March 10 coronavirus news

By Ben Westcott and Kara Fox, CNN

Updated 0718 GMT (1518 HKT) March 11, 2021
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4:59 a.m. ET, March 10, 2021

Novavax expects to see results from its Phase 3 vaccine trial in the US and Mexico in April

From CNN Health's Jacqueline Howard

Medical laboratory scientist Anielia Sobel tests samples from the Novavax Phase 3 Covid-19 clinical vaccine trial at the UW Medicine Retrovirology Lab in Seattle, Washington, on February 12.
Medical laboratory scientist Anielia Sobel tests samples from the Novavax Phase 3 Covid-19 clinical vaccine trial at the UW Medicine Retrovirology Lab in Seattle, Washington, on February 12. Karen Ducey/Getty Images

Biotechnology company Novavax still expects to see results from its PREVENT-19 trial, a Phase 3 study of its Covid-19 vaccine in the United States and Mexico, sometime in April. The trial has enrolled 30,000 volunteers across more than 100 locations.

“Everybody's enrolled and now we're watching for cases,” Dr. Gregory Glenn, president of research and development for Novavax, told CNN on Tuesday.

“I think sometime in the April timeframe we'll have finished that trial. So, we'll have three pivotal trials testing our vaccine -- that's extremely important for evidence that your vaccine is safe and can work,” Glenn said.

In January, the American biotech firm announced that its Covid-19 vaccine was found to have an overall efficacy of 89.3% in a Phase 3 clinical trial conducted in the United Kingdom, where it was found to have 95.6% efficacy against the original coronavirus strain and 85.6% against the variant strain first identified in the UK.

Novavax is also developing a booster shot to its coronavirus vaccine, and company officials anticipate that vaccinated people might need boosters every six months or annually to stay protected against Covid-19. Similar to others, Novavax's Covid-19 vaccine is administered as two doses given three weeks apart.

After the second dose, “we’re seeing that at six months, there's a pretty big decline in antibodies and I think all the vaccine makers are going to see that," Glenn said.

“But it's our view that somewhere between six months and one year, we’re going to need to boost everybody to protect them,” Glenn said. “I think governments are gearing up for that kind of thinking -- but we're still collecting the information that will guide that. This is a new virus, these are new vaccines, and we just don't have enough information.”

Novavax has initiated a booster shot study to gather that information. 

"We have actually started a trial where some of the people who got our vaccine last summer, at six months later we're giving them a boost," Glenn said. "We're going to see how good that looks in terms of immune responses -- and it can either be one dose, given once, or maybe we kind of repeat the same thing we did before where we give them a three-week interval."

The company is currently manufacturing its vaccine at 10 sites in eight countries -- with two sites in the United States, in North Carolina and Texas, Glenn said.

5:29 a.m. ET, March 10, 2021

Brazil reports nearly 2,000 Covid-19 deaths in highest daily toll of the pandemic

From Marcia Reverdosa in Sao Paulo and CNN's Tatiana Arias in Atlanta

Brazil reported its highest daily death toll since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic on Tuesday, according to data from the country's Health Ministry, with 1,972 new fatalities.

The country’s total coronavirus death toll now stands at 268,370.

Workers wearing protective suits walk past the graves of COVID-19 victims at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, in Manaus, Brazil, on February 25.
Workers wearing protective suits walk past the graves of COVID-19 victims at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, in Manaus, Brazil, on February 25. Michael Dantas/AFP/Getty Images

On Tuesday, the ministry reported 70,764 new confirmed Covid-19 cases, raising the country’s total number of infections to 11,122,429 -- the third highest in the world after the United States and India.

In the southeastern state of Sao Paulo on Tuesday, a record number of 517 Covid-19 related deaths were reported by health authorities in the past 24 hours.

Sao Paulo’s death toll now stands at 62,101, with 2,134,020 confirmed Covid-19 cases, according to official data.

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4:55 a.m. ET, March 10, 2021

Rich nations vaccinating 1 person per second, but most poorer ones haven't given a single shot, watchdog says 

From CNN’s Christopher Rios

People queue in vehicles as they arrive for vaccinations at California State University of Los Angeles on March 4.
People queue in vehicles as they arrive for vaccinations at California State University of Los Angeles on March 4. Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

Rich countries are vaccinating one person every second against Covid-19 while the majority of their poorest counterparts have yet to administer a single dose, the People’s Vaccine Alliance said Tuesday. 

These same rich nations are blocking efforts by developing countries to waive intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines, the alliance said. The World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) committee meets Wednesday to discuss the TRIPS waiver.

“We should act now. There is no going back. It is totally unfair that rich countries, who have enough vaccines to protect their citizens, are blocking the TRIPS waiver, which could help poorer countries get the vaccines they need,” said Muhammad Yunus, Nobel laureate professor, and one of the leaders of the People’s Vaccine Alliance.
“For the rich world, this proposed act of human solidarity to ensure that medicines and vaccines get to the whole human family simultaneously is in their own self-interest, not just an act of charity,”

The People’s Vaccine Alliance, a group of organizations including Oxfam International, Frontline AIDS, UNAIDS, and others, says this is yet another example of rich countries prioritizing the interests of big pharmaceutical monopolies over people’s lives. 

“By allowing a small group of pharmaceutical companies to decide who lives and who dies, rich nations are prolonging this unprecedented global health emergency and putting countless more lives on the line,” said Oxfam's executive director Gabriela Bucher.

“At this crucial time, developing countries need support – not opposition.” 

The proposed TRIPS wavier would remove legal barriers and allow manufacturers across the world to start producing vaccines at scale within months, the alliance said. 

2:54 a.m. ET, March 10, 2021

Analysis: Biden's Covid relief bill is huge, ambitious and about to pass

Analysis from CNN's Stephen Collinson

President Joe Biden plans to use the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill expected to pass Congress on Wednesday as a platform for a generational transformation of the economy to benefit the least well-off Americans and alleviate poverty.

The passage of a bill of this scale and ambition two months into any new president's term would represent a power-affirming win. The political payoff for Biden of his first legacy achievement may be even greater. He had to navigate the measure through thin congressional majorities and a Democratic caucus riven by ideological divides -- and amid the worst domestic crisis since World War II.

Biden ran for election pledging to send stimulus payments to millions of Americans and to secure money to fund the return of kids to school, while speeding up the pace of vaccinations. When he gives his first prime-time address to Americans on Thursday, he can make a case that he kept his word as he battles to end a pandemic that has killed more than 527,000 Americans.

"Leadership matters. Vaccinations are up, infections are down, $1,400 survival checks are on the way, and that is only the beginning," Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, said on Tuesday.

Read the full analysis: