioNTech, but it could've been Pfizer's or Moderna's CEO as well, two things go through my mind. One, when they make a prediction, they're the CEO of a company, and they want that company's revenue to go up. It's usually going to be that prediction is in favor of what will benefit the company.

But the second thing that does come to my mind is, admittedly, these individuals have more access to some data that the public doesn't have yet and maybe they can have some things that we don't know yet. But there are two conflicting things going on here when you see a prediction like this.

Orelli: In theory, maybe he knows something that we don't but I agree with you. I think that you have to balance that with the fact that he obviously wants to sell more vaccine because that's the way their company is making money right now.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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Will New COVID-19 Vaccines Be Needed in 2022? - The Motley Fool

The University of Oregon isseeingan increase in COVID-19 cases in students and staff since classes returned for fall term.

Casenumbers first started going up again two weeks before the start of term, during the week of Sept. 13when the UO saw 17 new cases, according to its case tracking dashboard. The following week, there were 28 new cases.

The first week of schoolsaw a major jump to 46new cases. Last week, the week of Oct. 4, cases jumped to57.

The vast majority of these cases are in off-campus students, followed by on-campus students and employees. In the first two weeks of classes, nearly 76% of thecases were identified in students living off campus.

Theweek of Sept. 27, when classes started, 37 cases were identified in students living off campus.There were six cases of on-campus student cases and three cases in employees.

The majority of off-campus cases continuedto grow the week of Oct. 4, with 41 cases. Fourteen students living on campus and two employees also tested positive that week.

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The dashboard is updated with weekly data every Monday, the website states.

The UO is requiring all employees and students to be vaccinated to participate in in-person classes, with few exemptions. Out of21,775 students, 96.3% are vaccinated. Of the5,205 employees, 95.3% are vaccinated, according to the UO's dashboard.

Those who are unvaccinatedand live in the residence halls must submit to weekly COVID-19 testing.

In contrast, Lane County as a whole is seeing a steady decline in cases after experiencing its worst surge of cases since the start of the pandemic. It peaked Aug. 15 with a seven-day average of 267 casesand has been decreasing since.

Lane County Public Health reported three deaths and 80 confirmed or presumptive cases of COVID-19 on Friday, raising the death toll to 293 and the countywide case count to 27,003.

There were519 people considered infectious, a 5% decline from Thursday's 549.

There were 51 hospitalized inLane County on Thursday, a 18% decrease over Thursday's62, with 15in intensive care and eight on ventilators.

Contact reporter Jordyn Brown at jbrown@registerguard.com or 541-246-4264, and follow her on Twitter @thejordynbrown and Instagram @registerguard.Support local journalism,subscribe to The Register-Guard.

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University of Oregon sees rise in COVID-19 cases with fall term start - The Register-Guard

Sarah Ostrowski was convinced to finally get vaccinated after reading numerous stories on Reddit's r/HermanCainAward of unvaccinated people dying from Covid-19.

Courtesy of Sarah Ostrowski

For most of the pandemic, Sarah Ostrowski went to her full-time gas station job in Indiana, accepting the risk of being unvaccinated. Many times a day she interacted with customers and even cleaned up the public bathroom with no protection beyond her mask.

Ostrowski doesn't believe Covid-19 is a hoax. She takes it seriously. But she had reasons for not getting the shot.

She was concerned about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine causing blood clots, as had been reported in a few recipients. She was hesitant about the mRNA technology used to develop the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. She also worried about potential side effects forcing her to take time off work.

And then there were her parents, who were constantly spouting anti-vaccine rhetoric, warning her that she would die if she got the shot.

"You care about what your parents think of you and whether or not they think that you're making a good decision or the right decision," Ostrowski said. "It's almost like a groupthink kind of thing. Even though you know the answer is wrong you're still going to say it just to fit in or conform."

That all changed last month. Ostrowski, who regularly scrolls through her feed on social media site Reddit, stumbled upon the forum r/HermanCainAward. It's a grim section of the app dedicated to showing visitors the real-life consequences of being unvaccinated and catching the coronavirus.

