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AVAC's weekly COVID News Brief provides a curated perspective on what COVID news is worth your time.
“We know when we have low vaccine coverage we are all at risk because of the emergence of variants. Low vaccination coverage in Africa requires a global solution."
— Salim Abdool Karim during an APHA and NAM webinar ([link removed])


** Latest Global Stats
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June 25, 2021
Global Documented Case
180,087,836 Global Reported Deaths
3,902,331 People Fully Vaccinated
792,053,988
Source: Coronavirus Research Center – Johns Hopkins University & Medicine ([link removed])


** Table of Contents
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* If You Are in a Hurry (#hurry)
* What Will It Take to Vaccinate the World? (#world)
* The Promise of Novavax (#promise)
* The Delta Variant’s Threat to Africa (#delta)
* COVID Surges in Latin America (#latin)
* India May See Third Wave (#india)
* Problems with the Chinese Vaccines (#probs)
* A Pill to Treat COVID (#pill)


* Drop in Life Expectancy (#drop)
* Vaccines Prevent Deaths in US (#prevent)
* How the Media Handled COVID (#how)
* Vaccines and Pregnant and Breastfeeding People (#preg)
* Is Hesitancy or Systemic Racism Driving Low Vaccine Uptake? (#uptake)
* Responding to COVID in Gay Neighborhoods (#gay)

About 1 in 10 people in the world have been fully vaccinated. The vast majority of those people live in rich countries. In most African countries few people have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. And a new surge of cases in many countries is cause for concern. The New York Times ([link removed]) (US) reports, “The pandemic is worsening in Africa as more contagious variants spread, vaccinations lag and hospitals in some places are pushed beyond their limits…. [In Kenya] With medical supplies depleted, vaccines scarce, doctors lamenting physical and mental fatigue and hospitals turning away patients ([link removed]) for lack of beds or oxygen, health officials say they fear a wave like the one that ripped through India ([link removed]) in April and May could be looming over Kisumu. News24
([link removed]) (South Africa) reports that in the province of Gauteng, “hospitals are so overwhelmed that medical personnel are now effectively choosing who to try and save. Gauteng medical personnel have described the pain of choosing who lives or dies because of the shortage of beds and oxygen in the province, which is currently the pandemic's epicentre in the country.”



** If You Are in a Hurry
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* Read what experts think is needed to vaccinate the world in New York Times ([link removed]) .
* Read about the advantages of the Novavax vaccine in The Atlantic ([link removed]) .
* Read about the toll of the delta variant on Africa in Sunday Times ([link removed]) and The East African ([link removed]) .
* Watch the APHA (US) and NAM (US) webinar ([link removed]) “A Tale of Two Pandemics.”
* Read about a new plan to manufacture mRNA vaccines in Africa in Al Jazeera ([link removed]) .
* Read Nature ([link removed]) on the global threats from the delta variant.
* Read what the media got right and wrong in COVID reporting in Medscape ([link removed]) .
* Read Tian Johnson, Stephaun Wallace and Maaza Seyoum in Project Syndicate ([link removed]) on systemic racism and vaccine access.




** What Will It Take to Vaccinate the World?
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A New York Times ([link removed]) (US) opinion piece argues we are nowhere near a post-pandemic and looks at what it will take to vaccinate the world, quoting Gregg Gonsalves: “We’re talking about a Manhattan Project, Marshall Plan or World War II mobilization—that’s the kind of mobilization we need. We’ve been outlining a tripartite plan of action: We need to get the IP barriers out of the way; do technology transfers so we can start to scale up around the world; and then pour massive amounts of funding into building up global capacity to get these vaccines out there.”

An APHA (US) and NAM (US) webinar ([link removed]) looked at “two pandemics,” featuring experts from Brazil, India and South Africa talking about vaccine access and the current state of COVID-19 globally. You can see highlights from the webinar on the NAM twitter feed ([link removed]) , including this quote from Slim Karim: “We know when we have low vaccine coverage we are all at risk because of the emergence of variants. Low vaccination coverage in Africa requires a global solution."

The Guardian ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “African Union special envoy Strive Masiyiwa has accused the world’s richest nations of deliberately failing to provide enough COVID-19 vaccines to the continent. Masiyiwa, the union’s special envoy to the African vaccine acquisition task team, said the COVAX scheme ([link removed]) had failed to keep its promise to secure production of 700 million doses of vaccines in time for delivery by December 2021. ‘It’s not a question of if this was a moral failure, it was deliberate. Those with the resources pushed their way to the front of the queue and took control of their production assets,’ Masiyiwa told a panel discussion….”

