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AVAC's weekly COVID News Brief provides a curated perspective on what COVID news is worth your time.
“There is a risk that defeat will be plucked from the jaws of victory if a small handful of countries monopolise early access to vaccines and the rest of the world is left to make do with the surplus.”
— Mimi Alemayehou and Donald Kaberuka in Mail & Guardian ([link removed])


** Latest Global Stats
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February 26, 2021
Confirmed Cases
113,133,610 Recovered
63,850,581 Deaths
2,510,125
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University ([link removed])


** Table of Contents
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* Vaccine Research and Regulation (#research)
* Vaccine Deployment (#deploy)
* Vaccine Acceptance (#accceptance)
* Vaccine Equity (#equity)
* Have the New Jab (#jab)

This week we’re focusing on COVID vaccines. The research news continues to be encouraging, despite the growing presence of new virus variants. The US FDA will review the J&J vaccine this week and the Novavax vaccine is under rolling review in several countries. There is growing evidence that vaccine rollout is contributing to an overall global downturn in COVID numbers and deaths. But vaccine equity remains the biggest problem.

JHU ([link removed]) (US) has begun tracking vaccine rollout by country. As of February 25^th, the tracker shows 221,802,354 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide with 45,549,369 people fully vaccinated, representing only .59 percent of the world population. In many, many countries no one has been vaccinated and prospects for meaningful vaccine coverage in too many parts of the world remains uncertain.



** Vaccine Research and Regulation
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AVAC recently updated its Cheat Sheet: COVID-19 Vaccine Pipeline ([link removed]) , which offers advocates an at-a-glance view of the funders, platforms, research phase and considerations for some of the front-runner candidates.

A review of the J&J vaccine by the US FDA ahead of a committee meeting to approve the vaccine for emergency use underscored the promise of the vaccine. According to The New York Times ([link removed]) (US), “The one-shot coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson ([link removed]) provides strong protection against severe disease and death from COVID-19, and may reduce the spread of the virus by vaccinated people, according to new analyses posted online ([link removed]) by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday. The vaccine had a 72 percent overall efficacy rate in the United States and 64 percent in South Africa, where a highly contagious variant emerged in the fall and is now
driving most cases. The Times ([link removed]) also provides a handy guide to how the J&J vaccine works.

The J&J vaccine was tested in South Africa and Brazil, so unlike the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, has data on how well the vaccine works against the variants first identified in South Africa and Brazil. Moderna and Pfizer have been working to modify their vaccines to work against emerging variants. The Washington Post ([link removed]) (US), reports Moderna “has manufactured a new version of its coronavirus vaccine that is tailored to quell infection by the variant first identified in South Africa. A small amount of vaccine has been sent to the National Institutes of Health for a trial to determine whether boosting humans with the modified vaccine will stimulate a strong immune response, the company said.”

FiercePharma ([link removed]) (US) says, “As Pfizer and BioNTech start testing whether a third dose of their COVID-19 shot can help fend off new coronavirus variants, a massive real-world study has confirmed that its first, two-dose regimen is 94 percent effective. The third-dose study now underway ([link removed]) will gauge the effects of that follow-up dose on circulating and new COVID-19 virus variants. At the same time, the companies are in talks with the FDA and EMA about studying a new booster specifically designed to tackle new variants. They're hoping to validate ‘future modified mRNA vaccines with a regulatory pathway similar to what is currently in place for flu vaccines,’ according to a press release.”

Science ([link removed]) (US) reports on research aimed to get vaccines to children. “Even though young people are less likely to fall seriously ill, doctors and scientists agree that vaccinating them is crucial for their own protection and that of the broader population. And because companies already have solid data from adult trials, they are running smaller studies in children that focus on safety and immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines…. Pfizer and BioNTech have completed enrollment of more than 2200 volunteers ages 12 to 15, and Moderna is wrapping up recruitment of a planned 3000 volunteers with the same minimum age…. On 12 February, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford announced they would begin to test their vaccine in 300 UK children ages 6 to 17. Johnson & Johnson… says it's moving toward testing in young people, and Sinovac Biotech is testing its product on children in China ages 3 to 17.”

Wired ([link removed]) (US) reports that it is still unknown whether or not any of the vaccines can stop spread of the virus. “This week, two new studies—neither of which have yet gone through peer review—made splashy headlines about the extent to which vaccines slash viral spread. The first, a leaked manuscript first reported by Israeli news site Ynet… found that two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot drove an 89.4 percent drop in infections—both symptomatic and asymptomatic—among vaccinated people in Israel. Though they did not directly measure transmission, the study’s authors… stated in the abstract that the Pfizer vaccine ‘was highly effective in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections.’ Subsequent news coverage hailed it as the first evidence from the real world that the vaccine could strongly suppress spread of the virus. But scientists not associated with the study say that was an overstatement…. The second repor
t, a preprint posted on The Lancet ([link removed]) Monday, blew that glimmer of good news into a bigger flame. It described a Public Health England study of health care workers in the United Kingdom who’d received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and who were tested every 14 days for COVID-19. The study found that in addition to making people less likely to get sick from the coronavirus—no surprise there ([link removed]) —the vaccine sliced the risk of the recipient getting infected, period…. Vaccinated health care workers were 72 percent less likely at 21 days after the first dose, and 86 percent 7 days after the second dose.”

