As the Coronavirus Pandemic Wears On, a Need for Routine Child Vaccines

Jul 24 2020

MONTHS INTO THE coronavirus pandemic, pediatricians are still worried about a slowdown in childhood vaccinations in the U.S. In mid-March, as President Donald Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency and states implemented stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidance, non-emergency health care ground largely to a halt, including for children. A federal report indicated routine child vaccinations plummeted through at least mid-April, and while medical visits for some specialties had rebounded relatively well as of late June, pediatric appointments remained far below normal, according to an analysis from The Commonwealth Fund.

Source: USA News

Without A Vaccine, Researchers Say, Herd Immunity May Never Be Achieved

Jul 24 2020

As the coronavirus continues to spread rapidly throughout the U.S. and beyond, many are wondering: How on earth will this end? In an interview televised this week, President Trump reiterated his belief that sooner or later the virus will burn itself out. "I will be right eventually," the president told Fox News host Chris Wallace. "It's going to disappear, and I'll be right." But scientists are increasingly of the view that this virus will not disappear. In interviews and correspondence with more than a dozen researchers around the world, NPR found that the vast majority believes the virus will persist at some level for a long time in places like the U.S. and Europe.

Source: NPR

How Long Will Immunity To The Coronavirus Last?

Jul 23 2020

So many people are counting on a vaccine to help end the coronavirus pandemic that any hint of bad news gets a lot of attention. That's proving to be the case for a series of studies examining how long antibodies persist in people who have been infected with the coronavirus. Antibodies help ward off infections. In some diseases, they can prevent re-infection, though scientists can't say for sure if that's true for the coronavirus. And it's also not clear how long antibodies linger.

Source: NPR

The state of the global race for a coronavirus vaccine

Jul 23 2020

Vaccines from the U.K., U.S. and China are sprinting ahead in a global race that involves at least 197 vaccine candidates and is producing geopolitical clashes even as it promises a possible pandemic escape route. Driving the news: The first two candidates to reach phase three trials — one from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, the other from China — both appear safe and produce immune responses, according to preliminary results published today in The Lancet.

Source: Axios

Black Americans should not shun vaccines because of the Tuskegee study

Jul 22 2020

The July 20 front-page article “Vaccine skeptics fuel black mistrust” was disturbing on many levels. In the ongoing novel coronavirus health crisis, black Americans desperately need distance from their angst and suspicions about the Tuskegee syphilis study. Clearly, this type of uninformed thinking can result in susceptibility to questionable alliances. The prospect of black Americans denying themselves a potential vaccine because of the Tuskegee study and an alliance with anti-vaccine activists is disturbing. People not taking a vaccination is reminiscent of the Tuskegee study scenario — not receiving vaccinations and only being observed.

Source: Washington Post

Oxford's Covid-19 vaccine appears safe and induces immune response, early results suggest, but more research is needed

Jul 22 2020

(CNN)Results from trials involving three different coronavirus vaccines released Monday, all showing positive results, with evidence the vaccines can produce immune responses that would be expected to protect people against infection. They all also appeared to be safe, although it will take studies with more people to show how safe they really are and whether they can prevent infection.

Source: CNN

How Viruses Evolve

Jul 22 2020

The unusual cases of pneumonia began to appear in midwinter, in China. The cause, researchers would later learn, was a coronavirus new to science. By March, the infection began to spread to other Asian countries and overseas. People were dying, and the World Health Organization issued a global health alert.

Source: The Smithsonian

A Vaccine Reality Check

Jul 22 2020

Nearly five months into the pandemic, all hopes of extinguishing COVID-19 are riding on a still-hypothetical vaccine. And so a refrain has caught on: We might have to stay home—until we have a vaccine. Close schools—until we have a vaccine. Wear masks—but only until we have a vaccine. During these months of misery, this mantra has offered a small glimmer of hope. Normal life is on the other side, and we just have to wait—until we have a vaccine.

Source: The Atlantic

Confusion spreads over system to determine priority access to Covid-19 vaccines

Jul 22 2020

As manufacturers around the world race to develop Covid-19 vaccines, a parallel effort has begun to figure out who in the United States should get them first — and how those doses should be distributed. But already the effort is being complicated by tensions over who gets to make those critical decisions, with some groups feeling sidelined and multiple new actors crowding the stage.

Source: STAT News

New coronavirus antibodies fade fast but not necessarily protection

Jul 22 2020

New research suggests that antibodies the immune system makes to fight the new coronavirus may only last a few months in people with mild illness, but that doesn’t mean protection also is gone or that it won’t be possible to develop an effective vaccine. “Infection with this coronavirus does not necessarily generate lifetime immunity,” but antibodies are only part of the story, said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. He had no role in the work, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Source: Sentinel Colorado