Category: Covid-19

Russia Approves Covid-19 Vaccine Before Completing Phase 3 Clinical Trial

(p. A6) MOSCOW — Russia has become the first country in the world to approve a vaccine for the coronavirus, President Vladimir V. Putin announced on Tuesday, though global health authorities say the vaccine has yet to complete critical, late-stage clinical trials to determine its safety and effectiveness.

Mr. Putin, who told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday [Aug. 11, 2020] morning that the vaccine “works effectively enough,” said that his own daughter had taken it. And in a congratulatory note to the nation, he thanked the scientists who developed the vaccine for “this first, very important step for our country, and generally for the whole world.”

. . .

If Russian scientists have taken an unorthodox route to the coronavirus vaccine, it would not be the first time. Back in the 1950s, a team of researchers tested a promising, and ultimately successful, polio vaccine on their own children.

For the full story, see:

Andrew E. Kramer. “Putin Says Russia Is First to Approve Vaccine, but Skepticism Abounds.” The New York Times (Wednesday, August 12, 2020): A6.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Aug. 11, 2020, and has the title “Russia Approves Coronavirus Vaccine Before Completing Tests.”)

Shanghai Immunologist Says Phase 1 and Phase 2 Tests Show Chinese Vaccine Is Safe and “Highly Likely” to Protect Against Covid-19

(p. A8) The United Arab Emirates has become the first country outside China to approve emergency usage of a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine candidate, in a vote of confidence for a state-backed drugmaker racing global rivals to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

. . .

Tao Lina, a former immunologist with the Shanghai CDC, said in an interview that it makes sense for authorities to approve the usage of Chinese vaccines that have proved safe during the first two phases of clinical trials, given the scale of the Covid-19 crisis. Unlike medical drug treatments, vaccines work by triggering a person’s own immunity, he said. “I’m not at all worried about the safety of the vaccines,” Mr. Tao said.

While the level of efficacy of the Chinese vaccines being used including those of Sinopharm isn’t yet clear, Mr. Tao said the Chinese vaccines’ ability to induce the body to produce antibodies during previous clinical trials meant that they were highly likely to confer some degree of protection from the virus.

For the full story, see:

Chao Deng, and Rory Jones. “U.A.E. Approves Use of China-Made Covid-19 Vaccine.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, September 16, 2020): A8.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Sep. 15, 2020, and has the title “In Global Covid-19 Vaccine Race, Chinese Shot Receives First Foreign Approval.”)

China’s “Emergency-Use” Rule Allows Vaccinating Hundreds of Thousands Against Covid-19

(p. A1) A Chinese pharmaceutical company has injected hundreds of thousands of people with experimental Covid-19 vaccines, as its Western counterparts warn against administering mass vaccinations before rigorous scientific studies are complete.

China National Biotec Group Co., a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, has given two experimental vaccine candidates to hundreds of thousands of people under an emergency-use condition approved by Beijing in July [2020], the company said this week.

For the full story, see:

Chao Deng. “China Tests Vaccines on Hundreds of Thousands.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, September 12, 2020): A1 & A8.

(Note: bracketed year added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated September 12, 2020, and has the title “China Injects Hundreds of Thousands With Experimental Covid-19 Vaccines.”)

Before Covid-19, Poverty and Unemployment Were Lowest in 50 Years

(p. B8) WASHINGTON — A record-low share of Americans were living in poverty, incomes were climbing, and health insurance coverage was little changed in 2019, a government report released on Tuesday showed — though the circumstances of many have deteriorated as pandemic lockdowns and industry disruptions have thrown millions out of work.

The share of Americans living in poverty fell to 10.5 percent in 2019, the Census Bureau reported, down 1.3 percentage points from 2018. That rate is the lowest since estimates were first published in 1959.

Household incomes increased to their highest level on record dating to 1967, at $68,700 in inflation-adjusted terms. That change came as individual workers saw their earnings climb and as the total number of people working increased.

. . .

