The COVID-2019 Thread

[harrybarracuda]

Is anyone able to shed light on the Thai approval process? is it

a. determined by the size of the wad in an envelope provided with the application

or

b. does the application of the vaccine A improve the flavour of somtam as opposed to vaccine B

I'm leaning towards (a).

[Troy]

Why is that a bad thing . . . sometimes the Brit anti-European vitriol is quite ridiculous. Yes, the EU stuffed up several times, so they'll deal with it and suffer because of it - the difference is that Europeans don't always crap on the UK when they stuff up - and they stuff up constantly.

The Brexit brigade feel the need to justify their ridiculous decision. In fact all of the EU countries had a choice to go it alone and the UK could have joined in the EU vaccine programme but chose not to do so.

Ursula von de Layen should have resigned and I imagine there will be continuing pressure for her to do so.

[misskit]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and three of its closest Indo-Pacific partners committed to supplying up to a billion coronavirus vaccine doses across Asia by the end of 2022 at a summit on Friday carefully choreographed to counter China’s growing influence.

President Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan - countries together known as the Quad - pledged at their first summit to work to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific and to cooperate on maritime, cyber and economic security, issues vital to the four democracies in the face of challenges from Beijing.


“We’re renewing our commitment to ensure that our region is governed by international law, committed to upholding universal values, and free from coercion,” Biden told his counterparts, without naming China.


His national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, called the virtual summit a big day for U.S. diplomacy, as Washington sought to revitalize its alliances and approach Beijing from a position of strength ahead of a high-level U.S.-China meeting next week.


“The four leaders did discuss the challenge posed by China, and they made clear that none of them have any illusions about China,” Sullivan told reporters, adding that they all believed democracy could outcompete “autocracy.”


Freedom of navigation in the South and East China Seas, recent cyberattacks and semi-conductor supply-chain security, were also discussed, along with the North Korean nuclear issue and the coup and “violent repression” in Myanmar, he said.

In a joint statement, Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, pledged to work closely on COVID-19 vaccine distribution, climate and security.


“We strive for a region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic  values, and unconstrained by coercion,” they added.


The leaders agreed to set up an experts’ group to help distribute vaccines, as well as working groups on climate change, technology standards, and joint development of emerging technologies. An in-person summit would be held later this year, they said.




‘NEW LEVEL OF COOPERATION’


Suga told reporters he had expressed strong opposition to China’s attempts to change the status quo in the region, and Modi told the session the Quad had “come of age” and would “now remain an important pillar of stability in the region.”

Morrison called the meeting “a new dawn in the Indo-Pacific” and added: “let our partnership be the enabler of peace, stability, and prosperity.”


Confronting China has been a rare area of agreement for Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress. In a statement, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, said he was pleased by the Quad meeting.


India’s Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said the summit had agreed U.S. vaccines would be manufactured in India, something New Delhi has called for to counter Beijing’s widening vaccine diplomacy.


A Quad fact sheet said the United States, through its International Development Finance Corp, would work to finance Indian drugmaker Biological E Ltd to produce at least 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of 2022.


It also said Japan was in discussions to provide concessional yen loans for India to expand manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines for export.

Sullivan said the vaccines would go to Southeast Asian countries, elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific, and beyond.


The Biden administration told Reuters on Tuesday the United States and Japan would help fund Indian firms manufacturing vaccines for U.S. drugmakers Novavax Inc and J&J.


An Asian diplomat said countries in Southeast Asia, where China is competing strongly for influence, were “desperate” for vaccines and the end of 2022 was still far off.


“The question is how quickly can they get them out,” he said. “It’s important to get them out sooner rather than later.”



‘INIMICAL TO OUR VALUES’

India, Australia and Japan have all faced security challenges from China, strengthening their interest in the Quad, whose cooperation dates back to joint responses to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004.


The group was revived under the Trump administration, which saw it as a vehicle to push back against China. The United States hosted a foreign ministers’ meeting in 2019, which was followed by another in Japan last year and a virtual session in February.


Friday’s meeting coincided with a major U.S. diplomatic drive to solidify alliances in Asia and Europe to counter China, including visits next week by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to Japan and South Korea.


Blinken will stop in Alaska on his return to meet China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and State Councillor Wang Yi - the first high-level in-person contact between the world’s two largest economies under the Biden administration.


Washington has said it will not hold back in its criticism of Beijing over issues ranging from Taiwan to Hong Kong and the genocide it says China is committing against minority Muslims.

Sullivan, who will attend the meeting with the Chinese officials, said he did not expect details on U.S. tariffs or export controls to be major topics, but added:


“We will communicate that the United States is going to take steps in terms of what we do on technology to ensure that our technology is not used in ways that are inimical to our values or adverse to our security.”


U.S., India, Japan and Australia counter China with billion-dose vaccine pact | Reuters

[Klondyke]

How to demonstrate in Paris against culture lockdown (at a César awards ceremony)

https://twitter.com/canalplus/status...s-protest.html

[harrybarracuda]

The World Health Organization (WHO) today listed the COVID-19 vaccine Ad26.COV2.S, developed by Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), for emergency use in all countries and for COVAX roll-out. The decision comes on the back of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) authorization, which was announced yesterday.