Al Jazeera ([link removed]) (Qatar) reports, “The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is setting up a hub ([link removed]) in South Africa to give companies from poor and middle-income countries the know-how and licences to produce COVID-19 vaccines, in what President Cyril Ramaphosa called an historic step to spread lifesaving technology. The ‘tech transfer hub’ could make it possible for African companies to begin manufacturing mRNA vaccines—the advanced technology now used in shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna—in as little as nine to 12 months, the WHO said.”



** The Promise of Novavax
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The Atlantic ([link removed]) (US) reports the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna “are harder and more expensive to manufacture and distribute than traditional types of vaccines, and their side effects are more common and more severe. The latest Novavax data confirm that it’s possible to achieve the same efficacy against COVID-19 with a more familiar technology that more people may be inclined to trust. The mRNA vaccines delivered efficacy rates of 95 ([link removed]) and 94 ([link removed]) percent against the original coronavirus strain in Phase 3 trials, as compared with 96 ([link removed]) percent for Novavax in its first trial, and now 90 percent against a mixture of variants…. Among several wonderful options, the more old-school vaccine from Novavax combines ease of manufacture with high
efficacy and lower side effects. For the moment, it’s the best COVID-19 vaccine we have.”



** The Delta Variant’s Threat to Africa
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Nature ([link removed]) (UK) reports on the global spread of the delta variant. “Delta poses the biggest risk, scientists say, to countries that have limited access to vaccines, particularly those in Africa, where most nations have vaccinated less than 5 percent of their populations…. Surveillance in African countries is extremely limited, but there are hints that the variant is already causing cases there to surge. Several sequences of the variant have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where an outbreak in the capital city of Kinshasa has filled hospitals. The variant has also been detected in Malawi, Uganda and South Africa.”

AP ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Africa is facing a devastating resurgence of COVID-19 infections whose peak will surpass that of earlier waves as the continent's countries struggle to vaccinate even a small percentage of the population, top health officials said Thursday. ‘The third wave is picking up speed, spreading faster, hitting harder,’ Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said Thursday, ‘With rapidly rising case numbers and increasing reports of serious illness, the latest surge threatens to be Africa's worst yet. Africa can still blunt the impact of these fast-rising infections, but the window of opportunity is closing. Everyone everywhere can do their bit by taking precautions to prevent transmission.’”

Sunday Times ([link removed]) (South Africa) reports, “Sounding the alarm, [Africa CDC’s] Nkengasong said: ‘For the first time (in the pandemic) there are reports that hospitals are being overwhelmed. Yesterday, the ministry of health in Zambia said they were completely overwhelmed. The DRC president said their hospitals are overwhelmed. Uganda is overwhelmed. So many people are dying because of the basic lack of oxygen. Yesterday that was the experience of Zambia, where oxygen had run out completely…. What is common across the board is that the peak of the third wave is remarkably higher than the second wave and more severe ... there are several factors, and maybe the Delta variant is playing a significant role.’”

The East African ([link removed]) (Kenya) reports, “East Africa is in the throes of a public health crisis as its healthcare systems sag under the weight of a rapid third wave of COVID-19, largely blamed on the deadly Delta strain…. COVID-19 cases in Africa are surging by over 20 percent week-on-week as the continent’s third wave gains pace and nears the first wave peak of more than 120,000 weekly cases recorded in July 2020, new data from the WHO showed on Thursday. Uganda is one of the countries with the highest numbers of new weekly cases since the pandemic began. The others are the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Namibia.”



** COVID Surges in Latin America
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AP ([link removed]) (US) reports “Colombia reached 100,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 this week, becoming just the tenth country in the world to hit the grim milestone. The South American nation of 50 million has been registering a growing number of daily cases since April and over the past seven days it had the world’s third-highest per capita death rate from COVID-19, according to data published by Oxford University.”

The Guardian ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “On Wednesday this week, Paraguay registered 18.09 deaths per million ([link removed]) , compared with 2.71 in India, 2.2 in South Africa, 1.01 in the US, and 0.14 in the UK. And as the US and Europe begin to emerge from the pandemic, discard their masks and ponder how best to spend the recovery funds, the crisis most evident in Paraguay is playing out across much of South America.”



** India May See Third Wave
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Bloomberg ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Despite halting all exports in April and benefiting from a huge vaccine producing industry, India has covered only 4 percent of its vast population, putting it far behind most of the West and China, which is deploying about 20 million doses a day. At this rate, some scientists say a third wave could arrive within months, driving fears the country may see a repeat of the recent nightmare of oxygen shortages and overwhelmed hospitals.”



