“J&J Covid’s single dose vaccine is 66% effective, a weapon, but not a knockout punch,” was the state headline yesterday.
The Wall Street Journal reported that J&J plans to ask the FDA for an emergency use authorization in early February. Judging by the speed with which the agency gave the green light to Pfizer-BioNTech e Moderna, a presentation in early February would mean that the J&J vaccine could be available in late February or early March.
Novavax announces results
The day before J&J’s announcement, Novavax (Nasdaq: NVAX), a biotechnology company in Gaithersburg, Maryland, announced the results of its phase 3 clinical trial conducted in the United Kingdom. The company said the results show that its two-dose vaccine is 89.3% effective. Concerned that an apparently increasing number of variants of SARS-CoV-2 “escape” the immune response produced by the COVID-10 vaccines, Novavax noted that its trial was conducted when the most infectious (and possibly most harmful) such as B.1.1.7 – from SARS-CoV-2 was circulating.
According to the Novavax press release, its vaccine was 95.6% effective against the original COVID-19 strain and 85.6% effective against the UK variant.
In the same press release, the biotechnology company announced the results of a phase 2b study in South Africa that showed 60% effectiveness in a population that was HIV negative; Fierce Biotech reported that the effectiveness was 49.4%, since HIV-positive individuals were included.
“THE [Novavax] The vaccine is the first to show that it is effective against new variants during testing, with high levels of protection seen in the variant that first appeared in the UK and some protection against a first reported in South Africa, ”reported CNN.
The South African variant appears to be circulating in the USA
Speaking of the SARS-CoV-2 variants, South Carolina health officials announced on Thursday that two cases of COVID-19 caused by the South African variant have occurred in the state. The announcement that “there was no known travel history” to explain the cases and no connection between the two infected people.
The CDC website notes that there are several variants of SARS-CoV-2 in circulation. In addition to strains from the United Kingdom and South Africa, there is one known as the Brazilian strain, or P.1., Which the CDC claims to have been identified for the first time in four travelers from Brazil who were tested at Haneda Airport, Japan .
WHO reverses course of vaccine recommendations for pregnant women
The World Health Organization (WHO) reversed its previous COVID-19 vaccination advice for pregnant women on Friday. Previously, the global health organization advised against vaccination, unless the benefit of vaccinating a pregnant woman outweighed the risks. On Friday, the text on the WHO website was changed to say that “based on what we know about this type of vaccine, we have no specific reason to believe that there will be specific risks that would outweigh the benefits of vaccination for pregnant women. “The” this type of vaccine “refers to the Modern vaccine.
The WHO and CDC vaccine recommendations for women are now similar. This is what the CDC’s recommendation says (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are both RNA vaccines):
Based on current knowledge, experts believe that mRNA vaccines are not likely to pose a risk to the pregnant person or the fetus because mRNA vaccines are not live vaccines. The vaccine’s mRNA is degraded rapidly by normal cellular processes and does not enter the cell nucleus. However, the potential risks of mRNA vaccines for pregnant women and the fetus are unknown because these vaccines have not been studied in pregnant women.
Sites on where you can get vaccinated are popping up
The Wall Street Journal had a story this morning about the growing number of sites that allow people to search where they can get a vaccine. Tech-savvy people in several states are creating the sites, in part because official vaccine sites have incomplete information or don’t work very well. Some of the sites mentioned in the history of the WSJ include VaccinateCA for California, Covid19VaccineTX.com for Texas and FindYourVaccine.org, which allows state-by-state searches for vaccine information.
Seattle Mayor asks the state to prevent hospitals from vaccinating donors, board members
Stories about privileged people jumping in line have become one of the main subplots of the confusing distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. The Seattle Times reported this week that three medical systems in the Seattle region – Providence Regional Medical Center, Overlake Medical Center & Clinics and EvergreenHealth – created systems that gave board members and donors access to vaccination. The newspaper continued with a story about Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, calling on state health officials to stop the practice and relocate vaccines to community health centers.