“Every new, safe and effective tool against COVID-19 is another step closer to controlling the pandemic,” said WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “But the hope offered by these tools will not materialize unless they are made available to all people in all countries. I urge governments and companies to live up to their commitments and to use all solutions at their disposal to ramp up production so that these tools become truly global public goods, available and affordable to all, and a shared solution to the global crisis.”

The vaccine from Janssen is the first to be listed by WHO as a single dose regimen, which should facilitate vaccination logistics in all countries. The ample data from large clinical trials shared by the company also shows that the vaccine is effective in older populations.

WHO adds Janssen vaccine to list of safe and effective emergency tools against COVID-19

[harrybarracuda]

This is not at all surprising. It's all well and good nicking other peoples technology, but you need to know how to use it.

DUBAI—Health authorities in the United Arab Emirates have begun administering a third dose of the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine to at least some residents, as doctors say the Chinese-made shots in some cases haven’t generated enough protective antibodies.

The U.A.E. has served as one of the primary testing grounds for the vaccine, which is manufactured by a Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company and is a mainstay of the Gulf monarchy’s rapid immunization campaign. The vaccine is also used in Hungary, Serbia, Pakistan and elsewhere.

G42 Healthcare, the company that coordinated Sinopharm’s Phase 3 clinical trials in the U.A.E. and elsewhere in the Middle East said a “select group of people are being administered a third shot to observe the immune system response” as part of a scientific study.

It declined to say how many people are affected and why, referring reporters to the U.A.E. health authorities, who didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

U.A.E. Giving Third Shot of Sinopharm Vaccine to Some - WSJ

[bsnub]

More than 50 million Americans have now gotten their first shot against Covid-19, and 25 million have gotten two shots. There’s strong evidence that the two Covid-19 vaccines Americans are getting — one by Pfizer/BioNTech, the other by Moderna — are highly effective at preventing illness, hospitalization, and death.

Despite that fact,public health officials and media outlets havebeen warning that vaccinated people need to behave largely how they did before they were vaccinated. That’s because we don’t know as much about the vaccines’ effectiveness at preventing transmission to others. A vaccinated person may be well-protected from Covid-19, but if they carry the virus, could they possibly infect the people around them?

But a growing body of evidence suggests the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines do, in fact, cut down on viral transmission. Two recent studies show some pretty favorable results — one from the UK that foundthat two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine cut down by 86 percent someone’s chances of developing an infection thatthey could pass along, the othera study in Israel that found an 89.4 percent reduction (though it should be noted that the Israeli study has yet to be fully released). These findings are consistent with what we know about vaccines and transmission in general.

In other words, even as we wait for more definitive studies on the vaccines’ effects on transmission, more and more scientists think wedo have enough information to feel pretty good about the vaccines’ capacity to give us back a semblance of normalcy as we approach a year of life in a pandemic.

In an opinion piece, Johns Hopkins epidemiologists M. Kate Grabowski and Justin Lessler argued, “We are confident vaccination against COVID-19 reduces the chances of transmitting the virus.”

“I have been very cautious due to limited evidence on transmission effects but agree with [Grabowski and Lessler]that a large transmission effect is the best explanation of the limited evidence to date,” Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch said in February.

In a new preprint, he and Harvard epidemiologist Rebecca Kahn laid out some principles for how to evaluate data from observational studies like the UK and Israel ones. Applying their principles to Moderna data (more on this below), they estimate that “one dose of vaccine reduces the potential for transmission by at least 61%, possibly considerably more.”

Even Dr. Anthony Fauci has sounded an optimistic note. “The looming question is, if the person who’s been vaccinated gets infected, does that person have the capability to transmit it to another person? Some studies are pointing in a very favorable direction,” he said in a White House briefing in mid-February.

Studying exactly how much a vaccine affects transmission is very difficult. It requires exceptionally good contact tracing, which few countries have, or inference from lots of different forms of limited evidence. Uncertainty remains about exactly how much the vaccines reduce transmission — and that uncertainty has ledmany public health officials to be cautious in their public statements.

But that cautiousnesscan end up misleading the public, giving people the impression that scientists have no information at all. That, in turn, could also lead to vaccine hesitancy. Some people may think, if I get vaccinated but I still have to continue masking and social distancing at all times, then why get vaccinated at all?

“In their own lives, medical experts — and, again, journalists — tend to be cleareyed about the vaccines. Many are getting shots as soon as they’re offered one. They are urging their family and friends to do the same,” DavidLeonhardt argues in a New York Times piece. “But when they speak to a national audience, they deliver a message that comes off very differently. It is dominated by talk of risks, uncertainties, caveats and possible problems. It feeds pre-existing anti-vaccine misinformation and anxiety.”

The vaccines do reduce transmission. They do take us a big step closer toward life beyond the pandemic. And the messaging from our institutions should start reflecting that.

The twonew studies looking at the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, explained

Now that many people have been vaccinated against Covid-19 — about50 million in the US — new research is coming out every day that clarifies the transmission picture. Two key new studies look at the rate of disease among people who got two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine. That’s an important figure for judging how effective vaccines are for transmission — the lower the rate of infection, the lower the rate of transmission.

A little step back here to explain where things stand on vaccines:There are severalvaccines approved in different parts of the world, with various approaches and levels ofeffectiveness. The Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines were the first to be approved for use in the US, and there’s more data available about them, and to keep the scope of this piece manageable, it will focus on just those twovaccines.

A working paper recently published with The Lancet’s preprint publication program looked at health care workers in the United Kingdom who were vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It finds that the vaccine doesn’t just make people less likely to get symptomatic infections (which we already knew from Pfizer/BioNTech’s initial trials) — it alsomakes them much much less likely to get infected at all. “Vaccine effectiveness was 72% ... 21 days after first dose and 86% ... 7 days after the second dose,” the study concludes.

That’s lower than the 95 percent headline number you might have seen, but that 95 percent measures symptomatic infections; this measures all infections, even “invisible” asymptomatic ones, through routine testing of healthy people.

Another recent paper, this timeout of Israel,looked at the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine as well. (A big caveat: The findings were announced in a press release, but the study itself hasn’t been released yet.) It found a drop of 89.4 percent in infections among people who got two doses of the vaccine, compared to unvaccinated people. We don’t have as much information from this research as we’d like yet,as the paper has yet to be made public, and given the methodological challenges of estimating transmission, the details of the paper matter a lot. But that number is similar to the one from the UK study.

Even though the studies focused only on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, there’s reason to believe that the results translate to the Moderna vaccine as well. The two vaccines work very similarly. Both contain a set of instructions to the RNA in our cells to build a protein very similar to the “spike protein” in the coronavirus. Then the immune system notices the intruder and responds, producing antibodies that’ll protect against the coronavirus later.

Because the two vaccines work very similarly, the researchers I spoke to said it was overwhelmingly likely that they both block transmission to a similar degree. As a result, we can assume — though with some uncertainty — that evidence of strong infection reductions from the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine also likely applies to Moderna.

But even before the most recent research came out, we already knew that the vaccines would help curb transmission. For one thing, the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccines reduce the chances of getting a symptomatic case of Covid-19 by 94 percent and 95 percent, respectively. That is a promising starting point — if a person doesn’t get Covid-19, then they can’t pass it on.
But what about asymptomatic cases?

In their initial clinical trials, Moderna and Pfizer didn’t study whether vaccinated people got asymptomatic cases of Covid-19— that is, people who tested positive for the coronavirus but did not suffer any symptoms. However, when people went in for their second shot, Moderna did give them a nasal swab test for Covid-19. In a supplement to its submission to the FDA, Moderna says that 14 of the 14,134 vaccinated people had Covid-19 (with no symptoms at the time) and 38 of the 14,073 people in the control group had Covid-19 (with no symptoms at the time).

That rules out one big worry about the vaccines: that they might make Covid-19 mild in vaccinated people — so mild they don’t experience any symptoms — without actually preventing it. Instead, it was clear from back in December that the vaccines reduce asymptomatic infection as well as reducing symptomatic infection.

UsingModerna’s nasal swab test data, infectious disease biologist Marm Kilpatrick at UCSC estimated that the vaccine, after a single shot, reduces a person’s odds of infection with Covid-19 by up to 90 percent. (When I emailed him, we determined that with some more pessimistic assumptions, the reduction might be more like 78 to 88 percent.)

Lipsitch and Kahn took a different approach, and estimated from the same data that “one dose of vaccine reduces the potential for transmission by at least 61%, possibly considerably more.” Of course, the overall efficacy of the vaccine after both doses will almost certainly be higher.

The recent data on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Israel and in the UK backs up that idea. It suggests that after two shots, the vaccine is 85 to 90 percent effective at preventing infection with Covid-19.

There are some caveats. The data from the UK and from Israel comes from observational studies, not randomized controlled trials: If the people who’d been vaccinated differ from people who haven’t, the study’s assumptions might not hold. Researchers do their best to adjust for this, but any adjustment will be imperfect. In addition, getting the vaccine could change behavior — the vaccinated might take more risks, and they might be less likely to seek Covid-19 testing or be required to provide negative test results.

So this estimate shouldn’t be considered definitive. But it lines up with other sources of evidence, and it suggests that, overall, the vaccine is likely highly effective — in the 80 to 90 percent range — at preventing infections. And low infection rates mean low transmission rates.

Viral load and reduced odds of transmission

But let’s say a person who has been vaccinated still gets infected with Covid-19. That’s not great, but the vaccine likely continues to protect the people around them, according to the research so far. That’s because of another consideration: viral load — that is, how much virus can be measured in a patient’s nose and throat.

Not everyone who has Covid-19 is equally likely to transmit it. A study recently published in The Lancet based on research from contact tracing in Spain has found a very strong association between viral load and how many other people the patient infects, as well as how serious the infections in other people are.

This isn’t very surprising. Viral load determines how much virus you are coughing or breathing into the air, which determines whether other people get sick. And if they get sick with an unusually large dose of the virus, it’ll have a “head start” at infecting them, and they’re likely to get sicker.

“In our study, the viral load of index cases was a leading driver of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The risk of symptomatic COVID-19 was strongly associated with the viral load of contacts at baseline,” the study concludes.

The impact of the vaccine on transmission, then, will be the product of two factors, co-author Michael Marks, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told me: lower chance of getting infected, and lower viral load if infected.

We already covered the former point above; what about the latter? Do the vaccines cut viral load?

