March 31 coronavirus news

Results from Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 clinical trial in 12 to 15 year olds mean that age group in the US could receive vaccines as soon as the fall, Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital, told CNN.

The vaccine was 100% effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19, the companies said, and was well tolerated.

He added that "by the fall I think there’s a good possibility we’ll be vaccinating teenagers, 12 and up."

"And for middle schools, junior high schools, high schools, it’s really good news in the United States for both teachers and staff. We’ll have teachers and staff vaccinated, we’ll have the students vaccinated in those middle schools and high schools.”

Pfizer/BioNTech plan to submit the data to the US Food and Drug Administration as soon as possible for expanded emergency use authorization of the two-dose vaccine.

The trial included 2,260 participants, and while Hotez said this was a relatively small study, he said he thought it was enough to move ahead with.

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French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to tighten coronavirus restrictions on Wednesday as case numbers and admissions to intensive care units soar across France, where the government has been resisting a third nationwide lockdown.

Macron will address the nation at 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET) as he faces growing criticism over his approach to the current Covid-19 surge. His administration has favored regional restrictions over the strict national lockdowns imposed in other European nations, against the advice of France's scientific council.

A nationwide 7 p.m. curfew is in place, while non-essential businesses are closed and movement restricted in 19 of the 96 departments on mainland France, but there are few other measures to slow the rapid pace of infection across the country.

Macron, who is up for reelection next year, has justified the strategy by saying the country needed to consider the impacts on mental health and the economy in devising a balanced response to the third wave.

But today, more than 28,000 people are being treated in hospital for Covid-19 in France, including 5,072 in intensive care units (ICU), according to French health ministry data. It's the first time since April last year that ICU patient numbers have surpassed 5,000.

Read the full story here:

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Hungary announced a record number of daily coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, just five days after Prime Minister Viktor Orban boasted that the country's vaccine program would allow for a "free summer."

The government announced 302 deaths Wednesday, the largest in a single day, bringing the country’s pandemic death toll to 20,737. The government statement said most of those who died were elderly or chronically ill.

Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told CNN the reason for the record number of deaths was the “British mutation” of the virus, referring to the B117 variant first identified in the UK. He said the variant was causing “relatively more hospitalizations and fatalities.”

Hungary has the world’s second-highest coronavirus death rate per capita – 209 deaths per 100,000 people, according to data tracked by CNN. Among countries with significant population sizes, only the Czech Republic has a higher rate of coronavirus deaths.

Hungary’s high death rate comes despite its not having a particularly high rate of coronavirus cases – its 6,609 cases per 100,000 people puts it in the middle third of European Union countries – and the second-highest vaccination rate in the EU, behind the small Mediterranean nation of Malta.

Clinical trial results of Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine showed its efficacy is 100% and it is well tolerated in youths ages 12 to 15, the companies said Wednesday.

Pfizer/BioNTech plan to submit the data to the US Food and Drug Administration as soon as possible for expanded emergency use authorization of the two-dose vaccine. 

In a Phase 3 trial of 2,260 participants ages 12 to 15 years in the US, the vaccine elicited strong antibody responses one month after the second dose, exceeding those demonstrated in people ages 16 to 25 in previous trials, Pfizer/BioNTech reported. The vaccine is currently authorized in the US for emergency use in people ages 16 and older.  

Researchers observed 18 Covid-19 cases among the 1,129 participants who were given a placebo, and none among the 1,131 participants who were given the vaccine. The data has yet to be peer reviewed. 

Pfizer/BioNTech added that the side effects observed in people ages 12 to 15 were similar to those seen in 16 to 25-year-olds. The participants will be monitored for protection and safety for two years after their second dose.  

"We plan to submit these data to FDA as a proposed amendment to our Emergency Use Authorization in the coming weeks and to other regulators around the world, with the hope of starting to vaccinate this age group before the start of the next school year.”  

A separate Phase 1/2/3 study of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in children ages 6 months to 11 years launched last week, when the first participants ages 5 to 11 received a shot.

