Novavax vaccine seems effective in UK study; COVID-19 variant from South Africa detected in US
Novavax Inc. said Thursday that its COVID-19 vaccine appears 89% effective based on early findings from a British study and that it also seems to work — though not quite as well — against new mutated strains of the virus circulating in that country and South Africa.
The announcement comes amid worry about whether a variety of vaccines being rolled out around the world will be strong enough to protect against worrisome new variants — and also the world needs new types of shoots to boost scarce supplies.
The study of 15,000 people in Britain is still underway. But an interim analysis found 62 participants so far have been diagnosed with COVID-19 — only six of them in the group that got vaccine and the rest who received dummy shots.
In other developments:
- A new variant of the coronavirus emerged Thursday in the United States, posing yet another public health challenge in a country already losing more than 3,000 people to COVID-19 every day.
- State lawmakers around the U.S. are moving to curb the authority of governors and top health officials to impose emergency restrictions such as mask rules and business shutdowns.
- President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered government health insurance markets to reopen for a special sign-up window, offering uninsured Americans a haven as the spread of COVID-19 remains dangerously high and vaccines aren’t yet widely available.
- Democratic lawmakers are urging U.S. health officials to address racial disparity in vaccine access nationwide in a letter sent to the acting Health and Human Services secretary.
- The U.S. Government Accountability Office is making some new recommendations related to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the vaccine rollout has not met expectations.
- A World Health Organization team emerged from quarantine in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Thursday to start field work in a fact-finding mission on the origins of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Mexicans have grown accustomed to waking to President Andres Manuel López Obrador as he conducts marathon news conferences every morning, and his public absence since the weekend announcement of his illness is spurring calls for the president who touts the transparency of his administration to share more about his own health.
- The European Union is looking at legal means to guarantee the delivery of COVID-19 vaccine doses it bought from AstraZeneca and other drugmakers.
- In Europe beyond the medical complexity, the humanitarian needs and the personal pain, the pandemic is also an intense political fight.
For more summaries and full reports, select from the articles below. Scroll further for the latest virus numbers.