On this front, there’s great news in another preprint based on data from Israel: The Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine appears to cut viral load dramatically, so people who do get Covid-19 after the vaccine have less of the virus in their nose and throat, making them less likely to infect other people.

“We find that the viral load is reduced 4-fold for infections occurring 12-28 days after the first dose of vaccine. These reduced viral loads hint to lower infectiousness, further contributing to vaccine impact on virus spread,” the study concludes. This research is just a preprint, not yet peer-reviewed, but if the data holds up, it would suggest that vaccinated people who test positive and are infectious are still significantly less infectious than unvaccinated people.

“The data is certainly intriguing and suggestive that vaccination may reduce the infectiousness of COVID-19 cases, even if it does not prevent infection altogether,” Virginia Pitzer, an infectious diseases modeler at the Yale School of Public Health, told Nature.

Many of the caveats discussed above apply to this study, too. Thisresearch from Israel is an observational study, not a randomized controlled trial. However, the vaccinated people had the same average viral load during the first 12 days after vaccination as the unvaccinated people, and only after 12 days did a difference start to emerge, which suggests the vaccine is what is producing the difference.

In total, vaccination unambiguously makes people less likely to get a case of Covid-19. Then, if a vaccinated person does get a Covid-19 case, preliminary Pfizer data from Israel suggests they’ll have lower viral loads, which other research has established makes them less likely to pass on the virus. And because of the lower viral load, if they do infect another person, the infection is less likely to be serious.

To be clear, the transmission point is based on early data — there’s still uncertainty about how exactly lower viral loads in vaccinated people will translate to lower infectiousness. But “some data” is different from “no data.”

How we should and shouldn’t talk about uncertainty

There isn’t significant doubt among epidemiologists that vaccines somewhat cut transmission.

First, almost all vaccines do that, so it was a good starting assumption before we had any data at all. (There are a few exceptions, such as the vaccine for whooping cough, but they’re very rare.)

Second, it’s where all the data on the Covid-19 vaccines points. “Everyone thinks the data indicate a reduction in total infections, as well as symptomatic infections,” Kilpatrick told me. “People disagree on whether we can accurately estimate how [large is] the reduction in total infections and infectiousness.”

In other words: There seems to be consensus that the vaccines don’t just keep the vaccinated safe — they make the people around them safer, too. The real question is how much safer. Lipsitch, who is more conservative than Kilpatrick at estimating that impact, still says that no effect on transmission would be “beyond shocking,”.

But the fact that the vaccines make other people safer too hasn’t necessarily made it into public messaging. News reports of the vaccine have foregrounded what the vaccine can’t guarantee and what we can’t do after we’ve been vaccinated.

“Yes, people with coronavirus vaccinations should still distance from each other. Here’s why,” argued the Washington Post.

“You’re fully vaccinated against the coronavirus — now what? Don’t expect to shed your mask and get back to normal activities right away,” begins an Associated Press story in which older people who have all been fully vaccinated are advised not to reunite with each other.

“Our discussion about vaccines has been poor, really poor,” Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist, told the New York Times. It has overwhelmingly emphasized the fact that post-vaccine transmission is still possible, rather than frankly discussing the probability of such transmission and leaving it up to people to make their own risk calculation.

That’s because a lot of public health officials worry about encouraging people who’ve been vaccinated to “party like it’s 1999,” potentially spreading the virus to other people who haven’t had their chance to get vaccinated yet.

It’s important to note that for a vaccinated person’s behavior to be more dangerous than an unvaccinated person’s, they’d have to go reallywild. If vaccines reduce infection by 90 percent, then unless your behavior gets 10 times more dangerous after you’re vaccinated, you are still safer to be around than you were before the vaccine.

Don’t go bar-hopping, but having also-vaccinated friends over is likely fine, Dr. Leana Wen of the George Washington School of Public Health argues in the Washington Post. Letting your grandparents hold your kids? Families might reasonably conclude that’s also fine, she says.

Vaccinated people should, of course, respect businesses’ rules about masks — the essential workers asked to enforce those rules have no way to know if you’ve been vaccinated.And while most people are still unvaccinated, the vaccinated should be thoughtful about protecting those who haven’t had a chance at the vaccines yet. But those reminders shouldn’t drown out an accurate understanding of the fact that the vaccines are really effective.

“Advising people that they must do nothing differently after vaccination — not even in the privacy of their homes — creates the misimpression that vaccines offer little benefit at all. Vaccines provide a true reduction of risk, not a false sense of security,” epidemiologist Julia Marcus argued in the Atlantic.

Our recommendations for vaccinated people should reflect our best current understanding of the evidence.

It’s true that there’s still some uncertainty about the magnitude of the effects of the vaccines on transmission. It’s possible that as we learn more from Israel, recommendations will change. And it’s important that people get fully vaccinated — two shots, plus some time for the immunity to fully take hold — before they assume the vaccine has fully protected them and the people around them.

But what’s important to remember is thatwe aren’t operating from complete ignorance. We know a lot about the vaccines, and what we know points toward them being very effective at reducing transmission and protecting those around us. If you’re hesitant about taking the vaccine because you heard that it might not protect others, you shouldn’t be, because the evidence suggests it does. That message is at least as important as warnings for the vaccinated not to “party.”

