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| Published every Friday |
| | CNN Internal AstraZeneca safety report sheds light on neurological condition suffered by vaccine trial participant CNN has obtained an internal safety report by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca that sheds light on the neurological condition suffered by one of the participants in its coronavirus vaccine clinical trial. Read more |
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Arizona Republic Coronavirus is mutating slowly, larger mutations possible, researchers say The novel coronavirus seems to mutate once every two weeks, according to a team of researchers who have analyzed genetic information from nearly 3,000 coronavirus samples in Arizona. Read more Editor’s Note: An issue that affects a vaccine, as well as the coronavirus transmission in general, is how much the virus is mutating. Here Amanda Morris speaks to a local geneticist about what we are seeing. – Christopher Brennan, Editor | |
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| | The Walrus How to Vaccinate a Planet The sprawling Medicago facility in suburban Quebec City smells like a botanical garden and sounds like an airplane hangar. Thousands of Nicotiana benthamiana plants, a close cousin of tobacco, grow in long rows amid noisy ventilation. When the plants are six or seven weeks old, maybe twenty centimetres tall, they go on a journey, lined up by the dozens onto a flatbed that’s then inverted over a tank filled with fluid. The plants get dunked. The tank seals. And the roots are trapped in the air between the liquid and the lid, so a vacuum hose can slip into that space and begin to suck. Read more |
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The Guardian How vaccine hesitancy could undermine Australia’s Covid response Intensive care doctor Rachel Heap works in the anti-vaccine capital of Australia and has seen babies die from preventable diseases Read more | |
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| | Kaiser Health News NIH and FDA Examine Serious Side Effect That Surfaced in COVID Vaccine Trial The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to follow British regulators in resuming a coronavirus vaccine trial that was halted when a participant suffered spinal cord damage, even as the National Institutes of Health has launched an investigation of the case. Read more |
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The Conversation COVID-19 isn’t the only infectious disease scientists are trying to find a vaccine for. Here are 3 others While it’s not surprising all eyes are on this vaccine race, COVID-19 isn’t the only disease for which scientists are currently trying to find a vaccine. Read more | |
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| | Union of Concerned Scientists Who Gets the First COVID-19 Vaccines? The Answer is a Complex Tangle of Science and Ethics The scale of the COVID-19 pandemic has jumpstarted an unprecedented frenzy of vaccine research, and dozens of vaccines have entered clinical trials. Forecasters predict that a vaccine could be approved within the next year — a testament to the power of scientific ingenuity, especially given that vaccines usually take at least a decade to make. Read more |
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National Geographic What happens if you catch flu and COVID-19 at the same time? Two infectious disease experts explain why this is not the year to blow off your flu shot. Read more Editor’s Note: One of the worries about this autumn has been complications as flu season starts again. Here Sarah Elizabeth Richards digs into issues such as the severity of flu and difficulties in diagnosis. – Christopher Brennan, Editor | |
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| | Washington Post GWU’s covid-19 clinical trial has met one early goal — getting Black and Latino people to join Mark M. Spradley searched online for a vaccine clinical trial the way most people go shopping. Read more |
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Nature Who gets a COVID vaccine first? Access plans are taking shape Advisory groups around the world release guidance to prioritize healthcare workers and those in front-line jobs. Read more | |
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| | Associated Press US outlines sweeping plan to provide free COVID-19 vaccines WASHINGTON — The federal government outlined a sweeping plan Wednesday to make vaccines for COVID-19 available for free to all Americans, even as polls show a strong undercurrent of skepticism rippling across the land. Read more |
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Bloomberg Why Indonesia Became a Testing Ground for a Chinese Covid-19 Vaccine The country is home to Asia’s second-worst Covid-19 outbreak, and it’s eager to take the risks. Read more | |
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| | USA Today Data, data and more data is what will make a coronavirus vaccine safe, says USA TODAY’s vaccine panel USA TODAY’s expert panel sees steady progress toward a safe and effective COVID vaccine, urge public’s patience as trials proceed and data comes in. Read more |
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New York Times Growing calls for more transparency on how how vaccine trials are run The morning after the world learned that a closely watched clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine – being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University – had been halted last week over safety concerns, the company’s chief executive disclosed that a person given the vaccine had experienced serious neurological symptoms. But the remarks were not public. Instead, the chief executive, Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca, spoke at a closed meeting organised by JP Morgan, the investment bank. Read more | |
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| | The Verge The best vaccine information requires you to let the dust settle first There’s a lot of information coming and going about the coronavirus, and the next steps for vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 — The Verge even has a newsletter dedicated to it. Read more Editor’s Note: While the world is waiting, the relationship between time and information is important for a vaccine. Here The Verge digs into biostatistics to help explain. – Christopher Brennan, Editor |
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Washington Examiner FDA moved at warp speed on COVID-19 vaccine, but the precedent may not stick Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s historic effort to deliver hundreds of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine by January, has demonstrated how quickly the Food and Drug Administration’s drug approval process can move in extreme circumstances. Read more | |
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| | New York Times From Asia to Africa, China promotes its coronavirus vaccines to win The Philippines will have quick access to a Chinese coronavirus vaccine. Latin American and Caribbean nations will receive $1 billion in loans to buy the medicine. Bangladesh will get over 100,000 free doses from a Chinese company. Read more |
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Kaiser Health News As threat of valley fever grows beyond the Southwest, push is on for vaccine One New Year’s Day, Rob Purdie woke up with a headache that wouldn’t quit. Vision problems, body aches and a slight fever followed. At the emergency room, the Bakersfield, California, resident was given antibiotics, which didn’t touch his symptoms. His headache turned into cluster headaches and the fatigue became worse. Read more | |
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| | The Telegraph (UK) ($) Oxford’s Sir John Bell: ‘We’re not going to beat the second wave’ A setback for the Oxford vaccine does not mean all is lost, the Government’s leading life sciences adviser Read more |
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Francis Crick Institute Scientists uncover the structural mechanism of coronavirus receptor binding The spike protein on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus can adopt at least ten distinct structural states, when in contact with the human virus receptor ACE2, according to research from the Francis Crick Institute published in Nature today (Thursday). Read more | |
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