COVID-19 Timeline: January 2021
January 13, 2022
At Bioethics.com we have kept up with the spread of COVID-19 and the related bioethical questions that this pandemic brings. The posts that follow highlights news from January 2021 and were originally posted at Bioethics.com. These posts focus on the bioethical issues that medical professionals, bioethicists, public health officials, and scientists grappled with as SARS-CoV-2 swept the globe.
January 4: “Pfizer and BioNTech Speed Up Timeline for Offering Covid-19 Vaccine to Placebo Volunteers” by Matthew Herper, STAT News
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech plan to offer their Covid-19 vaccine to any clinical trial volunteer who received placebo by March 1, several months earlier than initially planned.
January 4: “Britain Takes a Gamble with Covid-19 Vaccines, Upping the Stakes for the Rest of Us” by Helen Branswell, STAT News
In recent days, the British have said they will stretch out the interval between the administration of the two doses required for Covid-19 vaccines already in use — potentially to as long as three months, instead of the recommended three or four weeks. And they have said they will permit the first dose and second dose for any one person to be from different vaccine manufacturers, if the matching vaccine is not available.
January 4: “‘Last Responders’ Brace for Surge in Covid Deaths Across US” by Cindy Loose, Kaiser Health News
As covid-19 has spread from big cities to rural communities, it has stressed not only hospitals, but also what some euphemistically call “last responders.” The crush has overwhelmed morgues, funeral homes and religious leaders, required ingenuity and even changed the rituals of honoring the dead.
January 4: “World Leaders Urged to Make Covid Vaccine Available to Millions of Refugees” by Martin Chulov, The Guardian
Global humanitarian figures and NGOs have urged world leaders to urgently make Covid-19 vaccinations available to millions of refugees and others displaced by war, as the pandemic continues to overwhelm some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.
January 4: “Native Americans Reliant on Hospital Feel Abandoned by U.S. During Pandemic” by Mark Walker, The New York Times
The Indian Health Service had a problem. Fed up with substandard care, one of the two pueblos whose federal funding helped support the health service’s Acoma-Cañoncito-Laguna hospital in Acoma Pueblo, N.M., decided to take its share of the hospital’s budget and start its own independently run clinic. But doing so left the I.H.S. short of money for the hospital. In effect, the health service was caught between the desire of one constituency to take control of its own health care and the need of another to keep a well-established hospital operating.
January 5: “Covid-19: Experts Question Vaccine Approvals, Say Key Info Must Be Made Public” by Rema Nagarajan, Times of India
Several experts have raised questions on the approval process of the two Covid-19 vaccines, Covishield of Serum Institute and Covaxin of Bharat Biotech by the drug controller general of India (DCGI). Former president of the International Association of Bioethics, Dr. Anant Bhan, pointed out that the only other countries to approve vaccines without making the efficacy data public were Russia and China.
January 5: “LA County Paramedics Told Not to Transport Some Patients with Low Chance of Survival” by Jaclyn Diaz, NPR
Paramedics in Southern California are being told to conserve oxygen and not to bring patients to the hospital who have little chance of survival as Los Angeles County grapples with a new wave of COVID-19 patients that is expected to get worse in the coming days. The Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency issued a directive Monday that ambulance crews should administer supplemental oxygen only to patients whose oxygen saturation levels fall below 90%. In a separate memo from the county’s EMS Agency, paramedic crews have been told not to transfer patients who experience cardiac arrest unless spontaneous circulation can be restored on the scene.
January 6: “Blood Plasma Reduces Risk of Severe Covid-19 if Given Early” by Katherine J. Wu, The New York Times
A small but rigorous clinical trial in Argentina has found that blood plasma from recovered Covid-19 patients can keep older adults from getting seriously sick with the coronavirus — if they get the therapy within days of the onset of the illness. The results, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, are some of the first to conclusively point toward the oft-discussed treatment’s beneficial effects.
January 6: “Covid-19 Immunity Likely Lasts for Years” by Neel V. Patel, MIT Technology Review
Covid-19 patients who recovered from the disease still have robust immunity from the coronavirus eight months after infection, according to a new study. The result is an encouraging sign that the authors interpret to mean immunity to the virus probably lasts for many years, and it should alleviate fears that the covid-19 vaccine would require repeated booster shots to protect against the disease and finally get the pandemic under control.