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2...moderna-pfizer

[strigils]

A very sobering article and why countries are so worried about the Brazil variant.

'Covid is taking over': Brazil plunges into deadliest chapter of its epidemic

It was midway through February when André Machado realized Brazil’s coronavirus catastrophe was racing into a bewildering and remorseless new phase. “The floodgates opened and the water came gushing out,” recalled the infectious disease specialist from the Our Lady of the Conception hospital in Porto Alegre, one of the largest cities in southern Brazil.

Experts warn Brazil facing darkest days of Covid crisis as deaths hit highest level

Since then, Machado’s hospital, like health centres up and down the country, has been engulfed by a deluge of jittery, gasping patients – many of them previously healthy and bafflingly young. Among the recent admissions was a heavily pregnant 37-year-old who was brought in complaining of breathing difficulties and a cough. Doctors performed an emergency C-section to deliver the baby in a desperate bid to take the pressure off the expectant mother’s Covid-racked lungs.

“We’re trying to help people but this disease is much faster and more aggressive than the tactics we’ve been using,” Machado, 44, said of his team’s efforts to keep pace with a tripling of admissions.

“It’s like we’re flogging a dead horse,” he said, before adding: “This disease is going to kill many more people in Brazil.”

At the end of last year Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro – a Donald Trump-worshiping populist who has gleefully sabotaged Covid containment efforts – declared his country had reached “the tail end” of what was already one of the world’s worst outbreaks.

Bolsonaro was wrong.

Three months later Latin America’s largest nation has lost almost 100,000 more lives – taking its total death toll to more than 275,000, second only to the US – and been plunged into the deadliest chapter of its 13-month epidemic.

This week, as a record 2,349 daily deaths were reported, the former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva castigated Bolsonaro’s “moronic” handling of the crisis and urged citizens to confront their incompetent “blowhard” leader. “This country is in a state of utter tumult and confusion because there’s no government. I’ll repeat that: this country has no government,” Lula declared, blaming Bolsonaro’s “uncivilised” leadership and rejection of science for the scale of Brazil’s disaster.

“So, so many lives could have been saved,” Lula claimed, warning: “Covid is taking over the country.”

As the emergency intensified this week, frontline health workers from Porto Alegre to Recife, a coastal city 3,000km further north, described scenes of heartbreak, despair and exhaustion as intensive care units and cemeteries fill up like never before.

“It feels like we’re putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound,” said Eduarda Santa Rosa Barata, a 31-year-old infectologist who works in three ICUs in the north-eastern capital of Pernambuco state, all now stretched to the limit. “We’re engaged in damage reduction … You open new beds and they fill up immediately.”

A few days earlier, Barata had admitted a 37-year-old man who had no underlying medical conditions but whose lungs were so badly damaged he needed intubation. “It seems so random,” she said. “It’s a bizarre disease. It’s frightening.”

Machado saw several explanations for the torrent of cases he and other doctors are now seeing, including political mismanagement and the slackening of social distancing measures, principally among the young. In recent months such containment efforts have largely collapsed, with schools and businesses reopening and Bolsonaro’s tourism minister even urging citizens to start holidaying again.

But the doctor suspected a third, more troubling element was also at work: an enigmatic and apparently more contagious variant called P1 that is thought to have emerged in the Amazon region in late 2020 but is now circulating across Brazil, including in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, where Machado works.

more here

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/01/brazil-coronavirus-deaths-highest-level

[OhOh]

an enigmatic and apparently more contagious variant called P1 that is thought to have emerged in the Amazon region in late 2020 but is now circulating across Brazil,

'arrys OK though, possibly.

[russellsimpson]

Sullivan told reporters, adding that they all believed democracy could outcompete “autocracy.”

In the long run perhaps. In the short run this is doubtful.

“We strive for a region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic  values, and unconstrained by coercion,” they added.

A very tall order indeed. Definitely aspirational.

Good to see these four getting together in terms of Chinese foreign policy.

[harrybarracuda]

'arrys OK though, possibly.

Not sure what this has to do with me, Hoohoo.

Bolsonaro is pulling a Chavez and running the country like it belongs to him, the virus is running amok and it's the perfect conditions for making new variants.

Presumably you find this amusing.

[harrybarracuda]

Obviously one can't name names here lest the post get deleted, but I did chortle when I just read who owns Siam Bioscience...

National Vaccine Institute (NVI) director Nakorn Premsri showed a letter from the AstraZeneca company, issued on Monday, in an attempt to prove that Siam Bioscience has passed the evaluation process of AstraZeneca's audit team.
The audit covered issues relating to anti-bribery, anti-corruption (ABAC), supply chain security measures, human rights and financial health and ensured Siam Bioscience was fit to obtain a licence to produce the Covid-19 vaccine for the region.
"AstraZeneca selected Siam Bioscience for its regional hub to produce the vaccine and the evaluation process was executed in the second quarter of last year. The technology transfer started in October, before the government's purchasing order was placed," he said, adding that it has included an extensive evaluation of Siam Bioscience's technical and manufacturing capacity.

NVI director defends Siam Bioscience after debate

[panama hat]

U.S., India, Japan and Australia counter China with billion-dose vaccine pact
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and three of its closest Indo-Pacific partners committed to supplying up to a billion coronavirus vaccine doses across Asia by the end of 2022 at a summit on Friday carefully choreographed to counter China’s growing influence.

President Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan - countries together known as the Quad - pledged at their first summit to work to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific and to cooperate on maritime, cyber and economic security, issues vital to the four democracies in the face of challenges from Beijing.

Excellent

[tomcat]

Coronavirus: in Thailand, vaccine inequality fears grow as private hospitals eye profits

• The kingdom has allowed private hospitals to sell Covid-19 vaccines even as the government embarks on a drive to inoculate 33 million Thais this year
• While the move comes as a relief for tourism and manufacturing firms keen to restart trade, others worry it will worsen vaccine access in the nation of 69 million

Jitsiree Thongnoi
Published: 10:00am, 12 Mar, 2021


A nurse in Bangkok prepares a dose of Covid-19 vaccine from China’s Sinovac. Photo: Xinhua

Boon Vanasin, chairman of Thai hospital chain Thonburi Healthcare Group, has been talking to Covid-19 vaccine
manufacturers for several months now to try to procure as many doses as possible.

The group, which runs eight hospitals in the country, plans to sell vaccinations to private clients at a proposed price of 2,000 baht (US$65) per jab. Boon has already received some advance orders from tourism and manufacturing businesses.

The doses from Chinese manufacturer Sinovac generally cost the most compared with other vaccines, Boon said, due to its inactivated vaccine technology – or the use of live viruses to stimulate antibodies.



The government, which began its vaccination drive last month
with Sinovac shots, aims to immunise 33 million Thais this year, almost half the country’s population.

As of March 9, some 33,000 people from 13 of the country’s 77 provinces have received the shots, which are free for Thai citizens. Health authorities on Friday said they would delay the roll-out of AstraZeneca shots after several European countries suspended their programmes over blood clot fears. The Johnson & Johnson and Bharat Biotech vaccines are pending approval.

But for many businesses – especially those in the tourism sector, Thailand
’s economic backbone – the government should do more.

“Having half of the population vaccinated by year-end is not enough,” Boon said. “Some 70-80 per cent of the population need to be vaccinated before then to create herd immunity and confidence [for visitors]. At least 16 million doses of vaccines are in high demand in around 20 tourism provinces of Thailand.”


Thailand’s Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul receives a Sinovac Covid-19 shot on February 28, 2021. Photo: Handout via Xinhua

Wichit Prakobkosol, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, said many tourism businesses were willing to pay for Covid-19 jabs because it was a better option than “the free, but delayed doses from the government”.

While Thailand said it would inoculate healthcare workers and those living areas hardest hit by the virus first, tourism minister Pipat Ratchakitprakarn said up to 100,000 doses had been reserved for hospitality workers in provinces popular with foreign tourists, including Chiang Mai and Phuket.

Tourism makes up about 11 per cent of Thailand’s economy. Visitor numbers last year plunged 83 per cent, with 6.7 million foreign arrivals compared with a record 39.9 million in 2019, prompting widespread job losses and business closures while contributing to the nation’s deepest economic contraction in over two decades.

“Thai tourism needs to restart by July at the soonest,” Wichit said. “The government should announce a clear tourism policy by April so that hotels and airlines can prepare to reopen and workers can be rehired after they left to find work elsewhere.”

Boon’s plan to sell vaccinations to private clients comes as health minister Anutin Charnvirakul this week said private hospitals would be allowed to import coronavirus vaccines and sell them directly to Thai and expat residents, as well as businesses eager to vaccinate their employees.

The announcement signalled a shift in the government’s stance toward vaccine distribution by private hospitals, after a Bangkok hospital was in December told to stop advertising vaccinations online for a total cost of US$325.

It also makes Thailand the latest country in Southeast Asia
to allow private-sector purchases of a public good that has been largely regulated by governments worldwide.

In Asean member states where the distribution of vaccines has been sluggish, private firms have taken matters into their own hands.


In the Philippines, such firms can buy vaccines for employees, while Indonesian
private businesses can buy state-procured doses from Sinopharm and Moderna to inoculate their staff. Malaysia
said it would consider involving the private sector in distributing free vaccines alongside the government’s roll-out.

But the move to prioritise the tourism industry for vaccinations has sparked a backlash.

“It’s not fair,” said Matcha Phorn-in, a human-rights activist in Chiang Mai, who presented a petition to parliament last year on the uneven impact of the pandemic on ethnic minorities who do not receive government aid. “Instead of prioritising the most vulnerable populations first, the roll-out is leaving behind marginalised communities like migrant workers and stateless people.

Rights groups have also criticised a proposal by local businesses in Phuket to vaccinate a majority of the province’s adult population – about 300,000 people – before October 1, in time for the main tourist season, so that inoculated foreign visitors could holiday without quarantine.


A man receives a Covid-19 vaccine shot from China’s Sinovac in Bangkok. Photo: Xinhua

Vachira Phuket Hospital Director Chalermpong Sukontapol, who is in charge of distributing the Sinovac doses allocated by the government, said about 2,000 medical workers would receive the shots this month, and 24,000 tourism workers would be vaccinated by May.

Economic think tank Kasikorn Research Center this week said if 220,000 doses of vaccines were administered in 20 provinces that were tourist destinations before October, Thailand could expect to see about 2 million tourists this year.

