The global number of cases for the coronavirus-borne disease COVID-19 jumped to 102 million on Friday, as health experts released the latest vaccine updates from Novavax Inc. and Johnson & Johnson were processing in the hopes that they will soon receive an emergency permit and bolster stocks.
Novavax NVAX,
said its candidate vaccine late Thursday, which has a different mechanism from those already approved in the US – one developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE,
and German partner BioNTech SE BNTX,
and a separate one developed by Moderna Inc. MRNA,
– 89% appears to be effective, based on initial data from a UK study of 15,000 patients, the AP reported.
The company said that about half of the trial participants who became infected with the virus had the mutated version that has been circulating in the UK for weeks. A preliminary analysis suggested that the vaccine is nearly 96% effective against the parent virus and nearly 86% effective against the new variant.
Also see: The Novavax vaccine is effective. Now I really hope I was injected with that
Scientists are even more concerned about a strain first discovered in South Africa that contains several mutations – and results from a smaller Novavax study suggest the vaccine works, but not nearly as well as against the variant. the UK.
Read now: Drugmakers Investigate Effectiveness of COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatments Against New, More Contagious South African Strain
It was a similar story from J&J JNJ,
when it released early data from a phase 3 trial of its COVID vaccine candidate early Friday, saying it appears 66% effective in preventing moderate to severe disease 28 days after vaccination, but less effective – only 57% – in the dealing with the South Africa tribe.
J&J will be submitting the data to a peer-reviewed journal in the coming weeks and expects to file an application for an emergency use permit in early February. There are high hopes for this vaccine as it requires only one dose, unlike the currently approved one, which requires two doses spaced weeks apart.
The data comes because the US added at least 165,073 new cases Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, and counted at least 3,862 deaths, although that was less than the more than 4,000 deaths reported in the past two days.
The number of cases has decreased in the past 14 days. The US had an average of 159,598 new cases per day for the past week, 34% lower than the average of two weeks ago.
According to the COVID Tracking Project, hospital admissions are also improving. There were 104,303 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals Thursday, up from 107,444 the day before. The number has now fallen for 17 consecutive days and is at its lowest level since December 7.
“Reported deaths were up 7 percent this week, with states reporting that a total of 22,797 lives were lost to COVID-19,” the COVID Tracking Project wrote in its weekly blog. “Deaths are lagging behind, both because it takes time to die from the virus and because the death reporting process is very slow. Even with cases falling in the US, we can still have a week or more of very high death rates. “
Against that backdrop, President Joe Biden is pressuring his pandemic response crew to speed up the pace of vaccinations and is buying more doses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine tracker shows that as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, 26.2 million doses had been delivered and 48.4 million doses delivered to the states.
In other news:
• The European drug regulator on Friday approved the use of the AstraZeneca AZN, 2.07% COVID-19 vaccine for people over 18, MarketWatch’s Lina Saigol reported. The European Medicines Agency, or EMA, said it had assessed the quality, safety and efficacy of AstraZeneca’s injection, which the pharmaceutical company developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, and recommended it for conditional marketing authorization in the European Union.
Read: When can younger, healthy people be vaccinated? A former Biden COVID-19 advisor says it will take months
• Separately, Europe stepped up its fight to secure COVID-19 vaccines on Friday after Brussels warned it would use all legal means to block the export of shots if it does not receive the vaccine doses promised by pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca AZN.
AZN,
and Pfizer, MarketWatch’s Lina Saigol reported. In a letter to four leaders of the European Union, Charles Michel, President of the European Council, said the 27-member bloc could take “urgent action” by invoking an emergency provision in the EU treaties “to address the deficit. coronavirus vaccines is approaching crisis point Several EU member states – including France, Portugal and Spain – said this week that they are suspending their vaccination programs due to vaccine shortages.
Read: AstraZeneca vaccine should only be given to children under 65, Germany advises as EU crisis deepens
• Older people are at greater risk of COVID-19 hospitalization and death, but many may not have access to the online systems that can facilitate their vaccinations and save their lives, MarketWatch’s Meera Jagannathan reported. According to a recent analysis of survey data from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging, forty-five percent of Americans ages 65 to 80 report that they have not created an account on their healthcare provider’s online patient portal system. Some older adults who may face even higher COVID-19 risk are less likely to use patient portals, the poll found: While 39% of older White adults did not have an account, nearly 50% of older Black adults had and 53% of older Spanish adults had none.
Also read: Quick Information On COVID-19 Vaccines For Seniors – Where, When, And How To Get Them
• Swiss drug company Novartis has agreed to help produce the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, according to AFP, as many countries rush to run out of supplies. The news comes after the French pharmaceutical company said earlier this week it would also help produce 125 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech shot.
Experts from the World Health Organization will begin face-to-face meetings with their Chinese counterparts in the central city of Wuhan on Friday at the start of the team’s highly anticipated investigative mission into the origins of the coronavirus, the AP reported. Those meetings should be followed by the first field visits in and around the industrial and transportation hub on Friday, WHO said on Twitter, but did not provide further details on the team’s agenda. It said the team had already asked for “detailed underlying data” and planned to speak with early responders and some of the first COVID-19 patients. “All hypotheses are on the table as the team follows science in their work to understand the origin of the COVID19 virus,” the WHO tweeted. “When members start their field visits on Friday, they should get the support, access, and data they need.”
Latest matches
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide rose above 101.6 million on Friday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University, and the death toll rose to 2.19 million. About 56 million people have recovered from COVID-19.
The US leads the world through fatalities, with 25.8 million, and fatalities, with 433,431, or about one-fifth of the global total.
Brazil has the second highest death toll with 221,547 and is in third place with 9.1 million cases.
India ranks second worldwide in cases with 10.7 million, and now fourth in deaths with 154,010, after being surpassed by Mexico.
Mexico has the third highest death toll at 155,145 and the 13th highest number of cases at 1.8 million.
The UK has 3.8 million cases and 103,324 deaths, the highest in Europe and the fifth highest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, has had 99,797 confirmed cases and 4,813 deaths, according to official figures.
What does the economy say?
Americans cut back for the second straight month in December as a record increase in coronavirus cases opened new cracks in the economy and hindered recovery, MarketWatch’s Jeffry Bartash reported.
Consumer spending fell 0.2%, the government said Friday.
The decline in spending towards the end of the year robbed the economy of momentum. Gross domestic product slowed to 4% year on year, forcing the economy to fill a number of gaping gaps.
If there’s a silver lining, spending hasn’t fallen as much as expected. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal predicted a 0.4% decline. In addition, the fall in November was not as strong as originally reported.
Read: The US economy grew 4% slower at the end of 2020, GDP shows
Meanwhile, incomes rose 0.6% in December, suggesting that consumers will have money to spend once they regain confidence in the economy. The savings rate is still extremely high at 13.7%, about twice the normal rate.
Separately, Americans were suspicious in late January but hopeful about the prospects of an economic revival later in the year once coronavirus vaccines become widely available, a study found.
According to an index from the University of Michigan, the second of two measures of consumer confidence fell from 79.2 to 79 this month.
Economists polled by Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal had predicted the index would remain at 79.2.
Still, the index had changed little from its December reading of 80.7, suggesting that Americans are looking forward rather than looking back.
Read: Consumer confidence is recovering from vaccine, Biden hopes
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and S&P 500 SPX,
were lower mid-morning trading.