Reddit users upload screenshots multiple times a day of people who previously posted anti-vaccine comments and content on Facebook only to end up getting sick with Covid-19 before dying. The name of the subreddit refers to former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who died from Covid-19 in July 2020, after refusing to wear a mask and attending a Donald Trump re-election campaign event.

"Nominees have made public declaration of their anti-mask, anti-vax, or Covid-hoax views, followed by admission to hospital for Covid," the page description reads. "The Award is granted upon the nominee's release from their Earthly shackles."

Since the subreddit's creation in September 2020, it's expanded to more than 375,000 members, with the top posts garnering thousands of user interactions.The forum has been the 10th fastest-growing subreddit over the past 30 days, according toFrontPageMetrics.com, which tracks Reddit usage.

An entry this week included a screenshot of an Aug. 12 post from a man who put a meme out to his followers: "I heard the government is putting chips inside of people. I hope I get Doritos."

A friend of the man later wrote on his feed that he was asking for prayers because the man and his wife had both been hospitalized with Covid-19. The wife had to have an emergency C-section to deliver their baby over 10 weeks early.

A following post came from the man's wife: "The world lost an amazing daddy, husband, brother, son, and friend today. My heart is in a million pieces."

Ostrowki said she'd eventually seen enough. On Sept. 12, she got her first shot.

"If dad thinks I'm an idiot because I fell for the government and I'm a sheep, so be it," Ostrowski said. "I clean a public restroom for Christ's sake. I deal with some really gross stuff. So no, I was done playing."

During the pandemic, social media sites turned into a haven for misinformation and conspiracy theories, whether related to masks, the vaccines or advice from public health experts. Facebook, in particular, has struggled to weed out false content, with users sharing misinformation even in the comments section of posts from authoritative sources, according to internal company documents reviewed last month by the Wall Street Journal.

With multiple vaccines having been available for months for anyone 12 or older, vaccine resistance has become the central challenge to ending Covid-19. President Joe Biden said as recently as last month, "This is a continuing pandemic of the unvaccinated."

Only 57% of the country has been vaccinated, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 22% of Americans self-identify as anti-vaxxers, according toan academic study published in May. Experts, including White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, have said the U.S. will need as much as 90% of the population to get vaccinated in order to reach herd immunity.

US President Joe Biden speaks to reporters on the South Lawn upon return to the White House in Washington, DC on October 5, 2021.

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

Since hitting the U.S. in March 2020, over 722,000 American have died from Covid-19. Ostrowski said the harrowing stories of death among the unvaccinated have had a major impact on her.

"It really hits home when you literally see yourself in these people," she said.

Reddit still has plenty of anti-vaccine content across its site, which reaches over 50 million daily active users. As it gears up to go public, Reddit recently took steps to remove several subreddits that were being used to share misinformation. But numerous subreddits are still surfacing such content with names like r/Conservative, r/Ivermectin and r/FauciForPrison.

A Reddit spokesperson said the company has policies in place to remove inaccurate posts on Covid-19 vaccines.

"Our Content Policy prohibits many kinds of harmful content, including health-related disinformation and other forms of manipulated content," the Reddit spokesperson said in a statement. "We have experienced teams dedicated to detecting and actioning content that violates our policies. As a result of these teams' efforts, we remove 99% of violating content before a user sees it."

Chana Joly visits r/HermanCainAward with regularity. She said she does it for her dad.

Despite losing her brother to Covid-19 in January, Joly's dad has refused to get vaccinated. She said he's been radicalized in the past few years by misinformation and anti-vaccine conspiracies.

"I think it's especially sad with my dad because he is an educated person," Joly said. "He's not unintelligent. He just believes people he shouldn't."

Joly scrolls through the Reddit forum to gather stories that she can send her dad. When he gets defensive and disputes the posts she shares, she tells him to prove her wrong.

"You find me these stories on social media," Joly said, describing what she tells her dad. "These people dying in their own words from the vaccine. Find me these stories and you show me as many of those as I'm showing you of these. Or even a tenth of them."

Reddit user Chana Joly visit r/HermanCainAward to gather stories of real anti-vaxx people who die from Covid-19 that she can send to her dad, who has yet to get vaccinated.