Pfizer/BioNTech plans to begin dosing 2 to 5-year-olds next week and work its way down to participants ages 6 months to 2 years. The company aims to enroll 4,644 children in the trial and expects results by the end of 2021. 

Moderna is also testing its Covid-19 vaccine in adolescents and children, in two clinical trials of children ages 12 to 17 and those ages 6 months to 11 years.  

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China's foreign ministry on Wednesday said it was “immoral” and “unpopular” to politicize the issue of virus origin tracing after 14 countries, including the United States, raised concerns in a joint statement on the World Health Organization report released Tuesday, following its Wuhan investigation.

“We have repeatedly emphasized that origin tracing is a scientific issue, and it should be carried out cooperatively by global scientists and cannot be politicized, which is also the consensus of most countries,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying in a regular briefing Wednesday.

Hua said the joint statement questioning the report is concrete evidence that countries like the US “disrespect science” and “engage in political manipulation.”

Governments from countries including the United States, Australia and Canada, jointly expressed concerns about the WHO report released Tuesday on COVID-19 origin tracing in China and called for independent and fully transparent evaluations with access to all relevant data in the future.

Chinese scientist and World Health Organization team leader Liang Wannian said Wednesday that WHO should do more Covid-19 studies that cover a wider range of regions and perspectives.

"Based on this, the perspective of tracing the origin of the virus must be broader.”

This comes after the WHO report into the origins of the virus, compiled by a team of international experts and their Chinese counterparts, was finally released on Tuesday after several delays.

It provides a detailed examination of the data collected by Chinese scientists and authorities from the early days of the pandemic but offers little new insight or concrete findings on where and how the virus spread to humans.

Following the release, the United States and 13 other governments, including the United Kingdom, Australia and South Korea, released a joint statement expressing concerns over the study's limited access to "complete, original data and samples."

Herd immunity to Covid-19 could come and go, scientists say. Or we might never reach it at all. Here are some of the obstacles to achieving and maintaining it.

Young People

Very few people younger than 16 will get a Covid-19 vaccine soon. Dr. Anthony Fauci -- director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases -- has said younger Americans will likely have to wait until early 2022 for vaccines.

And that's a major obstacle to herd immunity. Young people may not get very sick from Covid-19 in high numbers, but they can still get infected and transmit the virus.

Anti-vaxxers

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor, 20% of people surveyed in the US said they definitely would not get vaccinated or would only get vaccinated if their job or school required it.

If not enough people are willing to get vaccinated, herd immunity isn't achievable. And if that happens, the virus will have ample opportunity to spread.

Variants

If the virus keeps spreading, replicating itself in new people, it has more opportunities to mutate. And if there are significant mutations, new and more dangerous variants could emerge.

This could also mean that drug companies have to keep updating their vaccines to be effective against new variants, and it's not guaranteed that every vaccine will be successful against new variants.

Immunity could wear off

Dwindling immunity -- either from previous infection or from vaccination -- could be another reason the US could slip in and out of herd immunity. Scientists don't know yet how long immunity from vaccines might last. So people may need to get booster shots in the future, or annual shots that can work against new variants. That's how the yearly flu shot works.

The UK is "100% confident" in the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the shot is "safe," UK Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said Wednesday, after Germany  suspended its use in people under the age of 60.

Germany announced Tuesday evening it would limit AstraZeneca shots to people over 60s following reports of “rare but very severe thromboembolic side effects” in 31 people following their first dose. People under 60 can voluntarily receive vaccine in consultation with doctors, considering individual risk.

When asked if the UK government thinks it should look at the vaccine again, Jenrick said: "No we don't."

The minister added that "people should continue to go forward, get the vaccine," adding that he certainly will, when his time comes.

"It is a safe vaccine and the UK vaccine rollout is saving people's lives, right across the country every day," he said.

Read more here:

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The United States and Germany are by far the biggest investors in coronavirus vaccine development, according to key research findings by the Centre for Global Health at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

Research findings show that the two countries have provided a combined R&D investment of $3.7 billion in developing coronavirus vaccines -- the United States invested nearly $2.2 billion and Germany $1.5 billion. They are followed by a wide margin by the United Kingdom, which comes in at $500 million.