January 6: “CDC: Severe Allergic Reaction to COVID-19 Vaccine ‘Exceedingly Rare’” by Brian P. Dunleavy, UPI
A severe allergic reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine is “exceedingly rare,” reported by 21 of 1.9 million people in the United States who have received the vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday.
January 7: “Death of Florida Doctor After Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine Under Investigation” by Karen Weintraub, USA Today
A Florida doctor has died several weeks after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, although it’s not yet clear whether his death Monday was related to the shot he received on Dec. 18. Dr. Gregory Michael, 56, an OB-GYN at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, died after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke apparently resulting from a lack of platelets.
January 8: “HHS: States Can Vaccinate Lower-Priority Groups if Doses Would Otherwise Sit in Freezer” by David Ingram, NBC News
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said Wednesday that he is advising states to begin vaccinating lower-priority groups against Covid-19 if the doses they have on hand would otherwise be sitting in freezers.
January 8: “EU Regulators OK Increasing Doses from Virus Vaccine Vials” by Samuel Petrequin and Mike Corder, Associated Press
The European Union’s drug agency on Friday approved doctors drawing one more dose from each vial of the coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech, in a move that — combined with the purchase of 300 million extra shots of the serum — could speed up the pace of vaccinations in the 27-nation bloc.
January 8: “Vaccine Rollout Hits Snag as Health Workers Balk at Shots” by Bernard Condon, Matt Sedensky, and Carla K. Johnson, ABC News
The desperately awaited vaccination drive against the coronavirus in the U.S. is running into resistance from an unlikely quarter: Surprising numbers of health care workers who have seen firsthand the death and misery inflicted by COVID-19 are refusing shots. It is happening in nursing homes and, to a lesser degree, in hospitals, with employees expressing what experts say are unfounded fears of side effects from vaccines that were developed at record speed.
January 11: “Hospitalization Risk Four Times Higher in Blacks with T1D, COVID-19” by Miriam E. Tucker, Medscape
After adjustment for health insurance status and other potential confounders, the difference in DKA rates in COVID-19 was a significant fourfold higher in Black versus White patients with type 1 diabetes. For Hispanic patients with type 1 diabetes the DKA risk was double that seen in White patients, but that difference didn’t achieve statistical significance. All patients with DKA were hospitalized.
January 12: “Going Big: US Dispensing Shots at Stadiums and Fairgrounds” by Lisa Maria Pane, Patty Nieberg, and Julie Watson, Associated Press
The U.S. is entering the second month of the biggest vaccination drive in history with a major expansion of the campaign, opening football stadiums, major league ballparks, fairgrounds and convention centers to inoculate a larger and more diverse pool of people.
January 13: “Data Fuel Debate Over Whether J&J’s One-Dose Covid Vaccine Will Measure Up” by Matthew Herper, STAT News
Johnson & Johnson published updated early data on its Covid-19 vaccine Wednesday, showing that it provided participants in a clinical trial with at least some immunity after one dose. The data, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, offer only hints to a tantalizing question: Could the vaccine, given as a single shot, perform as well as the vaccines that U.S. regulators have already authorized, which are given as two?
January 13: “The Coronavirus Variants: What You Need to Know” by Marisa Fernandez, Axios
The big picture: Viruses mutate, often without impacting the severity of disease or how the virus spreads. But sometimes mutations are consequential for public health and scientists say it’s important to monitor them. Both Pfizer and Moderna are in the process of testing their vaccines against the variants. Pfizer and BioNTech said Thursday the mutation N501Y found in both variants B.1.1.7 and 501.V2 was tested against their vaccine and found “no reduction in neutralization activity against the virus.” But there are multiple mutations and more studies are underway.
January 13: “Critical Care Staff Suffer Trauma and Severe Anxiety Due to COVID-19–UK Study” by Kate Kelland, Reuters
Nearly half of staff working in intensive care units (ICU) in England in the COVID-19 pandemic have severe anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, with some reporting feeling they’d be better off dead, according to a study published on Wednesday. Many ICU nurses and doctors meet the clinical threshold for PTSD, anxiety or problem drinking, and symptoms are so severe that some reported contemplating self-harm or suicide.