Courtesy of Chana Joly

Reddit user Rockets9495 of Houston is a medical doctor who works in an emergency room. He uses r/HermanCainAward for anecdotes that he can share with nurses, technicians and patients who may be on the fence.

He agreed to speak with CNBC but didn't want to disclose his name publicly to maintain his privacy. He showed CNBC his hospital badge.

"Misinformation is so goddamn dangerous, especially after this last president," the doctor said. "This is not a game. This is not a joke. You don't live in a Tom Clancy novel. This is real."

He said that scientific evidence hasn't been effective for him in trying to convince people about the safety of the vaccines.

"But this seemingly weaker evidence word of mouth, anecdotal 'All these people are dying' seems to hit people way harder," the doctor said.

The subreddit also includes some stories with happy endings. Those posts get labeled IPAs, or Immunized to Prevent Awards, and are given to users who show pictures of their vaccine immunization cards on the channel as proof that they got their shots.

A Reddit user with the handle lovelylady227 achieved the label.

"This subreddit was what fully convinced me, after waffling back and forth," she wrote on Sept. 22, adding that she's "officially out of the running" for the award that gave the channel its name.

Her post got tagged with the IPA label and received more than 7,000 upvotes and 380 comments. She posted her immunization card on Reddit after getting her second dose.

Lovelylady227 is a woman named Hannah. She asked to have only her first name published because she hasn't told her anti-vaccine family members about her decision.

Hannah received her first dose of Moderna's vaccine in August, but became fearful of getting the second shot after hearing her parents and her sister, who works in health care, discuss their concerns about the vaccines. Her family members would show anti-vaccine content on their phones to one another, and they believe that people who are vaccinated are shedding the virus.

Hannah went to Reddit in search of information. She started at r/CovidVaccine. There she found numerous posts from people complaining about the side effects they'd experienced after getting their second shots. Some described trembling, and others said they'd suffered heart attacks.

"It just really freaked me out," she said.

Hannah's continued browsing on Reddit eventually brought her to r/HermanCainAward. What she found struck a nerve.

She read stories that start with people mocking the vaccine and end with their spouse asking friends to contribute to a GoFundMe page because of the hospital bills or the funeral expenses.

"You don't really realize how bad it is to be in the hospital with Covid until you see these people who are somehow giving you a play-by-play," Hannah said. "When you get those first-hand experiences from a Facebook profile, and you see the people experiencing regret, it's just like, 'Oh man, I really need to take this seriously. I can't put it off anymore.'"

Hannah said she's hoping to wait until three months after her vaccine before casually bringing it up with her family. At that point, she can show them that no harm has been done.

"The fact that they won't have noticed anything different is one of my main hopes," she said.

In the meantime, she's grateful for the positive reaction she received on Reddit after posting her vaccination card.

"I know you don't need other people to tell you you did the right thing, but it sure helps when there's a bunch of people saying, 'Hey, good job,'" she said. "Because it's not coming from my family, that's for sure."

Ostrowski, the gas station manager, also received an Immunized to Prevent Award for posting her vaccine card.

"Late to the party but finally fully vaxxed," she wrote on Oct. 4. The post received more than 2,000 upvotes and more than 100 comments.

She said she's hoping to encourage more people to acknowledge they were wrong and that they can still change directions.

"I finally came around and made the right decision," she said.

WATCH: Facebook whistleblower slams company in '60 minutes' interview

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Reddit channel posts stories of anti-vaxxers dying of Covid, scaring fence-sitters into getting the shot - CNBC

The Daily Item

Pennsylvania Health Department officials recorded zero COVID-19-related deaths for the second consecutive Saturday, but added 4,485 new infections, pushing the states October total to 76,669.

The deaths report ended a string of four consecutive days with 80 or more. Last week, the state reported no new deaths on Saturday, Sunday or Monday, but despite that the last seven-day period still included almost 100 more deaths 511 compared to 419 than the previous week, according to Health Department data.

There have been 1,018 COVID-19-related deaths in the first 16 days of October. There were 1,165 in all of September and 670 in all of October 2020.