Kiat Ruxrungtham, director of the Centre of Excellence in Vaccine Research and Development at Chulalongkorn University, said once private hospitals launched their distribution campaign, the pricing discrepancies would create inequality.

He said it was the government’s responsibility to prioritise which groups had to be vaccinated first, and that it had to work out distribution plans with the private hospitals. “If the private hospitals set a high price for a particular vaccine, it might create an impression that what they sell is superior to what the government provides for free,” he said.

Kiat in June last year said a vaccine his team was developing – the Chula-Cov19 – was estimated by manufacturers to cost around 1,000 baht (US$30) per dose, with 2 million doses to be produced. He could not confirm this week if that pricing would be maintained.

“The vaccine will be sold to the government as a priority,” he said, adding the human trial phase would begin in May.

Aat Pisanwanich, an associate professor of economics at the Thai Chamber of Commerce University, said the commercial pricing of vaccines in Thailand would worsen accessibility due to “the economic hardship Thais are experiencing. The government itself cannot create accessibility to vaccines either, because the vaccination does not cover enough people soon enough”.

Boon from Thonburi Healthcare Group said he was hopeful there would be more vaccines available in the market later this year “when most of Europe and the US will be vaccinated”.

If that happened, he said, he would review his proposed price of 2,000 baht for each vaccine dose.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/healt...ity-fears-grow

[panama hat]

Why is no one pointing fingers?

[Slick]

About time Thailand approved private hospitals getting their own vaccines to sell privately. Just because the government wants to sit around squashing it’s nuts shouldn’t mean everyone has to wait on their incompetence and corruption.

They’ve been asleep at the wheel long enough. Time to gtfo the way.

[Klondyke]

^It's not that simple as a usual stereotype comment. There are so many medicinal and political aspects of many instances, do you believe them all?

Just google, e.g.:

EMA Launches Review of Clot Risk With AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine
March 12, 2021
The Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is investigating cases of thromboembolic events related to AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, but says the benefits currently still outweigh risks.

As of March 10, 30 cases of thromboembolic events had been reported among nearly 5 million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine in the European Economic Area, which includes European Union (EU) countries as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.

"The number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people is no higher than the number seen in the general population," EMA said in statement.

The Danish Health Authority has paused its vaccination campaign with the AstraZeneca vaccine as a precautionary measure while they investigate reports of blood clots in people who received the vaccine, including one individual who died.

Some other European countries have also temporarily stopped using the AstraZeneca vaccine based on reports of blood clots.

Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has canceled plans to publicly get the AstraZeneca vaccine today, according to a report by CNN .

EMA emphasizes that there is currently "no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine."

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not yet approved the AstraZeneca vaccine, and declined to comment at this time. An additional clinical trial to support the FDA application for emergency use authorization of the AstraZeneca vaccine is ongoing.

EMA Launches Review of Clot Risk With AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine

[harrybarracuda]

About time Thailand approved private hospitals getting their own vaccines to sell privately. Just because the government wants to sit around squashing it’s nuts shouldn’t mean everyone has to wait on their incompetence and corruption.

They’ve been asleep at the wheel long enough. Time to gtfo the way.

It's quite obvious they are stalling because someone wants money.

[Klondyke]

Covid-19: EMA Leaks Raise Concerns Over Vaccine mRNA Integrity
Mar 12, 2021

Documents raise several questions but offer few answers

Leaked documents from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) revealed that early commercial batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine contained unexpectedly low numbers of intact mRNA compared to earlier clinical batches, according to a special report published in The BMJ.

According to investigative journalist Serena Tinari, the author of the report, these leaks stem from a December 2020 cyberattack on the EMA that resulted in over 40 megabytes of classified documents being sent to various journalists and academics around the globe. In those documents, EMA scientists charged with assessing the quality of the vaccine expressed concerns regarding “truncated and modified mRNA species present in the finished product,” and the EMA filed two “major objections” with Pfizer, Tinari explained. To date, none of the leakers have been identified, she added.

An email from a high-ranking EMA official contained among the leaks, dated Nov. 23, “identified ’a significant difference in % RNA integrity/truncated species’ between the clinical batches and proposed commercial batches — from around 78% to 55%,” Tinari wrote. “The root cause was unknown and the impact of this loss of RNA integrity on safety and efficacy of the vaccine was ’yet to be defined,’ the email said.” But, apparently, something changed between the date of that email and the vaccine’s eventual authorization — as of Dec. 21, when the EMA authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the agency’s public assessment report noted that “the quality of this medicinal product, submitted in the emergency context of the current (Covid-19) pandemic, is considered to be sufficiently consistent and acceptable.”

What Happened?

RNA instability has been a recurring hurdle for researchers looking to develop nucleic acid-based vaccines and is “the primary reason for the technology’s stringent cold chain requirements,” Tinari noted. And, according to a review article published in The Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences by Daan J.A. Crommelin, PhD, and colleagues late last year, “The complete, intact mRNA molecule is essential to its potency as a vaccine… Even a minor degradation reaction, anywhere along [an] mRNA strand, can severely slow or stop proper translation performance of that strand and thus result in the incomplete expression of the target antigen.”