Unemployment was hovering at around 3.5 percent before the crisis took hold, the lowest in 50 years, and wages were steadily rising.

For the full story, see:

Jeanna Smialek, Sarah Kliff and Alan Rappeport. “Census Shows Record-Low Poverty in U.S. Before Virus Struck.” The New York Times (Wednesday, September 16, 2020): B8.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 15, 2020, and has the title “U.S. Poverty Hit a Record Low Before the Pandemic Recession.”)

Chinese Communist Authoritarian System Inhibited Local Officials From Sharing Covid-19 Information

(p. A5) Communist Party leaders oversee an authoritarian system that inhibits local officials from freely sharing information with national-level officials, they said, and this has had deadly consequences for the world. It is a version of the so-called Chernobyl effect, where local officials avoid telling central authorities about a catastrophic event until it is far too late, American officials said.

Moreover, officials in Beijing have tried to spread disinformation about the origins of the virus. The C.I.A. has said since at least February [2020] that Chinese central officials were not sharing everything they knew about the virus — including a more accurate case count — or doing all they could to help the world prepare for the pandemic.

For the full story, see:

Edward Wong, Julian E. Barnes and Zolan Kanno-Youngs. “Local Officials Hid Dangers From Beijing, Says U.S. Report.” The New York Times (Thursday, August 20, 2020): A5.

(Note: bracketed year added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Sept. [sic] 17, 2020, and has the title “Local Officials in China Hid Coronavirus Dangers From Beijing, U.S. Agencies Find.”)

Blocking Some of the Virus Reduces Odds of Catching Covid-19 and Reduces Odds of a Severe Case, If Covid-19 Is Caught

(p. D8) As the world awaits the arrival of a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine, a team of researchers has come forward with a provocative new theory: that masks might help to crudely immunize some people against the virus.

The unproven idea, described in a commentary published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, is inspired by the age-old concept of variolation, the deliberate exposure to a pathogen to generate a protective immune response. First tried against smallpox, the risky practice eventually fell out of favor, but paved the way for the rise of modern vaccines.

Masked exposures are no substitute for a bona fide vaccine. But data from animals infected with the coronavirus, as well as insights gleaned from other diseases, suggest that masks, by cutting down on the number of viruses that encounter a person’s airway, might reduce the wearer’s chances of getting sick. And if a small number of pathogens still slip through, the researchers argue, these might prompt the body to produce immune cells that can remember the virus and stick around to fight it off again.

. . .

Experiments in hamsters have hinted at a connection between dose and disease. Earlier this year, a team of researchers in China found that hamsters housed behind a barrier made of surgical masks were less likely to get infected by the coronavirus. And those who did contract the virus became less sick than other animals without masks to protect them.

. . .

But despite decades of research, the mechanics of airborne transmission largely remain “a black box,” said Jyothi Rengarajan, an expert in vaccines and infectious disease at Emory University who was not involved in the commentary.

That is partly because it is difficult to pin down the infectious dose required to sicken a person, Dr. Rengarajan said. Even if researchers eventually settle on an average dose, the outcome will vary from person to person, since factors like genetics, a person’s immune status and the architecture of their nasal passages can all influence how much virus can colonize the respiratory tract.

For the full story, see:

Katherine J. Wu. “Masks May Act as a Crude Vaccine.” The New York Times (Tuesday, September 15, 2020): D8.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 8, 2020, and has the title “A New Theory Asks: Could a Mask Be a Crude ‘Vaccine’?”)

Asymptomatic Transmission of Covid-19 Reduces Value of Fever Checks

(p. A4) . . . while health officials have endorsed masks and social distancing as effective measures for curbing the spread of the coronavirus, some experts scoff at fever checks. Taking temperatures at entry points is nothing more than theater, they say, a gesture that is unlikely to screen out many infected individuals, and one that offers little more than the illusion of safety.

. . .

. . . a growing body of evidence suggests that many of those who are driving transmission are so-called silent carriers — people who have been infected but feel fine, and don’t have a fever or any other symptoms.

