Category: Breaking News

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Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine linked to rare blood disease – Israeli study

 

The Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has been linked to an increased chance of developing thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), a rare blood disorder, Israeli researchers said Monday. TTP is an autoimmune disease that causes blood clots to form in various organs of the body. According to the National Institutes of Health, these clots can limit or block the flow of oxygen-rich blood to key organs like the brain, kidneys and heart, resulting in serious health problems. Researchers from the Institute of Hematology at Shamir Medical Center said they were alerted to the problem after seeing a sudden increase in TTP in the country – four cases detected in one month compared to two or three cases per year. The medical team said they found a “chronological connection” between the vaccination of the patient and the onset of symptoms of the disease. They stressed that these are both new patients and patients whose disease flared up after a long period of remission. The Health Ministry is currently evaluating the research. As a result, the medical team, led by Dr. Maya Koren-Michowitz, head of the Hematology and the Translational Hemato-Oncology Laboratory, recommended that people who have had TTP only get vaccinated with special permission from their doctor – and if they do vaccinate, to have a follow-up clinical evaluation. A spokesperson from the hospital stressed that this study, which was very small, should in no way deter people from vaccinating and encouraged anyone who has not yet been inoculated to get the jab. “Physicians and patients need to be alert to the clinical symptoms: weakness fatigue, neurological disorders, hemorrhage and chest pain,” the team said in a release. They also called on “healthy people” who are vaccinated to be vigilant and seek medical help immediately if symptoms appear. Early diagnosis and modern treatments have increased TTP patient survival rate from 10% in the past to 80% today.

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Fed’s Williams: Economy can’t pair stimulus policy yet

Chief Executive of New York Federal Reserve, John Williams, estimated on Monday that the American economy hasn’t improved enough to pair the stimulus policy brought by the Biden administration. Commenting about the economic forecast, Williams said he expects inflation to reach 3% in 2021 before returning to the targeted 2% range over the next two years. Furthermore, he said the US economy will grow around 7% this year. Williams also touched on the topic of interest rates, insisting the accommodative policy will globally continue even after the end of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Pfizer/BioNTech shot more effective than Sinovac – study

People who are vaccinated against COVID-19 with BioNTech’s vaccine were found to have “substantially higher” levels of antibodies than those who received Sinovac’s jab, the South China Morning Post reported on Saturday, citing a Hong Kong study.

People who are vaccinated against COVID-19 with BioNTech’s vaccine were found to have “substantially higher” levels of antibodies than those who received Sinovac’s jab, the South China Morning Post reported on Saturday, citing a Hong Kong study. Some who received the Sinovac vaccine might need a third booster shot as well, the newspaper said, citing lead researcher Professor Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist with the University of Hong Kong (HKU). The government-commissioned study was conducted by HKU’s school of public health and involved tracking the antibody responses of 1,000 people who received either vaccine, the report added.Earlier this week, officials in Indonesia warned that more than 350 medical workers have caught COVID-19 despite being vaccinated with Sinovac and dozens have been hospitalized, raising concerns about its efficacy against more infectious variants of the virus.

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Five U.S. states had coronavirus infections even before first reported cases:study

June 15 (Reuters) – At least seven people in five U.S. states were infected with the novel coronavirus weeks before those states reported their first cases, a new government study showed. More than 24,000 blood samples taken for a National Institutes of Health research program between Jan. 2 and March 18, 2020 were analyzed and seven participants reported antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The positive samples came from Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the researchers said. (Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

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Economic recovery hopes power European shares to record high

(Reuters) – European shares hit a record high on Monday (NASDAQ:MNDY) as investors bet on global central banks sticking to an accommodative stance on monetary policy even as the post-pandemic economic recovery gathers pace. The pan-European STOXX 600 was up 0.5% by 0704 GMT after ending Friday with its fourth consecutive weekly gain. Germany’s DAX and the UK’s FTSE 100 led gains on regional bourses. After the European Central Bank last week stood pat on monetary policy, all eyes this week will be on the U.S. Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting for signs it could start tapering its massive stimulus programme sooner than expected. In company news, Dutch medical equipment company Philips fell 3.4% to the bottom of the STOXX 600 as it said it would recall some “CPAP” breathing devices and ventilators globally because of a foam part that might degrade and become toxic.

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US consumer confidence rises in June

The numbers: After hitting a pandemic high in April, and falling precipitously in May the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment rebounded in June. The University of Michigan’s gauge of consumer sentiment rose to a preliminary June reading of 86.4 from a final May reading of 82.9. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal has forecast a reading of 84.4.

