Coronavirus Today

→ August 14th, 2020

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Coronavirus Breaking News

Oregonians Remain At Risk for Coronavirus

Data published by the U.S. CDC on August 14, 2020, suggest that a substantial number of COVID-19 cases in Oregon have gone undiagnosed --- was approximately 10 times the measured cumulative COVID-19 incidence obtained by nucleic acid testing --- and that a large portion of Oregon’s population remains susceptible to COVID-19 infection.

These findings are similar to those reported in a recent survey in the neighboring state of Idaho.

Europe Trails the USA's Coronavirus Vaccine Purchases

The European Commission (EC) announced on August 13, 2020, that it has concluded exploratory talks with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to purchase a potential vaccine against COVID-19 being produced by Janssen Pharmaceutical research teams. The EC said it anticipates that once the J&J Ad26.COV2-S preventive vaccine candidate has proven to be safe and effective, the EC would have a contractual framework in place for the initial purchase of 200 million doses on behalf of all Member States, and could further purchase up to an additional 200 million vaccine doses from J&J.

These 400 million vaccine doses trail the U.S. government's aggregated purchase commitments which have reached about 800 million, as of August 12, 2020.

Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber Tests Experimental Vaccine

Historic composer Andrew Lloyd Webber announced on Twitter on August 12, 2020, "I am excited that tomorrow (Aug. 13th) I am going to be vaccinated for the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine trial," he wrote. "I'll do anything to prove that theatres can re-open safely."

South Korea Secures Access to SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine

The Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare announced it has signed a letter of intent with Novavax, Inc. and SK bioscience on August 13, 2020, to work toward broad and equitable access in South Korea to the coronavirus vaccine candidate NVX-CoV2373.

Latin America Gains Access to COVID-19 Vaccine

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez announced on August 13, 2020, the countries of Argentina and Mexico will produce the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and supply it to most of Latin America, except for Brazil, reported Reuters.

The agreement between AstraZeneca and the biotechnology company mAbxience of the INSUD Group includes a transfer of technology to initially produce 150 million doses of the vaccine, which is expected to be delivered in the first half of 2021.

The AZD1222 vaccine candidate is made from a virus (ChAdOx1), which is a weakened version of a common cold virus that causes infections in chimpanzees, that has been genetically changed so that it is impossible for it to grow in humans. A preliminary report of the phase 1/2 study published on July 20, 2020, showed a single dose of AZD1222 resulted in a 4-fold increase in antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein in 95% of participants one month after injection.