More-contagious UK coronavirus mutation appears in United States
The variant is said to be more transmissible, though there s no evidence it s deadlier or makes people sicker.
A Stay Home sign in London the day after Christmas. Dinendra Haria/Getty Images For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO website.
The new coronavirus variant discovered in Britain and said to be more contagious has shown up in the US. Today we discovered Colorado s first case of the COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7, the same variant discovered in the UK, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis tweeted on Tuesday. A statement included with the tweet said the patient is a man in his 20s with no travel history. Public health officials are conducting contact tracing interviews to spot other potential cases, the statement said, adding that no close contacts with the patient have been discovered thus far.
Published: Jan 07, 2021 By Mark Terry
Without a doubt, the top topic of 2020, pretty much for any news outlet, was the COVID-19 pandemic. BioSpace ran its
first story about the virus on January 22, titled, “China Coronavirus Update: What it is, How Dangerous it is, What is Being Done.” At that time, it had infected more than 440 people and killed nine in China and the first reported case in the U.S. had been the day before.
By March, the pandemic had begun to dominate our coverage and we designated a space for general COVID-19 coverage every day. That eventually dropped to three times a week and then just once a week, although almost every day since then has included multiple stories about the pandemic and biopharma’s efforts to test and/or develop therapies or vaccines for the disease. Keeping in mind that this has dominated the news cycle, here are the top 10 stories of 2020 in no particular order.
The Phase 3 trial of another investigational Covid-19 vaccine developed by biotechnology company Novavax, Inc., has started enrolling adult volunteers, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced. In a statement issued on Monday, the NIH said that the randomised, placebo-controlled trial will enrol approximately 30,000 people at some 115 sites in the US and Mexico, reports Xinhua news agency. It will evaluate the safety and efficacy of NVX-CoV2373, the vaccine candidate. Volunteers will be asked to give informed consent prior to their participation in the trial, according to the NIH statement. They will be grouped into two cohorts: individuals 18 through 64 years old and those aged 65 and older, with a goal of enrolling at least 25 percent of all volunteers who are 65 years old or older, it said.
https://sputniknews.com/science/202012281081592567-novavax-launches-phase-3-trial-of-its-covid-19-vaccine-in-us/
To date, two COVID-19 vaccines have been approved in the US: one developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, and another made by Moderna. Both of these vaccines use messenger RNA (mRNA) to teach cells how to make a protein that triggers an immune response to COVID-19.
American company Novavax on Monday announced that it has launched a phase 3 trial of its COVID-19 vaccine, making it the fifth company to start a late-stage vaccine trial in the US.
According to a news release from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the randomized, placebo-controlled trial will enroll around 30,000 people at around 115 sites in the US and Mexico.
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Health care workers in Seoul, South Korea moving a patient with covid-19 from an ambulance to a hospital in March. (Photo: Chung Sung-Jun, Getty Images)
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Experts with the World Health Organisation issued a somber warning on Monday: The next pandemic to strike humanity could be even more devastating than covid-19 has been, especially if we don’t learn our lessons this time around.