. . .

“We now have a better understanding of Covid-19 transmission that indicates symptom-based screening has limited effectiveness because people with Covid-19 may have no symptoms or fever at the time of screening, or only mild symptoms,” the C.D.C. said in a statement.

. . .

Evidence of asymptomatic spread dates back to early in the pandemic, but has been mounting ever since. A recent study from South Korea published in JAMA Internal Medicine in August offered even more proof, finding that infected individuals who don’t feel ill may carry just as much virus in their nose, throat and lungs as those with symptoms — and for almost as long.

. . .

A. David Paltiel, a professor of health policy and management at Yale School of Public Health, says these individuals are the “silent spreaders” who are driving transmission and sparking superspreading events.

“You are maximally infectious before you exhibit symptoms, if you exhibit any symptoms at all,” Dr. Paltiel said. “You can be exposed and incubating the virus, and be beginning to shed massive amounts of transmissible virus and be a superspreader, without actually exhibiting any symptoms like a fever.”

For the full story, see:

Roni Caryn Rabin. “Fever Checks Are on the Rise, but Are They Effective Gatekeepers?” The New York Times (Monday, September 14, 2020): A4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated September 14, 2020, and has the title “Fever Checks Are No Safeguard Against Covid-19.”)

The paper in JAMA Internal Medicine discussed above is:

Lee, Seungjae, Tark Kim, Eunjung Lee, Cheolgu Lee, Hojung Kim, Heejeong Rhee, Se Yoon Park, Hyo-Ju Son, Shinae Yu, Jung Wan Park, Eun Ju Choo, Suyeon Park, Mark Loeb, and Tae Hyong Kim. “Clinical Course and Molecular Viral Shedding among Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Patients with Sars-Cov-2 Infection in a Community Treatment Center in the Republic of Korea.” JAMA Internal Medicine (published online in advance of print Aug. 6, 2020). Doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.3862

Older Men Produce Fewer T-Cells Than Older Women

(p. A7) The coronavirus may infect anyone, young or old, but older men are up to twice as likely to become severely sick and to die as women of the same age.

Why? The first study to look at immune response to the coronavirus by sex has turned up a clue: Men produce a weaker immune response to the virus than do women, the researchers concluded.

The findings, published on Wednesday [Aug. 26, 2020] in Nature, suggest that men, particularly those over age 60, may need to depend more on vaccines to protect against the infection.

“Natural infection is clearly failing” to spark adequate immune responses in men, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who led the work.

. . .

Over all, the scientists found, the women’s bodies produced more so-called T cells, which can kill virus-infected cells and stop the infection from spreading.

Men showed much weaker activation of T cells, and that lag was linked to how sick the men became. The older the men, the weaker their T cell responses.

“When they age, they lose their ability to stimulate T cells,” Dr. Iwasaki said. “If you look at the ones that really failed to make T cells, they were the ones who did worse with disease.”

For the full story, see:

Apoorva Mandavilli. “New Clue on Why Men Are Hit Harder.” The New York Times (Thursday, August 27, 2020): A7.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Aug. 27 [sic], 2020, and has the title “Why Does the Coronavirus Hit Men Harder? A New Clue.”)

The paper in Nature discussed above is:

