The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines

The World Health Organization continues to believe that the benefits of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine outweigh the risk of rare side effects, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news briefing in Geneva on Friday. 

“Even as we work to expand access to vaccines, we’re continuing to keep a close eye on vaccine safety,” Tedros said. 

All vaccines and medicines carry a risk of side effects, he said, adding that:

Earlier this week European and British medicines regulators announced a “possible link” between the AstraZeneca vaccine and rare cases of blood clots, with the UK announcing it would offer people under 30 an alternative vaccine. Later on Wednesday, WHO released a statement saying that “a causal relationship between the vaccine and the occurrence of blood clots with low platelets is considered plausible but is not confirmed.”

Tedros reiterated this point Friday. 

“The Covid-19 subcommittee of the WHO Global Advisory Committee on vaccine safety has reviewed available information from Europe and other regions and has said that a causal relationship between the vaccine and the occurrence of blood clots with low platelets is plausible, but more investigation is required,” he said. 

National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins told STAT News that developing a pill to treat Covid-19 as soon as someone is diagnosed is his “dream.”

“It’s just a damn long pathway,” Collins said.

Collins said “this is an extremely high priority,�� for himself and his colleague Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to President Biden.

It’s also important for “the Biden administration, to work with these companies to try to make sure that we speed this up,” he said. “This pandemic is going to be with us — even with great vaccines — and people are going to get sick.”

Collins told STAT that a pill like this could have further applications beyond Covid-19.

“What we might end up doing here is curing the common cold,” Collins said. “Then I wouldn’t have to listen to those jokes anymore.”

Vaccine advisers to the federal government tell CNN they don’t foresee AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine being used in the United States, and even if it were offered, they personally wouldn’t take it, given that other options are available.

European drug regulators said Wednesday there was a possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots. Some countries – more than 70 have authorized the shot – have now limited its use.

One adviser told CNN that federal health officials have privately expressed concern that offering AstraZeneca could increase vaccine hesitancy in the US, which is already a problem among some groups.

Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccines have excellent safety records, with tens of millions of shots without any reported serious side effects.

“Everyone would raise questions. ‘You’re not giving me that new blood clotting vaccine, are you?’ ” another adviser said, referring to AstraZeneca’s vaccine. “Why muddy the waters with a vaccine that comes with a somewhat checkered reputation?”

In an email, an AstraZeneca spokesperson declined to respond specifically to the advisers’ concerns, but pointed CNN to AstraZeneca’s Phase 3 results in its US trial, which showed that the vaccine was 76% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 and 100% effective at preventing severe or critical disease and hospitalization.

According to a company statement, the blood clots are an “extremely rare potential side effect.”

Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN that even if the US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to AstraZeneca’s vaccine, there’s no need for it right now in the United States.

“It’s not any indictment against the product. We just have a lot of vaccines,” he said.

A Japanese woman whose lungs were severely damaged by Covid-19 has received what doctors say is the world's first lung transplant from living donors to a recovered coronavirus patient.

Kyoto University Hospital said the woman underwent an 11-hour operation by a 30-strong medical team on Wednesday to transplant lung tissue from her husband and son.

Covid-19 is known to cause severe lung damage in some patients, and people around the world -- including the United States -- have received lung transplants as part of their recovery from the disease.

But the Kyoto hospital said this case was the first in which lung tissue had been transplanted from living donors to a Covid-19 patient.

Dr. Hiroshi Date, a thoracic surgeon at the hospital who led the operation, said it gave hope to patients suffering from severe lung damage from Covid-19.

The patient, identified only as a woman from Japan's western region of Kansai, contracted Covid-19 late last year, and spent months on a life support machine that worked as an artificial lung, according to Kyoto University Hospital.

Covid-19 caused so much damage to her lungs they were no longer functional, and she required a lung transplant to live.

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Japanese doctors perform world's first living donor lung transplant to a Covid-19 patient

More than half of rural residents in the United States have received a Covid-19 vaccine or plan to, but one in five still say they will definitely not get vaccinated, according to analysis released by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) Friday.

KFF researchers surveyed 1,001 adults living in rural America and found that 54% said they have received a Covid-19 vaccine or plan to. 

One in five rural residents said they definitely won’t get vaccinated. About 73% of these respondents lean Republican and 41% identify as White Evangelical Christians.

The report suggests that access to vaccines is not the major problem for rural communities. About 11% of the rural residents surveyed who have yet to receive a vaccine said they have tried to get an appointment, compared to 21% of those in urban areas and 22% in suburban areas. About 68% of rural residents said there are enough vaccine sites in their area, compared to 52% of urban and 55% of suburban residents.

The KFF team did note a gap in access among Black rural residents. Black respondents were less likely than their White or Hispanic counterparts to report adequate supply of vaccine or vaccine sites in their communities.

While the KFF researchers say there was no message that was effective across the board at swaying those who say they will definitely not get vaccinated, those who plan to “wait and see” whether they want to get the shot appear to be more open to messaging and education. 

