Cigna's International Markets published the 3rd edition of its COVID-19 Global Impact Study, which sheds new light on the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus on global perceptions of health and well-being.
Coronavirus Breaking News
The coronavirus disease COVID-19 is currently reaching pandemic levels in various countries.
Oct 12, 2020 • 10:13 pm CDT
A Harvard Univerity - Massachusetts General Hospital led study reported on October 8, 2020, that people who survive serious COVID-19 infections have long-lasting immune responses against the new coronavirus.
“We can say now that if a patient has IgA and IgM antibody responses, they were likely infected with the virus within the last 2-months,” stated Richelle Charles, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and co-lead of this new study.
The study was published in Science Immunology, offers hope that people infected with the coronavirus will develop lasting protection against reinfection.
Oct 12, 2020 • 9:01 pm CDT
New Jersey-based Johnson and Johnson (J&J) announced on late October 12, 2020, 'it has temporarily paused further dosing in all Ad26.COV2-S (JNJ-78436735) COVID-19 vaccine candidate clinical trials, including the Phase 3 ENSEMBLE trial, due to an unexplained illness in a study participant.'
Following J&J guidelines, the participant’s illness is being reviewed and evaluated by the ENSEMBLE independent Data Safety Monitoring Board as well as our internal clinical and safety physicians. Serious Adverse Events are not uncommon in clinical trials, and the number of events can reasonably be expected to increase in trials involving large numbers of participants, stated J&J.
Oct 12, 2020 • 5:33 pm CDT
A new investigation published on October 12, 2020, has for the first time pointed to the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus might spread by sewage. This finding is based on data from China that highlights the importance of sewage management, especially in densely-populated places, such as urban slums and low-income communities in developing countries.
On August 7, 2020, the WHO stated the detection of non-infective RNA fragments of SARS-CoV-2 in untreated wastewater and/or sludge has been reported in a number of settings, such as Milan, Italy; Murcia, Spain; Brisbane, Australia; multiple locations in the Netherlands; and in Paris, France.
Oct 12, 2020 • 4:29 pm CDT
The U.S. CDC published an update on October 6, 2020, to reflect recent data supporting an increased risk of severe illness from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19 among adults with COVID-19 who have obesity, who have overweight, or who smoke or have a history of smoking.
Oct 12, 2020 • 12:05 pm CDT
The UK's AstraZeneca announced on October 9, 2020, it received financial support of around $486 million from the US Government for the development and supply of AZD7442, the company's experimental long-acting antibody combination, under an agreement with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
Additionally, AstraZeneca stated it plans to supply the US government up to 100,000 doses starting towards the end of 2020 and intends to offer up to an additional 1-million doses in 2021, under a separate agreement with BARDA.
Oct 12, 2020 • 9:54 am CDT
The Russian Direct Investment Fund announced on October 12, 2020, the approval by the Ministry of Health and Prevention of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to conduct Phase III clinical trials of the Sputnik V vaccine. Similar Phase III clinical trials have been launched in Russia and the Republic of Belarus.
Previously, results from Phase I-II clinical trials of the Sputnik V vaccine were published by The Lancet on September 18, 2020, which showed that sustained humoral and cellular immune responses were achieved in 100% of the volunteers without any serious adverse events.
Oct 12, 2020 • 9:40 am CDT
On October 12, 2020, one of the World Health Organization's Special Envoys on the COVID-19 pandemic Dr. David Nabarro stated during a Spectator TV interview posted on YouTube: 'We really do appeal to all world leaders: stop using lockdown as your primary control method'.
'The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.'
Stay aware of the latest COVID-19 information, visit this WHO webpage, which was last updated on October 7, 2020.
Oct 12, 2020 • 7:12 am CDT
Scientists at the University of Exeter in the UK and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, have begun testing the 100-year old Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine as a potential COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Around 1,000 people will take part in the trial at the University of Exeter, as of early October 2020. The BRACE clinical trial intends to recruit 10,000 healthcare workers who work in the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, and Brazil.
On May 20, 2020, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and four other institutions in the USA announced they were recruiting people for a similar clinical trial to test the BCG vaccine.
The BCG vaccine was originally designed to stop tuberculosis, but there is some recent evidence it can protect people against SARS-CoV-2 virus infections.
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Oct 12, 2020 • 5:56 am CDT
About 9% of US residents have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, according to a study led by California-based Stanford School of Medicine investigators.
The Stanford study announced on September 28, 2020, showed a wide variation in prevalence by neighborhood, ethnicity, income level, and population density. And living in densely populated areas translated to a 10-fold higher risk of getting the disease than living in low-density areas.
This new study also showed a remarkable variation by US state, such as 33.6% of the population of New York had antibodies, whereas in Pennsylvania, it was 6.4%, and in California, it was only 3.8%
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Oct 12, 2020 • 5:17 am CDT
Oct 11, 2020 • 4:15 pm CDT
On October 10, 2020, the Florida Department of Health announced it had 'received approximately 400,000 previously-reported COVID-19 test results from Helix Laboratory, a private lab that is not affiliated with the state of Florida.
Florida State epidemiologists are currently working to reconcile the massive size of the data file and the need to de-duplicate hundreds of thousands of results, which will take a day to finish. Therefore, Florida's daily COVID-19 report will resume before October 12, 2020.
Oct 11, 2020 • 3:48 pm CDT
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick stated on October 11, 2020, he has now admitted that councils are “bound to be better” at contact tracing than centralized Government staff, as media reports indicate local authorities are to be given greater control over the UK's Test and Trace program, reported the London Economic Times.
Jenrick added 'councils that know their “hard-to-reach communities” are bound to do a better job of contact tracing by empowering town hall bosses to deploy local volunteers to knock on doors and ask people to self-isolate.'
Oct 9, 2020 • 2:09 pm CDT
The U.S. CDC reported on October 9, 2020, the percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus decreased from 5.2% during week #39 to just 4.9% during week #40.
In total, the CDC's COVID-19 Data Tracker indicates there have been over 123 million tests completed during 2020.
The coronavirus tests most people discuss are RT-PCR, the nasal-swab test that detects viral RNA, and various antibody tests, that detect if you have an immune response due to past exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
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Oct 9, 2020 • 11:53 am CDT
Boston Medical Center research published on October 6, 2020, found being previously infected with a coronaviruses that cause the 'common cold' may decrease the severity of the new SARS-CoV-2 infections.
Four different endemic coronaviruses (eCoVs) are etiologic agents for the seasonal “common cold." Importantly, the patients with a previously detected eCoV had less severe COVID-19 illness.
These researchers stated: 'Our observations suggest that pre-existing immune responses against endemic human coronaviruses can mitigate disease manifestations from SARS-CoV-2 infection.'
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