Takahashi, Takehiro, Mallory K. Ellingson, Patrick Wong, Benjamin Israelow, Carolina Lucas, Jon Klein, Julio Silva, Tianyang Mao, Ji Eun Oh, Maria Tokuyama, Peiwen Lu, Arvind Venkataraman, Annsea Park, Feimei Liu, Amit Meir, Jonathan Sun, Eric Y. Wang, Arnau Casanovas-Massana, Anne L. Wyllie, Chantal B. F. Vogels, Rebecca Earnest, Sarah Lapidus, Isabel M. Ott, Adam J. Moore, Kelly Anastasio, Michael H. Askenase, Maria Batsu, Hannah Beatty, Santos Bermejo, Sean Bickerton, Kristina Brower, Molly L. Bucklin, Staci Cahill, Melissa Campbell, Yiyun Cao, Edward Courchaine, Rupak Datta, Giuseppe DeIuliis, Bertie Geng, Laura Glick, Ryan Handoko, Chaney Kalinich, William Khoury-Hanold, Daniel Kim, Lynda Knaggs, Maxine Kuang, Eriko Kudo, Joseph Lim, Melissa Linehan, Alice Lu-Culligan, Amyn A. Malik, Anjelica Martin, Irene Matos, David McDonald, Maksym Minasyan, Subhasis Mohanty, M. Catherine Muenker, Nida Naushad, Allison Nelson, Jessica Nouws, Marcella Nunez-Smith, Abeer Obaid, Isabel Ott, Hong-Jai Park, Xiaohua Peng, Mary Petrone, Sarah Prophet, Harold Rahming, Tyler Rice, Kadi-Ann Rose, Lorenzo Sewanan, Lokesh Sharma, Denise Shepard, Erin Silva, Michael Simonov, Mikhail Smolgovsky, Eric Song, Nicole Sonnert, Yvette Strong, Codruta Todeasa, Jordan Valdez, Sofia Velazquez, Pavithra Vijayakumar, Haowei Wang, Annie Watkins, Elizabeth B. White, Yexin Yang, Albert Shaw, John B. Fournier, Camila D. Odio, Shelli Farhadian, Charles Dela Cruz, Nathan D. Grubaugh, Wade L. Schulz, Aaron M. Ring, Albert I. Ko, Saad B. Omer, Akiko Iwasaki, and Impact research team Yale. “Sex Differences in Immune Responses That Underlie Covid-19 Disease Outcomes.” Nature (published online in advance of print Aug. 26, 2020). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2700-3

Plastic Bag Bans Are Reversed Because Covid-19 Clings to Reusable Bags

(p. 8A) PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Just weeks ago, cities and even states across the U.S. were busy banning straws, limiting takeout containers and mandating that shoppers bring reusable bags or pay a small fee as the movement to eliminate single-use plastics took hold in mainstream America.

What a difference a pandemic makes.

In a matter of weeks, hard-won bans to reduce the use of plastics — and particularly plastic shopping sacks — across the U.S. have come under fire amid worries about the virus clinging to reusable bags, cups and straws.

Governors in Massachusetts and Illinois have banned or strongly discouraged the use of reusable grocery bags. Oregon suspended its brand-new ban on plastic bags this week, and cities from Bellingham, Washington, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, have announced a hiatus on plastic bag bans as the coronavirus rages.

For the full story, see:

AP. “Virus Deals a Blow to Bans on Plastic Bags.” Omaha World-Herald (Monday, April 20, 2020): 8A.

How “Blind” Is a Double-Blind Trial When Volunteers Know the Side-Effects of the Vaccine?

(p. A8) George Washington University had vaccinated 129 people since its share of the trials started. I would be No. 130. Altogether, Moderna planned to enroll 30,000 people in its trial. Half would be given the actual vaccine and half would get the placebo. The protocol called for two shots spaced a month apart.

Finally, it was time for my injection, which is when things got a little weird.

“We have to leave you now, because this is a double-blind study and we are blinded,” Dr. Malkin said. “You’ve been randomized.”

Before I could ask her to translate what she had just said, she was gone, and two nurses arrived with my vaccine. The first nurse left, and the second nurse, Linda Witkin, asked whether I was right-handed or left-handed, then proceeded to inject my right arm.

“Which one are you giving me, the vaccine or the placebo?” I asked. She gave me a look, clearly not pleased with my questioning.

. . .

With the Moderna trial, the side effects reported so far have been typical: fever, chills, muscle and joint soreness.

. . .

The night after my shot, I took my temperature: 97.5. I felt under my arms for glandular swelling and felt only mild joint pain.

. . .