January 14: “The Covid-19 Death Toll Is Even Worse Than It Looks” by Paul Overberg, Jon Kamp, and Daniel Michaels, graphics by Lindsay Huth, The Wall Street Journal
The recorded death count from the Covid-19 pandemic as of Thursday is nearing 2 million. The true extent is far worse. More than 2.8 million people have lost their lives due to the pandemic, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 59 countries and jurisdictions. This tally offers the most comprehensive view yet of the pandemic’s global impact. Deaths in these places last year surged more than 12% above average levels.
January 14: “Oxygen Shortage in Amazon City Forces Mass Patient Transfer” by Mauricio Savarese and David Biller, ABC News
Scores of COVID-19 patients in the Amazon rainforest’s biggest city will be transferred out of state as the local health system collapses and dwindling stocks of oxygen tanks mean Brazilians have started to die breathless at home. Doctors in Manaus, a city of 2 million people, are choosing which patients to treat and at least one of the city’s cemeteries asks mourners to line up to enter and bury their dead.
January 15: “Feds Plead for Greater use of Monoclonal Antibodies to Fight COVID” by Alicia Ault, Medscape
Federal officials are urging healthcare professionals and patients to use monoclonal antibody treatments to help stave off more severe COVID-19 illness, and have now set up three federally supported infusion sites. In its push, the government also has posted an online locator for sites offering the therapies and is encouraging use at long-term care facilities and other alternative locations.
January 15: “Pfizer Temporarily Reduces European Deliveries of Vaccine” by Jan M. Olsen, Associated Press
U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer confirmed Friday [January 15] it will temporarily reduce deliveries to Europe of its COVID-19 vaccine while it upgrades production capacity to 2 billion doses per year.
January 15: “EU Regulator: Hackers ‘Manipulated’ Stolen Vaccine Documents” by Maria Cheng, ABC News
The European Union’s drug regulator said Friday that COVID-19 vaccine documents stolen from its servers in a cyberattack have been not only leaked to the web, but “manipulated” by hackers. The European Medicines Agency said that an ongoing investigation into the cyberattack showed that hackers obtained emails and documents from November related to the evaluation of experimental coronavirus vaccines.
January 15: “In LA, Ambulances Circle for Hours and ICUs Are Full. Is This What Covid-19 Has in Store for the Rest of the Country?” by Usha Lee McFarling, STAT News
The situation here is dire. Every minute, 10 people test positive for Covid-19. Every eight minutes, someone dies. Ambulances circle for hours, unable to find ERs that can accept patients. Hospitals are running out of oxygen. ICU capacity is at zero. Patients lie in hallways and tents. Emergency room nurses have more patients than they can handle — sometimes six at a time. The National Guard has arrived, not to help treat patients, but to manage the flood of bodies.
January 15: “China COVID Vaccine Reports Mixed Results–What Does That Mean for the Pandemic?” by Smriti Mallapaty, Nature
Long-awaited results about the effectiveness of a leading Chinese COVID-19 vaccine were tinged with disappointment and confusion this week.
January 15: “CVS and Walgreens Under Fire for Slow Pace of Vaccination in Nursing Homes” by Rachel Bluth and Lauren Weber, Kaiser Health News
The effort to vaccinate some of the country’s most vulnerable residents against covid-19 has been slowed by a federal program that sends retail pharmacists into nursing homes — accompanied by layers of bureaucracy and logistical snafus.
January 18: “A Troubling New Pattern Among the Coronavirus Variants” by Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic
For most of 2020, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 jumped from human to human, accumulating mutations at a steady rate of two per month—not especially impressive for a virus. These mutations have largely had little effect. But recently, three distinct versions of the virus seem to have independently converged on some of the same mutations, despite being thousands of miles apart in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil.
January 18: “WHO: Just 25 Covid Vaccine Doses Administered in Low-Income Countries” by Michael Safi, The Guardian
The world is on the edge of a “catastrophic moral failure” in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, with just 25 doses administered across all poor countries compared with 39m in wealthier ones, the head of the World Health Organization has said.