About 64% said that hearing the vaccines are 100% effective at preventing hospitalization and death would make them more likely to get vaccinated. Over half said that hearing that scientists have been working on this vaccine technology for 20 years would make them more likely to get vaccinated. 

The researchers expressed concern that the large number of rural residents who say they are set on not getting vaccinated could mean that eventually rural communities will lag behind the rest of the population in vaccination coverage.

Two Venezuelan mayors are in hot water after marking the houses of potential Covid-19 patients with warning signs -- a measure that has been harshly criticized by civil rights NGOs and has prompted an investigation by Venezuela's attorney general.

In a video posted on his official Instagram account on Tuesday, Mayor Luis Adrian Duque of Guama, a small village in the central Venezuelan state of Yaracuy, announced the measure as part of the town lockdown policy.

"We are protecting our people, [this sign] indicates a positive case or a potential case, so that people are aware," Duque says in the video, pointing to a red prohibition sign placed on the window of a local house.

People caught removing the Covid-19 signs on their homes would be fined 10 million bolivars, a sum out of reach for many in Venezuela, where the minimum monthly salary is less than a US dollar. Those who were not able to pay the fine would be required to serve days of "voluntary" community services, Duque said.

A photo posted by mayor's office in the neighboring city of San Felipe also showed local officers standing next to a similar "quarantine" sign. The photo, which touted Mayor Rogger Daza's campaign against the coronavirus, has since been removed from social media.

Some users on social media commended Mayor Duque for taking a strong stance against the pandemic, which has piled stress on a health sector already damaged by seven years of economic crisis.

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Backlash after mayors marked homes with Covid-19 warning signs in Venezuela

The Brazilian Senate will open an inquiry into the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, as President Jair Bolsonaro continues to avoid lockdown measures despite the country's mounting death toll.

Earlier this week, Bolsonaro shrugged off criticisms that he is "genocidal" in his opposition to Covid-19 restrictions, as the nation recorded its deadliest 24 hours of the pandemic. Bolsonaro has downplayed the threat of the virus while claiming that the economic impact of shutdowns would hurt Brazilians more than Covid-19.

Brazilian Supreme Court judge Luis Roberto Barroso ordered the Senate to set up a commission for the investigation on Thursday, after requests from 32 of Brazil's 81 senators. Announcing the ruling, Barroso said that Brazil is "at its worst, breaking regrettable records of daily deaths and cases of infection."

On Thursday, Brazil recorded over 4,200 new Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours, raising its total toll to more than 345,000 -- second only to the United States.

The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, said he would comply with the order but that the investigation could sabotage efforts to fight the pandemic and become a "political theater aiming at the 2022” general elections.

The probe will look at the actions of former health ministers Luiz Henrique Mandetta, Nelson Teich, army general Eduardo Pazuello, and the current minister of health Marcelo Queiroga.

Barroso has called for the inquiry to focus on "the actions and omissions" of the federal government, particularly in the state of Amazonas. Several Covid-19 patients reportedly died in Manaus, the state's capital, when hospitals ran out of oxygen earlier this year.

The Supreme Court also ruled Thursday that states and municipalities have the power to prohibit in-person religious gatherings, a move that Bolsonaro had fiercely opposed.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo warned against vaccine nationalism and called for support on “vaccine multilateralism” on Thursday in a summit held online between the leaders of the Developing Eight Group (D-8), according to state-run Antara news agency.

The Developing Eight Group (D-8) includes Iran, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Addressing the group via video conference Thursday, Widodo warned: “We are witnessing an increase in vaccine nationalism and we must reject this.”

He called on the D-8 leaders to be open to future cooperation in vaccine development and production.

“We must support vaccine multilateralism,” he said, according to the Antara report.

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China opens its borders to foreigners who take Chinese shots, as geopolitical vaccine silos emerge

By Julia Hollingsworth, CNN

India on Friday crossed 13 million total cases of coronavirus, making it only the third country in the world to do so.

The country reported 131,968 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, the highest single-day rise since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a CNN tally of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health. 

India has recorded 1 million cases in just 11 days. India last added 1 million cases in the same time frame in September 2020, when the country was experiencing the peak of its first wave.

India recorded 780 new deaths on Friday, the highest single-day death toll since October 18 last year, according to a CNN tally of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health.

According to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is better equipped to handle the caseload during the second wave compared to the first wave. The country needs to focus on micro containment, ramping up testing, quick contact tracing of positive patients and providing treatment, he said Thursday.

Vaccine shortfall: States such as Maharashtra, Odisha and Punjab have complained of vaccine shortages and several districts in Maharashtra have had to suspend vaccination drives, the state’s health minister said Thursday.

According to a senior administrative official in Mumbai, more than 70 centers in the city have said they do not have vaccines available. The central government has said it is doing everything it can to help the states, the health minister said in a statement earlier this week.