Nature ([link removed]) (UK) reports “preliminary analyses suggest that at least some vaccines are likely to have a transmission-blocking effect. But confirming that effect—and how strong it will be—is tricky because a drop in infections in a given region might be explained by other factors, such as lockdowns and behaviour changes. Not only that, the virus can spread from asymptomatic carriers, which makes it hard to detect those infections. ‘These are among the hardest types of studies to do,’ says Marc Lipsitch…’ All of us are out there, hungrily trying to see what we can get out of little bits of data that do come out,’ he says. Results from some studies are expected in the next few weeks.”

The LA Times ([link removed]) (US) reports on the most comprehensive data about real world efficacy of a COVID vaccine recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine ([link removed]) (US). Data from Israel shows “Compared with people who did not receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, those who were inoculated were 94 percent less likely to become ill, according to the study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. They also had far lower rates of death, hospitalization and—among those who were tested for the virus—infection.”

Nature ([link removed]) (UK) looks at the difficulties of comparing vaccines. “Given the demand for speed amid limited supplies, any effort to rank the vaccines must take into account not only their reported effectiveness, but also supplies, costs, the logistics of deploying them, the durability of the protection they offer and their ability to fend off emerging viral variants. Even so, many people might find it hard to look away from clinical-trial results that suggest an efficacy gap…. And the vaccines were studied at different times in various countries. Each trial can only offer a snapshot of protection against the viral variants that were dominant in that time or place….”

STAT ([link removed]) (US) reports “News coverage and social media posts about clinical trial results are creating a hierarchy of COVID vaccines in the minds of much of the public: ‘good vaccines’ and ‘bad vaccines.’ The former you might try to seek out; the latter might even prompt you to step out of line. That, health officials say, is a problem…. The vaccines perceived to be less effective also happen to be ones that may be the best option in rural America or in low-income countries because they don’t require the ultra-cold freezers and complex delivery systems more commonly found in or near major cities.”


** Vaccine Deployment
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Ghana became the first country to receive a shipment of vaccines from the COVAX facility. Modern Ghana ([link removed]) (Ghana) reports, “600,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India arrived in the country on Wednesday, February 24, 2021.” Presidential Adviser on Health, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare is quoted, “The deployment [of vaccines] will take place next week. We have segmented the country by populations and this is according to what the Ghana Health Service has done. Health workers are one of the groups [who will take the vaccines] because they are frontline workers. And there are patients who have underlying problems and also the aged.

The Washington Post ([link removed]) (US) reports “This week, a cargo plane arrived at the international airport in Ghana carrying a global message: 600,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine developed in Britain and manufactured in India, with needles sourced from Dubai. The delivery was part of an international initiative backed by 165 countries, but the lives it would save were Ghanaian. The Oxford-AstraZeneca doses that arrived in Accra on Wednesday ([link removed]) mean that Ghana, a lower-middle-income country with a population of 31 million, can begin vaccinations next week. It’s only one step, but a big one. As Juliette M. Tuakli, a public health physician and pediatrician in Accra, described it to The Washington Post, the doses mean ‘there is hope in sight.’”

Daily Maverick ([link removed]) (South Africa) reports, “Armed with courage, a sense of urgency, an ability to survive on steely determination and almost no sleep, a team of people including the lead investigator in the Johnson & Johnson trial, Professor Glenda Gray, and the Minister of Health, Dr Zweli Mkhize, moved heaven, earth, a whole lot of aeroplanes and trucks and many, many boxes to get the precious doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines to the provinces and into the arms of health workers….”

The Washington Post ([link removed]) (US) editorial board writes that as more vaccine doses become available in the US, efforts must be made to persuade more people to get vaccinated. “The government and all others who hope to end the pandemic should devote more effort to overcoming vaccine hesitancy, including launching a nationwide vaccine awareness campaign ([link removed]) . The shots appear to be highly effective. They are a lifesaver to those vulnerable to this disease, which is still spreading and infecting people every day. There is no good reason not to get jabbed.”

The US FDA ([link removed]) announced today “that it is allowing undiluted frozen vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to be transported and stored at conventional temperatures commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers for a period of up to two weeks,” instead of the previous guidance of storing in ultra-low temperature freezers.” This move, based on data presented by Pfizer, should make rollout of the Pfizer vaccine easier.