January 18: “Egypt Denied an Oxygen Failure Killed Covid Patients. We Found That It Did.” by Mona El-Naggar and Yousur Al-Hlou, The New York Times
Witnesses, including medical staff and relatives of patients, said in interviews that the oxygen pressure had fallen to precipitously low levels. At least three patients, they said, and possibly a fourth, had died of oxygen deprivation. A close analysis of the video by doctors in Egypt and the United States confirmed that the chaotic scene in the I.C.U. indicated an interruption in the oxygen supply. The fatal oxygen shortage was the end result of a cascade of problems at the hospital, our investigation found.
January 19: “COVID-19 Patients Treated in Busy ICUs at Higher Risk for Death, Study Finds” by Brian P. Dunleavy, UPI
COVID-19 patients treated in hospital intensive care units during periods of increased demand are nearly twice as likely to die from the disease compared to those who receive care during low-demand periods, a study published Tuesday by JAMA Network Open said.
January 19: “Panel: China, WHO Should Have Acted Quicker to Stop Pandemic” by Maria Cheng and Jamey Keaten, Associated Press
A panel of experts commissioned by the World Health Organization has criticized China and other countries for not moving to stem the initial outbreak of the coronavirus earlier and questioned whether the U.N. health agency should have labeled it a pandemic sooner.
January 20: “Covid Trials for Kids Get Started with First Results by Mid-2021” by Suzi Ring and Riley Griffin, Bloomberg
In the U.S., more than 14 million Covid-19 shots have been given since mid-December, mainly to health workers, the elderly and those at high risk. To defeat the pandemic and fully revive the economy, children will also have to be immunized, experts say. To that end, trials to make sure vaccines are safe for the young are beginning in earnest.
January 20: “What’s Behind Varying Efficacy Data for Sinovac’s COVID-19 Vaccine?” by Reuters Staff, republished on Medscape
New efficacy data from Brazil on Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine, for which there are now four widely different success rates, raised more questions than answers, as many developing countries pin their hopes on the CoronaVac to end the pandemic. Here are potential factors contributing to CoronaVac’s varying efficacy rates and expert interpretations.
January 20: “Chinese Media Criticize Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine, Tout Local Shots” by Reuters
Chinese state media outlets have run a series of articles criticising Western COVID-19 vaccines in the past week, including Pfizer’s, while touting China-made vaccines as safer and more accessible. The reports have come as China’s vaccines, which are being rolled out to countries including Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey, have faced criticism in the West for insufficient data disclosure.
January 20: “States Report Vaccine Shortages and Cancel Appointments” by Michael Hill and Jennifer Peltz, ABC News
The push to inoculate Americans against the coronavirus is hitting a roadblock: A number of states are reporting they are running out of vaccine, and tens of thousands of people who managed to get appointments for a first dose are seeing them canceled.
January 21: “Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine Works Just as Well Against Variant First Detected in U.K., Study Indicates” by Andrew Joseph, STAT News
The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech appears to work just as well against a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus first identified in the United Kingdom as it does against earlier forms of the pathogen, the companies reported in a study Wednesday.
January 21: “Controversy Flares Over Ivermectin for COVID-19” by Marcia Frellick, Medscape
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has dropped its recommendation against the inexpensive antiparasitic drug ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19, and the agency now advises it can’t recommend for or against its use, leaving the decision to physicians and their patients.
January 21: “Lilly: Drug Can Prevent COVID-19 Illness in Nursing Homes” by Tom Murphy, Associated Press
Drug maker Eli Lilly said Thursday its antibody drug can prevent COVID-19 illness in residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care locations. It’s the first major study to show such a treatment may prevent illness in a group that has been devastated by the pandemic.
January 21: “Search for Oxygen Tank Refills Routine for Peruvians” by Mauricio Munoz, ABC News
In the middle of what was once a sandy desert, on the outskirts of Peru’s capital, a new routine has emerged for many of the residents of the densely populated city of Villa El Salvador. With the lives of friends or relatives at stake because of the new coronavirus, people are spending their days searching for a place to buy oxygen, preferably without having to spend their life savings.
January 22: “In U.K. Hospitals, a Desperate Battle Against a Threat Many Saw Coming” by Benjamin Mueller, The New York Times
As a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus pounds Britain’s overstretched National Health Service, health care workers say the government’s failure to anticipate a wintertime crush of infections has left them resorting to ever more desperate measures.
January 22: “CDC Reports Rare Allergic Reactions to Moderna’s Covid-19 Vaccine” by Helen Branswell, STAT News
The Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, like the one made by Pfizer and BioNTech, appears to induce rare anaphylactic reactions in a small number of people who receive the vaccine, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest.