** Problems with the Chinese Vaccines
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The New York Times ([link removed]) (US) reports, “examples from several countries suggest that the Chinese vaccines may not be very effective at preventing the spread of the virus, particularly the new variants. The experiences of those countries lay bare a harsh reality facing a post-pandemic world: The degree of recovery may depend on which vaccines governments give to their people.”



** A Pill to Treat COVID
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The New York Times ([link removed]) (US) reports the US government is “pouring more than $3 billion on a neglected area of research: developing pills to fight the virus early in the course of infection, potentially saving many lives in the years to come….”



** Drop in Life Expectancy
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NPR ([link removed]) (US) reports, “A new study estimates that life expectancy in the US decreased by nearly two years between 2018 and 2020, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And the declines were most pronounced among minority groups, including Black and Hispanic people…. ‘African Americans saw their life expectancy decrease by 3.3 years and Hispanic Americans saw their life expectancy decrease by 3.9 years,’ Woolf noted…. ‘It is impossible to look at these findings and not see a reflection of the systemic racism in the US,’ Lesley Curtis, chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine, told NPR.”



** Vaccines Prevent Deaths in US
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NPR ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the US now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day—now down to under 300—could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine. An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1 percent” A separate NPR ([link removed]) story notes that the delta variant is spreading rapidly in the US. “So Fauci says the rising threat posed by the Delta variant makes it more urgent than ever that more people roll up their sleeves to get vaccinated, especially given how close the
country is to finally getting back to normal…. The Delta variant could trigger yet another moderate surge of infections through many parts of the US because of these pockets of unvaccinated people, according to a recent set of projections from the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, ([link removed]) which is helping the CDC plot the future course of the pandemic.”



** How the Media Handled COVID
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It’s likely that the COVID-19 pandemic is the most reported news event in history. More than a year into the pandemic it continues to dominate much of the global news coverage. Medscape ([link removed]) (US) looks at how the US media handled—and was handled by—the COVID pandemic to date. “Some of the science journalism done during the pandemic has been some of the best ever seen in this country, said Schwitzer. But between the peaks of excellence, there is ‘the daily drumbeat coverage of dreck,’ he added. Many of the issues with this dreck coverage aren't new or unique to the pandemic. For example, over the last year there have been far too many news stories based solely on weak information sources, like a drug company press release or a not-yet-peer-reviewed preprint article that hasn't been put into proper context, said Schwitzer.”



** Vaccines and Pregnant and Breastfeeding People
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A US NIH press release ([link removed]) reports on the MOMI-VAX study: “A new observational study has begun to evaluate the immune responses generated by COVID-19 vaccines administered to pregnant or postpartum people. Researchers will measure the development and durability of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in people vaccinated during pregnancy or the first two postpartum months. Researchers also will assess vaccine safety and evaluate the transfer of vaccine-induced antibodies to infants across the placenta and through breast milk.”

Nature ([link removed]) (UK) reports small studies among breastfeeding participants who have received a COVID vaccine have not detected the vaccines in breast milk. What they have found are antibodies, produced by mothers in response to inoculations, to the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2…. Now, researchers want to know whether those antibodies can provide babies with at least partial protection against COVID-19.”



** Is Hesitancy or Systemic Racism Driving Low Vaccine Uptake?
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Tian Johnson, Stephaun Wallace and Maaza Seyoum write for Project Syndicate ([link removed]) : “Minority communities and developing-country populations may approach health services cautiously—and with good reason, given the medical profession's history of inhumanity. But, by blaming low COVID-19 vaccination rates on vaccine hesitancy, the profession is effectively using this history to victimize the same communities again…. The Africa CDC is setting an important example, meeting vulnerable communities where they are, listening to and acknowledging their expectations and anxieties, and nurturing greater engagement with the public-health system. Privileged countries and communities will be tempted to continue to put their own needs first. They might even be tempted to continue to disregard the lives of vulnerable populations. But that temptation points to a pandemic without
end.”



** Responding to COVID in Gay Neighborhoods
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The Conversation ([link removed]) (US) reports, “the lessons learned and trauma experienced early in the HIV/AIDS pandemic helped urban gay areas respond to COVID-19 quickly and effectively—especially in the face of early federal government paralysis…. In Chicago and other cities, activists used LGBTQ+ urban social and professional networks established during the HIV/AIDS pandemic to tackle this latest disease. Queer communities disseminated information about COVID-19 to neighbors and distributed face masks and other protective gear, just as they had once shared information about HIV transmission and given out condoms.”

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