What happened: A sub-index that measures how consumers feel about the economy right now rebounded somewhat, likely due to rapid job gains in recent month. Rising inflation fears are still weighing on Americans, leaving Americans feeling significantly more confident that earlier this year

Big picture: Americans are feeling the benefits of a relatively strong recover as more than 1 million jobs in the past three months, but they are still concerned about the prospect of runaway inflation.

Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down into negative territory after the report.

 

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Gangrene, Hearing Loss Show Delta Variant May Be More Severe

Hearing impairment, severe gastric upsets and blood clots leading to gangrene, symptoms not typically seen in Covid patients, have been linked by doctors in India to the so-called delta variant. In England and Scotland, early evidence suggests the strain — which is also now dominant there — carries a higher risk of hospitalisation. Delta, also known as B.1.617.2, has spread to more than 60 countries over the past six months and triggered travel curbs from Australia to the US. A spike in infections, fueled by the delta variant, has forced UK to reconsider its plans for reopening later this month, with a local report saying it may be pushed back by two weeks. Higher rates of transmission and a reduction in the effectiveness of vaccines have made understanding the strain’s effects especially critical. “We need more scientific research to analyze if these newer clinical presentations are linked to B.1.617 or not,” said Abdul Ghafur, an infectious disease physician at the Apollo Hospital in Chennai, in Chennai, southern India’s largest city. Ghafur said he is seeing more Covid patients with diarrhea now than in the initial wave of the pandemic.

“Last year, we thought we had learned about our new enemy, but it changed,” Ghafur said. “This virus has become so, so unpredictable.”

Stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, hearing loss and joint pain are among the ailments Covid patients are experiencing, according to six doctors treating patients across India. The beta and gamma variants — first detected in South Africa and Brazil respectively — have shown little or no evidence of triggering unusual clinical signs, according to a study by researchers from the University of New South Wales last month. “I saw three-to-four cases the whole of last year, and now it’s one patient a week,” Manudhane said. India has reported 1.86 crore Covid cases thus far in 2021, compared with 1.03 crore last year. The delta variant was the “primary cause” behind the country’s deadlier second wave and is 50 per cent more contagious than the alpha strain that was first spotted in the UK, according to a recent study by an Indian government panel. The surge in cases may have driven an increase in the frequency with which rare Covid complications are being observed. Even still, Manudhane said he is baffled by the blood clots he’s seeing in patients across age groups with no past history of coagulation-related problems. “We suspect it could be because of the new virus variant,” he said. Manudhane is collecting data to study why some people develop the clots and others don’t. Doctors are also finding instances of clots forming in blood vessels that supply the intestines, causing patients to experience stomach pain — their only symptom, local media have reported. As the second wave of Covid-19 recedes, nearly a dozen cases of Covid-induced intestinal clots and gangrene have been reported in Mumbai. According to doctors, if the gangrene is left untreated for 24 hours, the chances of survival drop to 50 percent. “Every person is showing different symptoms” in the second wave, she said. The unusual presentations for delta and a closely related variant known as kappa, whose spread led to a fourth lockdown in the Australian city of Melbourne, are still being confirmed, said Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biosecurity at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “In the meanwhile, it is important to take note of this and be aware of possible atypical presentations,” she said. The most alarming aspect of the current outbreak in India is the rapidity with which the virus is spreading, including to children, said Chetan Mundada, a pediatrician with the Yashoda group of hospitals in Hyderabad. Apollo’s Ghafur said he was also seeing entire families with Covid symptoms, unlike last year when individuals dominated, reflecting an increase in household transmission caused by the delta variant. Cases of Mucormycosis — a rare opportunistic fungal infection — have also been surging in India. It had infected more than 8,800 Covid patients and survivors as of May 22, forcing local health care authorities to call it an epidemic. Even as India’s outbreak begins to ease — daily infections have slipped to less than a quarter of the May 7 peak — the delta variant is sparking outbreaks elsewhere, including hitherto virus havens such as Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam, bolstering calls for mass immunisation. German politician and scientist Karl Lauterbach said Tuesday the variant will probably become more prevalent in Germany too in the coming months. “To avoid it completely seems unrealistic to me,” he said on Twitter in German. “The decisive factor is a very high vaccination rate, which reduces mortality.”