“You all gave me the placebo, didn’t you?” I demanded of Dr. Diemert on Wednesday, during my one-week checkup. “I cannot believe I went through all of this and got the placebo.”

He told me that the actual vaccine shot was more “viscous” than the placebo, which was why neither he nor Dr. Malkin could be in the room when I got it, because they would have been able to easily determine. And so he really couldn’t answer because the double-blind program is meant to protect doctors like him from patients like me. He said I wasn’t to badger Ms. Witkin, if I ever even saw her again. He also said that most people reacted more to the second shot than the first one.

I texted the peanut gallery, “I feel no different.”

For the full story, see:

Helene Cooper. “From Reporting on Ebola to Being a Volunteer in a Covid-19 Vaccine Trial.” The New York Times (Saturday, September 12, 2020): A8.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sep. 11, 2020, and has the title “Covering Ebola Didn’t Prepare Me for This: I Volunteered for the Covid-19 Vaccine Trial.”)

Net-Zero Emissions Costs 16% of GDP Per Year; Climate Change at Most Costs 4% of GDP Per Year

(p. C1) For decades, climate activists have exhorted people in the wealthy West to change their personal behavior to cut carbon emissions. We have been told to drive less, to stop flying and, in general, to reduce consumption—all in the name of saving the planet from ever higher temperatures.

The Covid-19 pandemic has now achieved these goals, at least temporarily. With the enormous reduction in global economic activity, it has been as if people around the world suddenly decided to heed the activists and curtail their travel and consumption. Largely as a result of the crisis, the International Energy Agency recently concluded, “global CO2 emissions are expected to decline by 8% in 2020, or almost 2.6 [billion tons], to levels of 10 years ago.”

It’s an unprecedented and impressive drop in emissions—by far the biggest year-to-year reduction since World War II. Unfortunately, it will have almost no discernible impact on climate change. Glen Peters, the research director at the Center for International Climate Research in Norway, estimates that by 2100, this year’s enormous reduction will bring down global temperatures by less than one five-hundredth of a degree Fahrenheit.

. . .

(p. C4) Sadly, the vast majority of the actions that individuals can take in the service of reducing emissions—and certainly all of those that are achievable without entirely disrupting everyday life—make little practical difference. That’s true even if all of us do them.

. . .

Achieving global “net zero” emissions in three decades, as a growing number of activists and politicians advocate, would require the equivalent of a series of ongoing and ever-tightening lockdowns until 2050.

. . .

William Nordhaus of Yale, who in 2018 was awarded the first Nobel Prize for work in climate economics, has tabulated all of the estimates of climate-related economic damages from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and peer-reviewed studies to determine the total impact of different levels of global temperature increases. He found that, by 2050, the net negative impact of unmitigated climate change—that is, with current emissions trends unabated—is equivalent to losing about 1% of global GDP every year. By 2100 the loss will be about 4% of global GDP a year.

For comparison, what would it cost to reach net-zero by 2050, through cutting emissions and mandating new energy sources? So far, only one country, New Zealand, has commissioned an independent estimate. It turns out the optimistic cost is a whopping 16% of GDP each year by 2050. That projected figure exceeds what New Zealand spends today on social security, welfare, health, education, police, courts, defense, environment and every other part of government combined.

As this simple comparison suggests, suffering a 16% loss of GDP to reduce a problem estimated to cost 1% or even 4% of GDP is a bad way to help. That is especially true for the many parts of the world that are still in the early stages of economic development and desperately need growth to improve the lives of their impoverished populations.

For the full commentary, see:

Bjorn Lomborg. “Lockdowns Highlight The Climate Challenge.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, July 11, 2020): C1 & C4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the same date as the print version, and has the title “The Lockdown’s Lessons for Climate Activism.” Where there are slight differences in wording between the versions in the passages quoted, the online version appears above. The online version does not list an author. I cite James Barron, who is listed as the author in the print version.)

Lomborg’s commentary, quoted above, is related to his book:

Lomborg, Bjørn. False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet. New York: Basic Books, 2020.