The new infection total ends a streak of three consecutive days with 5,000 or more infections. There were 83 new cases in the Valley, including 52 in Northumberland County, the fourth consecutive day with 50 or more in the county. There were also 13 more in Montour County, the fourth consecutive day with 13 or more. Union County added 12 cases and Snyder added six.

All 67 counties in Pennsylvania are reporting high levels of community transmission of COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which means they are all seeing at least 100 new cases per 100,000 residents over the previous seven days. Nationwide, 87.7 percent of counties have high transmission rates, down .8 percent from Friday.

According to state data, more than 13.2 million COVID vaccine doses have been administered in Pennsylvania and 70.1 percent of residents 18 and older are fully vaccinated, including 88,346 in the Valley. The state did not update its vaccination statistics on Saturday.

Bucknell University had a dozen active cases on campus, including seven staffers and five students. Susquehanna University reported nine active cases, six staffers and three students. Both schools updated their data on Friday.

As of noon Saturday, there were 2,978 patients in Pennsylvania hospitals with COVID-19 symptoms, up 32, ending a streak of two consecutive days of decreases.

Of those hospitalized, 682 were being treated in intensive care units (ICUs), down five, and 389 were being treated on ventilators, down five.

According to data provided by the state, there were 95 patients undergoing treatment in Valley medical facilities for COVID-19 on Saturday. There were 19 patients in intensive care units at Geisinger in Danville up one from Friday eight at Evangelical Community Hospital near Lewisburg up two for the second day in a row and none at Geisinger-Shamokin.

Geisingers Danville location was also treating five on ventilators, three fewer than the day before. Evangelical was treating one patient on a ventilator.

At Geisingers main campus in Danville, there were 51 COVID-19 positive patients, two fewer than reported on Friday. There were 36 patients at Evangelical and eight at Geisinger-Shamokin.

There were eight active staff cases at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Coal Township as of Saturday. There were 98 staff cases statewide, down six. There were 78 active inmate cases statewide an increase of 40 but none at Coal Township.

There were seven active cases at federal prisons in Union County, including three inmate cases at the low-security unit in Allenwood and one staff case at the medium-security prison, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. At the U.S. Penitentiary (USP) in Allenwood, there were three cases, two staffers and one inmate. There were no cases at USP Lewisburg.

The state Department of Human Services (DHS) was still reporting 13 active cases among staffers at the Selinsgrove Center on Saturday. There were less than five cases among persons receiving services. The DHS does not specify numbers when they are fewer than five to avoid identifying patients.

There were six staff cases and less than five client cases at Danville State Hospital for the fifth consecutive day on Saturday.

There were less than five youth cases at the North Central Secure Treatment Unit (NCSTU) for girls on Saturday. There were no staff cases in the unit and no cases in the NCSTU boys unit.

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State records 4,485 new COVID-19 infections; 83 in Valley - Sunbury Daily Item

BATON ROUGE - Game day in Death Valley is back in full force, and fans are excited to be back in Tiger Stadium without the strict safety measures for COVID-19.

"It feels like before COVID ever was a thing," Tiger fan Jared Lafleur said.

It is the first game where people will not have to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test.

"Last year was definitely a lot worse. This year's been better, but I think it'll be even better with absolutely no restrictions," LSU student Grace Matthews said.

The past 18 months have been tough for many students like Matthews and Kayleith Montana.

"It's been hard. Especially for people who had to send in their negative COVID-19 tests or vaccinations, and then they can't go to the game," Montana said.

But, the promise of normalcy for LSU's gameday is looking bright.

"It was really hard, but now that restrictions are lifted, it's really nice," Montana said.

LSU officials told WBRZ that a decrease in cases allowed for the change in protocols.

Fans still have to wear masks in the indoor parts of the stadium.

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Fans excited to celebrate game day in Tiger Stadium without COVID-19 protocols - WBRZ

The state now has a seven day positivity rate of 7.6% on Sunday. The total of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic is now 692,889.

There have also been 148,307 probable antigen test results being positive.

DHSS has recorded a total of 11,835 deaths.