January 22: “Top Lebanese Hospitals Fight Exhausting Battle Against Virus” by Fay Abuelgasim, ABC News
In recent weeks, Lebanon has seen a dramatic increase in virus cases, following the holiday season when restrictions were eased and thousands of expatriates flew home for a visit. Now, hospitals across the country are almost completely out of beds. Oxygen tanks, ventilators and most critically, medical staff, are in extremely short supply.
January 22: “Are COVID Vaccination Programs Working? Scientists Seek First Clues” by Smriti Mallapaty, Nature
The results from Israel are among the first to report the impact of vaccines administered to people outside clinical trials. They provide an early indication that the two-dose RNA-based vaccine developed by Pfizer–BioNTech can prevent infection or limit its duration in some vaccinated people. In a preliminary analysis of 200,000 people older than 60 who received the vaccine, compared with a matched group of 200,000 who did not, researchers found that the chances of testing positive for the virus were 33% lower two weeks after the first injection.
January 25: “Exclusive: Scarce Niche Syringes Complicate U.S. Plan to Squeeze More COVID Shots from Pfizer Vials” by Carl O’Donnell, Reuters
The U.S. government’s effort to squeeze more doses from Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine vials is spurring unanticipated demand for specialized syringes that the world’s largest syringe supplier says exceeds existing capacity.
January 25: “Exclusive: AstraZeneca to Supply 31 Million COVID-19 Shots to EU in First Quarter, a 60% Cut–EU Source” by Francesco Guarascio and Ludwig Burger, Reuters
AstraZeneca Plc has informed European Union officials on Friday it would cut deliveries of its COVID-19 vaccine to the bloc by 60% to 31 million doses in the first quarter of the year due to production problems, a senior official told Reuters.
January 25: “In a Major Setback, Merk to Stop Developing Its Two Covid-19 Vaccines and Focus on Therapies” by Matthew Herper and Helen Branswell, STAT News
Merck said Monday it will stop developing both of the current formulations of the Covid-19 vaccines the company was working on, citing inadequate immune responses to the shots. Work will continue on at least one of the vaccines, which is being developed in partnership with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), to see if using a different route of administration would improve how effective it is.
January 25: “Moderna’s Vaccine Is Less Potent Against One Coronavirus Variant But Still Protective, Company Says” by Andrew Joseph, STAT News
Moderna is studying adding booster doses to its vaccine regimen after finding its Covid-19 vaccine was less potent against a coronavirus variant that was first identified in South Africa, the company said Monday.
January 26: “Communities of Color Falling Behind in America’s Vaccine Effort” by Caitlin Owens, Axios
In cities across the U.S., the neighborhoods hardest-hit by the coronavirus are being vaccinated at a slower rate than their wealthier, whiter counterparts. Why it matters: Preventing socioeconomic disparities in the vaccination process was always going to be an uphill battle, but policy changes in response to the sluggish rollout have generally prioritized speed over equity.
January 27: “C.D.C Officials Say Most Available Evidence Indicates Schools Can Be Safe If Precautions Are Taken on Campus and in the Community” by Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times
On Tuesday, federal health officials weighed in with a call for returning children to the nation’s classrooms as soon as possible, saying the “preponderance of available evidence” indicates that in-person instruction can be carried out safely as long as mask-wearing and social distancing are maintained. But local officials also must be willing to impose limits on other settings — like indoor dining, bars or poorly ventilated gyms — in order to keep infection rates low in the community at large, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in the journal JAMA and in a follow-up interview.
January 27: “Coronavirus in Zimbabwe: ‘We Need Vaccines Now’” by BBC
As warnings of a “moral catastrophe” over the availability of coronavirus vaccines in poorer countries grow, Zimbabwean psychiatrist Dr Dixon Chibanda describes how it would help him and the special team of grandmothers he works with.
January 27: “Battling COVID-19 Proving Deadly for Peru’s Doctor Corps” by Regina Garcia Cano and Mauricio Munoz, Associated Press
Black-and-white pictures of dozens of men and women, some in their 30s and others much older, line the perimeter of a bright yellow building overlooking the Pacific, a two-story-tall black ribbon covering part of the facade and a Peruvian flag at a half-staff near the door. The makeshift memorial is for fallen “pandemic soldiers” — doctors who have died since the coronavirus struck this South American nation last year and unraveled the public health care system.