In a video op-ed on MedPage Today ([link removed]) (US) Dr. Monica Gandhi talks to ZDoggMD about the good COVID vaccines are doing and what fully vaccinated people should be able to do. Gandhi says, “We are just facing like complete dawn of hope and light and love. Like it's gonna be so great. It is getting so great…. So, we have seven vaccines in circulation around the globe that work. And they work exactly using the same protein in different ways using that protein, and they work beautifully, and they all work beautifully against preventing…severe disease. They all work almost 100 percent to prevent... 100 percent for hospitalizations. And then like in the 90s to prevent you not even feeling well at home. So, they're amazing.”

Business Insider ([link removed]) (US) provides a table that compares Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines side by side.



** Vaccine Acceptance
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Reuters ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “Germany has administered only 15% of the AstraZeneca coronavirus shots it has available, the health ministry said, as the vaccine faces public resistance after trials showed it to be less effective than alternatives…. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman on Wednesday urged people to trust the vaccine which was developed at Britain’s Oxford University, saying it was safe and effective.”

Ghana Web ([link removed]) (Ghana) and other Ghana media are reporting on efforts in the country to counteract myths and conspiracy theories about COVID vaccines. “Ghanaians must put an end to the unnecessary conspiracy theories over the COVID-19 vaccines and rather embrace them, according to former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service ([link removed]) , Dr. Elias Sory. A section of Ghanaians have raised concerns over the vaccines with some expressing fears of possible adverse reactions if they take the vaccine. Some have even suggested that taking the vaccines could lead to memory loss and possibly even kill them. But Dr. Elias Sory said those conspiracy theories are not healthy for the government’s agenda to inoculate the majority of the public.”

Reuters ([link removed]) (UK) reports “India is struggling to convince its health and front-line workers to take a homegrown COVID-19 vaccine controversially approved without late-stage efficacy data, government data showed on Thursday, days ahead of a wider roll-out…. The government is trying to expedite vaccinations as cases have surged, especially in Maharashtra in the west and the southern state of Kerala, possibly as they have reopened suburban trains and schools. Mask-wearing and social distancing has also largely vanished, with big events like international cricket matches being played in front of tens of thousands of spectators hardly following any COVID-19 rules.”



** Vaccine Equity
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In a commentary in Nature ([link removed]) (UK) Gavin Yamey writes “I live in the United States, so even though I am at low risk, I will be able to get vaccinated well ahead of many health workers and high-risk people in poorer nations. This is unfair, and will prolong the pandemic…. To help, rich countries should tithe their vaccine supply to poorer places and negotiate direct purchasing deals with vaccine manufacturers to increase supplies…. Richer nations should share their doses, stat. Perhaps for every nine doses they administer, they can donate one dose to COVAX. This falls far short of ‘equitable’, but it is within what is possible. This will help beyond dimming the chance of an outbreak from an imported variant that hoarded vaccines might have reduced efficacy against.”

A commentary in Mail & Guardian ([link removed]) warns, “there is a risk that defeat will be plucked from the jaws of victory if a small handful of countries monopolise early access to vaccines and the rest of the world is left to make do with the surplus. This trickle-down approach to vaccine access simply isn’t a viable strategy—it risks extending the lifetime of the pandemic and doubling the number of lives it costs. Africa needs finance to underpin its own procurement strategy and a massive scaling up of manufacturing.”

Modern Ghana ([link removed]) (Ghana) reports, “As wealthy nations horde COVID-19 vaccine supplies, Africa is lagging in the global effort to immunize people against the disease even as its fatality numbers spike. Though Africa has 17 percent of the world’s population, it accounts for just 0.2 percent of the 209 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered to people across the globe. Meanwhile, the continent is experiencing a sharp rise in COVID infections and fatalities… South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is also chairman of the African Union, recently called on wealthy nations to make more COVID-19 vaccines available to the rest of the world. He criticized them for hoarding vaccine supplies. ‘The rich countries of the world went out and acquired large doses. Some even acquired up to four times what their population needs … to the exclusion of other countries,’ Ramaphosa observed….”

AP ([link removed]) (US) reports “Britain plans to use its presidency of the Group of Seven economic powers to push for an internationally recognized system of vaccine passports that could allow world travel to resume, though Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged Tuesday that the idea raises ‘complex’ ethical issues….” France 24 ([link removed]) (France) reports, “While some countries trumpet them as a way out for the hard-hit tourism and airline industries, others are more skeptical with only a tiny percentage of the world's population vaccinated.”

A commentary in The Conversation ([link removed]) warns that a “COVID passport” could be “fraught and difficult to access ([link removed]) for refugees and asylum-seekers, who often must destroy identifying documents when fleeing their homeland, or who come from regions where there can be inadequate documentation of their identity, including lack of precise details of birth.”



** Have the New Jab
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The very talented Marsh family from the UK have released their newest family video ([link removed]) . This one is a rewrite of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”—"Have the New Jab.” They urge listeners to ignore the conspiracy theories, trust science and “have the new jab.”

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