The state dashboard says new cases are down by 12.2% over the past seven days. The positivity rate dropped by 0.2% in that same time, while tests are down 10.2%.

In the state's healthcare system, 1,228 people are dealing with COVID-19 infections. Of those, 328 are in the ICU and 203 are on ventilators.

Sunday numbers show that54.6% of Missouri residents have gotten at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine. For Missourians 18 and older that number is at 66.2% and 41.6% for those ages 12 to 17.

In total, 6,340,449 of the vaccine have been put into the arms of residents in the Show-Me State. In the past 7 days, the average daily doses given was 11,558.

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SUNDAY UPDATES: Over 1,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19 infections - ABC17News.com

Illustration: Elena Scotti (Photos: Shutterstock)

I sometimes think back to a phone call with a friend in the spring of 2020. Cases were down and pundits were optimistic: it seemed genuinely possible that, by mid-summer, all this would finally be over. These last two months, I said to my friendwill they seem, from summers vantage, like a weird dream? When, three months hence, the bars were thronged and the mask factories wound down, what would we do with the memory of spring? To which my friend said something like: who knows, hard to say. And then we talked about something else. And then the pandemic continued for another eighteen months. And now here we are, and its still the pandemic, and while things are infinitely better than they were a year ago, the fact is that were still wearing masks on the subway. So: when, exactly, can we definitely claim tove licked this thing? What metrics, what facts on the ground, will determine when we can fully return to normal? For this weeks Giz Asks, we reached out to a number of experts to find out.

Associate Professor, Epidemiology, University of Michigan

The uncertainty is really too large to put any kind of specific date on it, although its pretty clear that we still have a long way to go. In terms of how it endsas much as I would love to see us reach COVID zero, at this point I would expect were headed toward endemic, probably seasonal transmission, where most people have been vaccinated or have some degree of immunity due to previous infection and so infections tend to be less severe. This makes sticking with prevention strategies like masking and getting vaccinated (and expanding global vaccine access!) so important to reducing transmission and strain on healthcare systems, to minimize the toll of deaths and severe outcomes incurred on the way to Covid-19 becoming endemic.

When it comes to criteria, Id expect the pandemic to be thought of as over when cases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to Covid-19 are consistently down to relatively low, manageable levels. In terms of numbers, it will probably vary from country to country, but one might see something similar to what we would normally see from flu, which causes an estimated 12,000-61,000 deaths per year in the US (compared to the 375,000 deaths caused by COVID-19 in the US in 2020, and around 295,000 more so far in 2021).

Its important to underscore that different places will probably reach the end of the pandemic at different times (based on vaccine access/uptake, social distancing and other mitigation measures, etc.), and that even when the pandemic is over, we will still have to grapple with many of its longer term effectswhether thats Long Covid, mental health impacts, issues of misinformation and mistrust, or economic aftereffects.

Emergency Physician and Public Health Professor at George Washington University, and the author of Lifelines: A Doctors Journey in the Fight for Public Health

I dont think we, as a society, have defined what it would mean for the pandemic to be over. Will it be over when there are no more cases of Covid-19? Will it be over when the levels of hospitalization are such that we no longer worry about overwhelming our healthcare system? Will it be over when the number of deaths falls below a certain number? Regardless, I think most people would agree that we are nowhere near the threshold below which Covid-19, the worst public health crisis of our lifetimes, is no longer an urgent concern. I dont think were going to attain that level of stability any time soon. Certainly, its not going to happen while young children are still ineligible for the vaccine; nor while, around the world there are many, including the most vulnerable among us, who do not have access to the vaccine. At some point, we will have to reach a new understanding of what it might mean for this pandemic to reach a steady state, where its no longer top of mind in every one of our decisions. But were nowhere near that point now.