So, what percentage mRNA integrity do Pfizer, Moderna, CureVac, and other mRNA vaccine manufacturers and regulators consider acceptable for Covid-19 vaccines? Unfortunately, Tinari wrote, none deigned to offer any specifics, with the FDA, EMA, and Health Canada all noting that “specific information related to the acceptability criteria is confidential.” However, Health Canada did inform Tinari that Pfizer conducted investigations into the cause of the deficiencies and made changes to the manufacturing process to bring vaccine mRNA integrity in line with expectations.

But what caused this problem, what did the manufacturer do to address it, and how can companies prevent it from happening again? That is also unclear — Pfizer declined to comment on the target mRNA integrity for their Covid vaccines and on what caused the lower-than-expected quality of those early batches. Moderna and CureVac also declined to comment.

“The shortage of information may reflect the lack of certainty, even among regulators, about how to assess the evidence fully for this novel technology,” Tinari wrote. “…Crommelin told The BMJ that, ’For small, low molecular weight products, the active pharmaceutical ingredient integrity is typically close to 100%.’ But for mRNA vaccines? ’Experience with mRNA integrity is limited.’”

Covid-19: EMA Leaks Raise Concerns Over Vaccine mRNA Integrity | Physician's Weekly

[harrybarracuda]

Why do I get the impression this will not happen?

Travel deals on agenda as jabs start

Thailand is expected to begin signing vaccine passport deals with other countries next month, says the Public Health Ministry.

Director-General of the Department of Disease Control Opas Karnkawinpong on Saturday announced that Thailand was planning to enter into bilateral agreements on vaccine passports with low-incidence countries which had begun vaccinating their people against Covid-19.

"The vaccine passport scheme will take shape within three months," Dr Opas said.

Thailand will receive a further 1.8 million doses from Sinovac -- 800,000 this month and the rest in April -- followed by six million doses from AstraZeneca in June. There are also 10 million dose deliveries scheduled for July and August, according to Dr Opas.

The doctor predicted that 63 million doses would be given to over 30 million people by the end of the year, with high-risk areas being the first to begin widespread vaccination drives.

He said that 44,409 people in Thailand had been vaccinated so far.

On reports of blood clots being diagnosed among some people who had received the AstraZeneca formula, he said the ministry was investigating the issue but there was no indication that the vaccine was the cause.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has announced that it will begin arranging early jabs for seven vulnerable groups via its "Mor Phrom" ("The doctor is ready") Line account today.

Bangkok governor Pol Gen Aswin Kwanmuang said people aged 50-59 years and toddlers aged 10 months would be eligible for the vaccine if they suffered from severe chronic respiratory disease, heart and coronary artery disease, chronic kidney disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity or had had a stroke.

They must also live in six Bangkok districts adjacent to Samut Sakhon province.

The Sinovac vaccine is not recommended as yet for those who are 60 or older.

Meanwhile, former leader of the disbanded Future Forward Party Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit said Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul had lied when he said AstraZeneca's vaccine delivery to Thailand would meet the deadlines set.

However, the minister replied he was confident that all 60 million doses would be administered by the end of this year. Five million doses would be given to people in June this year and 10 million more doses each month after that, he said.

Travel deals on agenda as jabs start

[lom]

That is also unclear — Pfizer declined to comment on the target mRNA integrity for their Covid vaccines and on what caused the lower-than-expected quality of those early batches. Moderna and CureVac also declined to comment.

They diluted it to get more doses out of one brew..

[harrybarracuda]

How many illegal Burmese have they smuggled this time?

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) on Saturday ordered the immediate closure of Bang Khae Market after 80 people there tested positive for Covid-19.

The discovery renewed fears of a possible new cluster of infections as the country prepares to ease its coronavirus lockdown.

Parnrudee Manomaipiboon, director of the BMA's Public Health Department, confirmed that an active case search was conducted on Saturday at Bang Khae Market in Thon Buri.

The search began at 9.30am with the testing of 1,400 people -- mostly visitors and vendors -- at Bang Khae and five nearby markets: Sirisetthnont Market, Kitti Market, Pasom Market, Wonder Market and Talat Mai Bang Khae Market.

Test results showed 80 were infected and the BMA is expected to continue its proactive testing initiative.

New coronavirus infections prompt Bang Khae Market closure in Bangkok

[Klondyke]

Originally Posted by Slick
About time Thailand approved private hospitals getting their own vaccines to sell privately. Just because the government wants to sit around squashing it’s nuts shouldn’t mean everyone has to wait on their incompetence and corruption.
They’ve been asleep at the wheel long enough. Time to gtfo the way

It's quite obvious they are stalling because someone wants money.

Harry as usually does not disappoint us knowing always a clue... (any "chinkies" involved?)

[aging one]

(any "chinkies" involved?)

Nah old dinosaurs who feed on corruption money. Too much to be made to release the vaccines without being sure the same old pockets are lined. But you knew that didnt you comrade.

[harrybarracuda]

Nah old dinosaurs who feed on corruption money. Too much to be made to release the vaccines without being sure the same old pockets are lined. But you knew that didnt you comrade.

I'm sure the chinkies have been pushing their useless shit hard with various cake tins (now needs THREE jabs apparently) but there is a bigger player in this particular market, at least as far as Thailand is concerned.

Klondick is a thicko though, he won't get it.