Coronavirus Breaking News

The beta coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is constantly changing through mutation, leading to new variants, including some classified as variants of concern (VOCs), stated the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 25, 2021.

A recent CDC study published on June 11th found that the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 variants in the USA changed rapidly from December 2020 to May 2021, demonstrating how quickly a new variant can emerge.

Currently, several variants are found around the world.

On June 15, 2021, the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant was classified as a VOC because it spreads from person to person more easily than other variants. Delta has been reported in 77 countries, and in the United Kingdom, it has become the main variant identified in COVID-19 cases.

In the USA, the proportion of Delta variants is predicted to increase to about 20% nationally in late June 2021. Compared with the highest peak in January 2021, the current 7-day average in the USA decreased 95%.

Furthermore, the 7-day average of percent positivity from tests is now 1.7%

If you have questions or concerns about vaccines, please contact your healthcare professional, local health department, or pharmacist or visit the CDC website.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund announced on June 25, 2021, the approval of the single-dose Sputnik Light vaccine by the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Sputnik Light is the first component (recombinant human adenovirus serotype number 26 (rAd26)) of the two-dose Sputnik V vaccine.

Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said in a press statement, “Registration of Sputnik Light in Kyrgyzstan will help provide the country with another highly effective and safe vaccine against coronavirus. In addition, single-dose Sputnik Light vaccine will enable authorities to speed up the vaccination of the population and accelerate the creation of herd immunity.”

Kyrgyzstan is a country of about 6.5 million residents located in Central Asia, says Britannica. As of June 24, 2021, the government of Kyrgyzstan confirmed 1,958 deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As many as 16.8 million Americans had undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infections... about 5 times the rate of diagnosed infections by the end of July of 2020, according to an analysis of antibodies from more than 8,000 previously undiagnosed adults collected during the pandemic's first wave, published by Science Translational Medicine on June 22, 2021.

These researchers authors calculated that almost 5% of the undiagnosed U.S. population harbored SARS-CoV-2 virus antibodies,

The team also found differences in seropositivity across regions, gender, and ethnicity.

The infection rates were highest in the Mid-Atlantic (8.6%), in women (5.5%), and African-Americans (14.2%), while lower in people working from home (3%) and in patients with chronic conditions such as heart disease.

"Our findings have implications for understanding SARS-CoV-2 spread ... and prevalence in different communities and could have a potential impact on decisions involved in vaccine rollout," the authors stated in a press release.

The world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its Science family of journals, AAAS has individual members in more than 91 countries around the globe.

The Government of Canada announced a study that found the risk of staff acquiring SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, in schools during 2020-2021 was no greater than their risk of acquiring the virus in day-to-day life in the community.

Researchers tested school staff for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies—a sign of prior infection—to determine how many had been infected with the virus, whether or not they had felt symptoms. Of the 1,556 school staff who had their blood sample tested, 2.3% tested positive for antibodies.

This percentage was similar to the number of infections in a reference group of blood donors matched by age, sex, and area of residence. The results confirm the low prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among staff in the school setting.

These researchers were from BC Children’s Hospital, the University of British Columbia (UBC), and Vancouver Coastal Health examined COVID-19 infection among Vancouver School District.

“These findings show that, with appropriate mitigation strategies in place, in-person schooling is not associated with significantly increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission for classroom-based staff compared to members of the general population,” says Dr. Pascal Lavoie, principal investigator of the study, an investigator at BC Children’s Hospital, a pediatrician and Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UBC, in a press release.

“The results suggest that only a few teachers and school staff contracted SARS-CoV-2, and most assume that they did not contract it at school and thought they caught it from friends or family,” adds Dr. Lavoie.

This non-peer-reviewed study was published on June 18, 2021.

A U.S. company pioneering the development of a new class of immunotherapeutic vaccines, Vaxxinity, announced on June 21, 2021, a purchase order for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, UB-612, with the Government of Paraguay.

The order was signed on June 16, 2021, by Dr. Julio Borba, Paraguay Minister of Health and Social Welfare.

This COVID-19 vaccine purchase is contingent upon the issuance of an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the Taiwanese Food and Drug Administration (TFDA), which will trigger a EUA in Paraguay. The UB-612 vaccine is expected to be delivered later in 2021.

Vaxxinity, in close collaboration with its partner, UBI-Asia, is completing a large Phase 2 clinical trial of UB-612 in Taiwan and will soon begin its Phase 2/3 efficacy clinical trial in India.

“Vaxxinity’s foundation is a commitment to democratizing healthcare worldwide,” said Lou Reese, co-founder and executive chairman of Vaxxinity, in a press release.

“Whether by cost, geography, healthcare infrastructure, discrimination, isolation, exclusion, economic or social status or legacy experience, vaccines to fight the global COVID-19 pandemic have not been distributed equitably to date. Vaxxinity has prioritized its focus on UB-612 while continuing the development of the other vaccines in its pipeline to rapidly develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines to help combat the global COVID-19 pandemic in countries most in need.”

The Vaxxinity UB-612 vaccine is the first Multitope protein/synthetic peptide vaccine to fight the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The UB-612 vaccine elicits broad humoral or cellular immune responses against several viral proteins to protect against COVID-19.

Mei Mei Hu, co-founder, and CEO of Vaxxinity, commented, “In addition, our UB-612 vaccine can be stored at the standard refrigeration range, enabling its distribution using cold-chain solutions readily available in the countries impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic the most. This supports our mission to spearhead the democratization of global healthcare, which will lead to healthier, sustainable, and more productive communities across the world.”

Vaxxinity, Inc. is headquartered in Dallas, TX, with partners in the USA, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, the company’s proprietary Multitope technology platform has enabled the innovation of synthetic peptide vaccines designed to treat and prevent infectious diseases, including COVID-19, and chronic diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, migraine, and hypercholesterolemia.

As of June 9, 2021, the United Kingdom Medicines & Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) had received 421 Yellow Card reports of suspected adverse drug reactions to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in which the patient died shortly after vaccination.

Additionally, the MHRA confirmed 39 reports of myocarditis and 27 reports of pericarditis following the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

And 376 spontaneous adverse reactions associated with anaphylaxis or anaphylactoid reactions.

The nature and frequency of these reports are in line with that reported in previous updates, says the MHRA.

The UK's Yellow Card scheme is a mechanism by which anybody can voluntarily report any suspected adverse reactions or side effects to the vaccine. It is very important to note that a Yellow Card report does not necessarily mean the vaccine caused that reaction or event.

For the first time, Public Health England (PHE) published population surveillance data on possible coronavirus (COVID-19) reinfections on June 17, 2021, to help monitor and understand the risk of people catching COVID-19 again.

The current PHE data shows that there is a low risk of reinfection with SARS-CoV-2.

There were 15,893 possible reinfections with the SARS-CoV-2 beta coronavirus identified up to May 30, 2021, in England throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, out of nearly 4 million people with confirmed infections.

This is equivalent to around 0.4% of previously infected people becoming reinfected with the new coronavirus.

PHE stated, 'this data highlights that the overall risk, as detected through national surveillance, remains low.'