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Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security whose expertise is in infectious diseases, critical care (ICU) and emergency medicine

That pandemic will be over in a global sense when most nations of the world are able to treat Covid-19 like other respiratory viruses they deal with year in and year out. SARS-CoV2 is an efficiently spreading respiratory virus with a wide spectrum of symptoms that circulates in an animal hostit cannot be eliminated or eradicated. The goal is to remove its ability to cause widespread levels of severe disease, hospitalization, and death. This is best achieved by vaccinating those at highest risk for complications so cases are decoupled from hospitalizations but there will always be a baseline level of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations. Natural immunity post-infection also plays a significant role as well but is not the optimal way to tame the virus. The pandemic will eventually transition to a state of endemicity and the post-pandemic world will be one in which Covid-19 still exists but in a much more manageable setting.

Professor and Chair of Epidemiology at UC Berkeley

The honest answer is that no one can know for certain, partly because of the unknown future regarding variants that can escape vaccine-induced protection, and partly because it remains unclear when we will get a higher proportion of the worlds population vaccinated. But the future is most likely one in which SARS-CoV-2 regularly circulates in the human population and becomes more of an endemic infection/disease, with perhaps a seasonal pattern a la influenza. I think that scenario wont be with us for at least another 12-18 months.

Dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at George Washington University

The job of producing enough vaccine, and getting it into everybodys arms, while outpacing the virus ability to mutateits not a quick one. I think it will be at least a year until the pandemic ends, and thats being extremely optimistic. The inequities involved in vaccine production, and the degree of resistance were seeing to vaccination, means it could be a couple of years before this actually concludes.

Its humbling. In the first place, our knowledge of coronaviruses simply wasnt as good as it should have been. We did not predict how rapidly this could mutate. Meanwhile, our knowledge of human behavior was, as were learning, imperfect. We did not foresee the levels of miscommunication wed be faced with, nor the lack of scientific literacy. People know that some of the vaccines use mRNA but if you dont know enough about genetics or the science involved that can just end up being scary rather than reassuring. People start going off onto tangentswell, what does that do to you?without understanding how genetics work. Its understandable to me that people have those concerns or fears, but this is leading to a tremendous amount of vaccine hesitancy. That is too bad because the science tells us that mRNA doesnt alter the bodys DNA in any way.

Then of course theres the problem with developing a vaccine for children, which has turned out to be more daunting than I, as a pediatrician, ever thought it could be. The virus is still circulating among kids, and thats keeping this pandemic alive, because as long as kids are circulating the virus, were going to see more breakthrough infections in the adults around them.

Well know this pandemic is over when were no longer observing excessive rates of death due to Covid on a daily basisin the whole world, not just the US. The one thing we know is that this pandemic will not be over as long as Covid is circulating somewhere in the world. That doesnt mean we have to eliminate every case. What we might end up with is a situation wherethrough immunity of the population, or mutation, or (more likely) boththe virus ends up being more like the cold or the annual influenza, where we certainly have to pay attention to it, perhaps as a seasonal transmission every winter, and have to vaccinate people every year, but we no longer have these very high rates of mortality.

Do you have a question for Giz Asks? Email us at tipbox@gizmodo.com.

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When Will the Covid-19 Pandemic Be Over? - Gizmodo

Customers visiting Westfield Warringah Mall as non-critical retail reopened on October 11, 2021 in Sydney, Australia.

James D. Morgan | Getty Images

Sydney's cafes, gyms and restaurants welcomed back fully vaccinated customers on Monday after nearly four months of lockdown, asAustraliaaims to begin living with the coronavirus and gradually reopen the country.

Some pubs in Sydney,Australia's largest city, opened at 12:01 a.m. (1301 GMT) and friends and families huddled together for a midnight beer, television footage and social media images showed.

"I see it as a day of freedom, it's a freedom day," New South Wales (NSW) state Premier Dominic Perrottet told reporters in Sydney, the state capital. "We are leading the nation out of this pandemic but this will be a challenge."

Perrottet warned that infections would rise after reopening, and virus-free states such as WesternAustraliaand Queensland are watching what living with Covid-19 is going to look like amid concerns health systems could be overwhelmed.

While NSW's dual-dose vaccination rate in people above 16 hit 74%, in neighboring Queensland, whose borders remain closed to Sydney-siders, the rate is only 52% and the state government is following an elimination strategy with rapid lockdowns to control any outbreak.

Perrottet has declared an end to lockdowns in NSW and has strong support for reopening in Sydney, whose more than 5 million residents endured severe restrictions from mid-June following an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant.