January 28: “NY Data Show Nursing Home Deaths Undercounted by Thousands” by Marina Villeneuve, Bernard Condon, and Matt Sedensky, Associated Press
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration confirmed Thursday that thousands more nursing home residents died of COVID-19 than the state’s official tallies had previously acknowledged, dealing a potential blow to his image as a pandemic hero.
January 28: “Virus Variant from South Africa Detected in US for 1st Time” by Michelle Liu and Mike Stobbe, Associated Press
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. The mutated version of the virus, first identified in South Africa, was found in two cases in South Carolina.
January 28: “Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine Works, But Less so against Variants” by Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press
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.
January 28: “Pregnant Women Get Conflicting Advice on Covid-19 Vaccines” by Apoorva Mandavilli and Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times
Pregnant women looking for guidance on Covid-19 vaccines are facing the kind of confusion that has dogged the pandemic from the start: The world’s leading public health organizations — the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization — are offering contradictory advice. Neither organization explicitly forbids or encourages immunizing pregnant women. But weighing the same limited studies, they provide different recommendations.
January 28: “Governments Sign Secret Vaccine Deals: Here’s What They Hide” by Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan, The New York Times
When members of the European Parliament sat down this month to read the first publicly available contract for purchasing coronavirus vaccines, they noticed something missing. Actually, a lot missing. The price per dose? Redacted. The rollout schedule? Redacted. The amount of money being paid up front? Redacted. And that contract, between the German pharmaceutical company CureVac and the European Union, is considered one of the world’s most transparent.
January 28: “Huge Gaps in Vaccine Data Make It Next to Impossible to Know Who Got the Shots” by Rachana Pradhan and Fred Schulte, Kaiser Health News
As they rush to vaccinate millions of Americans, health officials are struggling to collect critically important information — such as race, ethnicity and occupation — of every person they jab.
January 29: “CDC Panel: No Safety Surprises for COVID-19 Vaccines” by Brenda Goodman, Medscape
The United States is nearly 6 weeks into its historic campaign to vaccinate Americans against the virus that causes COVID-19, and so far, the two vaccines in use look remarkably low-risk, according to new data presented today at a meeting of vaccine experts that advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With 23.5 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines now given, there have been very few serious side effects. In addition, deaths reported after people got the vaccine do not seem to be related to it.
January 29: “New COVID Cases Plunge 25% or More as Behavior Changes” by Christina Jewett, Medscape
A dozen states are reporting drops of 25% or more in new covid-19 cases and more than 1,200 counties have seen the same, federal data released Wednesday shows. Experts say the plunge may relate to growing fear of the virus after it reached record-high levels, as well as soaring hopes of getting vaccinated soon.
January 29: “EU Regulator Authorizes AstraZeneca Vaccine for All Adults” by Frank Jordans and Maria Cheng, Medical Xpress
Regulators authorized AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for use in adults throughout the European Union on Friday, amid criticism the bloc is not moving fast enough to vaccinate its population. The European Medicines Agency’s expert committee unanimously recommended the vaccine to be used in people 18 and over, though concerns had been raised this week that not enough data exist to prove it works in older people, and some countries indicated they may not give it to the elderly.
January 29: “Pfizer Vaccine Effective Against ‘U.K.’ Strain of COVID-19, Study Finds” by Brian P. Dunleavy, UPI
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine effectively prevents infection from the “U.K. strain” of the virus, according to a study published Friday by Science
January 29: “The Ethics of Vaccinating Teachers–and Keeping Schools Closed” by David Zweig, Wired
The question then is this: Is it appropriate to continue to keep children out of school until teachers or reticent politicians feel they have a degree of certainty about risk that may not arise for a long time, if ever? More broadly, was it ethical to prioritize education workers to be vaccinated without an explicit promise that schools would fully reopen immediately after?
January 29: “As Vaccine Rollout Expands, Black Americans Still Left Behind” by Hannah Recht and Lauren Weber, Kaiser Health News
Black Americans are still receiving covid vaccinations at dramatically lower rates than white Americans even as the chaotic rollout reaches more people, according to a new KHN analysis.