But with emerging evidence delta and at least one other variant may be adept at evading vaccine-induced antibodies, pharmaceutical companies are under pressure to tweak existing shots or develop new ones.

“New vaccines have to prepared with new variants in mind,” said Ghafur. “We can’t get ahead of the virus, but at least we can least keep up with it.”

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US gov lab presented COVID lab origin theory – report

A report on the origins of Covid-19 by a US government national laboratory concluded that the hypothesis claiming the virus leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan is plausible and deserves further investigation, according to a report.The study was prepared in May 2020 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and was referred by the State Department when it conducted an inquiry into the pandemic’s origins during the final months of the Trump administration, the The Wall Street Journal reported. Lawrence Livermore’s assessment drew on genomic analysis of the Covid-19 virus, the newspaper said. The laboratory declined to comment on the report. President Joe Biden said last month he had ordered aides to find answers to the origin of the virus.US intelligence agencies are considering two likely scenarios – that the virus resulted from a laboratory accident or that it emerged from human contact with an infected animal – but they have not come to a conclusion, Mr Biden said.

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UK’s Hancock: Too early to decide on reopening

Health Secretary Matt Hancock says it is “too early” to make a decision on if the final lockdown restrictions will be lifted on June 21. However, he adds there is not anything in the data to suggest the date needs to be delayed. The majority of people infected with the Indian Covid variant have not had either dose of the vaccine, with just 3 per cent of cases (177 out of 5,599) having received both doses, Public Health England figures show.

Of 201 people who ended up in hospital just five had had both vaccine doses, while 138 were unvaccinated and 45 had had their first dose more than three weeks previously.

It comes as the R-rate in England has inched higher and may now be above 1. Data released on Friday by the Department of Health and Social Care puts the figure between 1.0 and 1.1.

Here the latest developments at a glance:

  • The UK reported 19,114 new cases on Friday, slightly down from yesterday’s 20,634, as well as a further 1,014 deaths from Covid-19.
  • The Cabinet Office was right to say all adults aged 50 and over will have had a coronavirus vaccine by May, Downing Street said after initially dismissing the report.
  • The government’s top scientific advisers warned last month that a “complete, pre-emptive closure of borders” was needed to fully prevent new coronavirus strains being imported into the UK.
  • Around 1 in 65 people in the community in England are estimated to have had the disease in the week ending 30 January, compared with 1 in 70 in Wales, 1 in 65 in Northern Ireland and 1 in 115 in Scotland. The week before the figures were 1 in 55, 1 in 70, 1 in 50 and 1 in 110 respectively.
  • London continues to have the highest proportion of people likely to test positive for coronavirus in any region of England, with around one in 50 people estimated to have the virus.
  • The reproduction number, or R value, of coronavirus transmission across the UK is between 0.7 and 1, according to the latest government figures. Last week, it was between 0.7 and 1.1.
  • The outcomes of targeted tests to track the South African coronavirus variant in England could take up to two weeks, public health officials have said.
  • Health secretary Matt Hancock said it was “too early” to decide whether restrictions could be eased in March, and said there were no current plans to roll out vaccine passports for those who had received both jabs, despite a report to the contrary.
  • The Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine could be as effective at fighting the UK variant as it is in fighting the original virus, new research suggests.
  • Covid vaccines approved for use in the UK are safe, with the benefits of their use far outweighing any risks, the UK’s medicines regulator has said after examining new data.
  • Education minister Kirsty Williams told the Welsh government briefing on Friday that children in the foundation stage of their schooling would return to school from February 22.
  • Scotland saw largest daily number of vaccinations given since rollout began, as another 48,165 patients in Scotland had received a first dose of coronavirus vaccine by Friday morning.
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Covid: Small businesses’ account delays are over, insist banks

Banks Under scrutiny

The saga prompted the Treasury Committee to seek reassurances from six major banks – NatWest, Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays, Metro Bank and Santander – that they were committed to serving small businesses as the country emerged from lockdowns. In their replies, a number of banks said they had seen a rise in complaints, but against a background of rising demand and their own staffing pressures owing to Covid. “It is clear that delivering on bounce back loans at short notice rapidly increased the demand for business bank accounts at the same time as banks faced considerable additional work in delivering this extra support,” said Mr Stride. “It is good to hear from these banks that the availability of business bank accounts is now returning to pre-pandemic levels.” He said the committee would “keep a close eye” on the issue and on the commitment from banks to support small businesses as the UK started to move out of the pandemic.