The outbreak has since spread to Melbourne and Canberra, forcing lockdowns in those cities, even as case numbers dwindle in NSW.

New South Wales on Monday reported 496 new locally acquired cases, well down from their peak last month, while Victoria logged 1,612 new infections, the lowest in five days.

Under the relaxed rules for NSW, retail stores can open with reduced capacity, while more vaccinated people can gather in homes and attend weddings and funerals.

The state aims to hit an 80% vaccine rate around late October, when more curbs will be relaxed. But the unvaccinated must remain at home until Dec. 1.

"Enjoy the moment, enjoy it with your family and friends," Prime Minister Scott Morrison wished Sydney residents. "Today is a day so many have been looking forward to a day when things we take for granted, we will celebrate."

Morrison, who must call an election before next May, has come under pressure to press all states to reopen borders to bolster the economy and allow families separated by state border closures to reunite by Christmas. Some states with few cases have not said when they will re-open their borders.

With the vaccine rollout gaining momentum,Australiais planning a staggered return to normal, letting fully vaccinated residents enter and leave the country freely from November, although New South Wales plans to bring forward those dates.

Australiashut its international borders in March 2020, helping keep its coronavirus numbers relatively low, with 130,000 cases and 1,448 deaths.

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Sydney celebrates 'freedom day' and reopens as Australia looks to live with Covid-19 - CNBC

A normally busy road is deserted during a lockdown to curb the spread of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Auckland, New Zealand, August 26, 2021. REUTERS/Fiona Goodall

Oct 11 (Reuters) - New Zealand will require teachers and workers in the health and disability sectors to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday, as she extended restrictions in Auckland, its largest city, for another week.

New Zealand is fighting the highly infectious Delta outbreak that forced it to abandon its long-standing strategy of eliminating the new coronavirus amid persistent infections and is looking to live with the virus through higher vaccinations.

"New Zealand is at one of the trickiest and most challenging moments in the COVID-19 pandemic so far," Ardern told reporters in Wellington. Ardern, however, said "there is a clear path forward" in the next few months to live with fewer curbs and more freedoms once the country reaches a higher level of vaccinations.

About 2.38 million New Zealanders have so far been fully vaccinated, or about 57% of the eligible population, with officials promising to end lockdowns once 90% of the eligible population is vaccinated.

Health and disability sector workers will have to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 1, while school and early learning staff must get their two doses by Jan. 1, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said.

The decision of mandatory vaccinations comes as New Zealand reported 35 new cases, all of them in Auckland, down from 60 on Sunday, taking the total cases in the current outbreak to 1,622.

Having largely controlled the virus last year, New Zealand has recorded just over 4,600 cases and 28 deaths.

Some 1.7 million people in Auckland entered into a lockdown in mid-August in an effort to stamp out the Delta outbreak, the first major spate of community cases in the country since early in the pandemic.

Authorities last week eased some curbs in Auckland including leaving homes to connect with loved ones outdoors, with a limit of 10 people, as well as go to beaches and parks. read more

Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast.

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New Zealand makes COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for health workers - Reuters

A signboard of Chugai Pharmaceutical Co is seen at the company factory in Tokyo August 18, 2014. Chugai Pharmaceutical Co Ltd shares rose 21 percent to a record high following a media report that Roche Holding AG is in talks to buy the almost 40 percent stake in the Japanese firm that it doesn't already own for about $10 billion. REUTERS/Toru Hanai (JAPAN - Tags: BUSINESS)

TOKYO, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Japan's Chugai Pharmaceutical Co (4519.T) said on Monday it has applied to regulators to expand the use of an antibody treatment for COVID-19 to also allow for preventative care.

Japanese regulators approved an antibody cocktail known as Ronapreve as a treatment for COVID-19 in July. The latest filing seeks to use the drug as both a prophylaxis for COVID-19 and as treatment of asymptomatic cases, Chugai said in a release.

Reporting by Rocky Swift, Editing by Timothy Heritage

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Japan's Chugai files to expand use of COVID-19 antibody drug - Reuters