Medicine

Reuters reports: The Netherlands is to introduce rapid COVID-19 breath tests to sites across the country to speed up the testing process and make it less intrusive. Testing facilities in Amsterdam were this week the first to start using the SpiroNose, a machine which requires a person to breathe into it to indicate a possible coronavirus infection within a minute. …

The Washington Post reports: Researchers at Oxford University released new results from their vaccine, which is being manufactured by British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca, showing it gives 76 percent protection for three months after just one dose. Testing also reveals that those vaccinated are much less likely to transmit the disease, which will help stem the continuing spread of the virus. The …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Johnson & Johnson said its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was 66% effective at protecting people from moderate to severe disease in a large clinical trial, positive results that could pave the way for its deployment across the U.S. within weeks. The J&J vaccine also appeared to be generally safe and well tolerated among the 44,325 adults …

USA Today reports: Another COVID-19 candidate vaccine appears to be safe and roughly 90% effective against the virus that causes the disease. It also protects against at least a few of the variants that have arisen in recent months. On Thursday, Novavax, a Gaithersburg, Maryland-based biotechnology firm, released interim results from two clinical trials of its candidate vaccine, one in …

From Oregon’s Josephine County: When Josephine County Public Health staff and volunteers concluded their mass vaccination event at the Illinois Valley High School this afternoon, they never guessed they might be setting up an impromptu clinic on the way back to Grants Pass. But that’s exactly what happened when a snowstorm stranded about 20 personnel on Highway 199 near Hayes …

The Hill reports: A Pfizer study released Wednesday determined that the mutations in the COVID-19 variants originally found in the United Kingdom and South Africa have “small effects” on the effectiveness of the company’s vaccine developed with BioNTech. The preliminary research, conducted by Pfizer and University of Texas Medical Branch scientists, concluded that the results showed no need for an …

The Seattle Times reports: Last Friday, Molly Stearns, chief development officer at Overlake Medical Center & Clinics, emailed about 110 donors who gave more than $10,000 to the Eastside hospital system, informing them that highly coveted vaccine slots were available. “Dear Overlake major donors…” the email read. “We’re pleased to share that we have 500 new open appointments in the …

The Washington Post reports: Months-long lockdowns. Entire city populations herded through the streets for mandatory testing. The people of China could be forgiven for thinking they had seen it all during the coronavirus pandemic. But now they face a new indignity: the addition of anal swabs — yes, you read that right — to the testing regimen for those in …

The New York Times reports: Moderna’s vaccine is effective against new variants of the coronavirus that have emerged in Britain and South Africa, the company announced on Monday. But it appears to be less protective against the variant discovered in South Africa, and so the company is developing a new form of the vaccine that could be used as a …

STAT News reports: Merck said Monday it will stop developing both of the current formulations of the Covid-19 vaccines the company was working on, citing inadequate immune responses to the shots. Work will continue on at least one of the vaccines, which is being developed in partnership with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), to see if using a different …

The New York Daily News reports: A Washington entrepreneur who branded himself a biotech expert and sold an alleged COVID-19 “vaccine” he created in his personal lab has been arrested. Johnny Stine, 56, has been charged with introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce after he advertised his concoction for between $400 and $1,000, according to the Department of Justice. The …

The Texas Tribune reports: Across Texas, hospital intensive care units are being battered as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in a post-holiday surge. Dozens of facilities have reported that their ICUs have been at or above 100% capacity for weeks, leaving staff overworked and stretched thin. More than 50 Texas hospitals are currently reporting that their ICUs are 100% full …

Pittsburgh’s CBS News affiliate reports: Smokers are now among a new group of Pennsylvanians at the front of the line to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The Pennsylvania Department of Health includes smoking on its list of qualifying conditions for those a part of Priority Group 1A. The department said in part: “Pennsylvania has chosen to follow the CDC’s recommendations and …

The New York Daily News reports: Gov. Cuomo, fed up with the federal government’s frustratingly slow rollout of COVID vaccines, is going straight to the source. The governor penned a letter Monday to Pfizer asking if the pharmaceutical giant would cut out the middleman and sell doses directly to New York. “You no doubt understand the challenges New York and …

The New York Daily News reports: Almost a third of recovered COVID-19 patients in a UK study ended up back in the hospital within five months — and up to one in eight died of complications from the illness, according to a report. Researchers at the UK’s Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics found that out of 47,780 …

The Associated Press reports: China authorized its first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine for general use Thursday, adding another shot that could see wide use in poorer countries as the virus surges back around the globe. The Sinopharm vaccine had already been given to groups such as health care professionals and essential workers under emergency-use guidelines as part of China’s program to …

Milwaukee’s Fox News affiliate reports: More than 500 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine had to be “discarded” after they were removed from a pharmacy refrigerator at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton on Saturday, Dec. 26 in an intentional act, officials said in an update Wednesday, Dec. 30. Grafton police late Wednesday night confirmed the FBI and FDA are …

Changing America reports: Residents in Los Angeles County who receive the COVID-19 vaccine will be offered a digital record of their vaccination they can store in their Apple Wallet, according to Bloomberg. The county is partnering with software company Healthvana to begin offering the vaccination record to the Wallet app on iPhone or competing Google platform as a way to …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Doses of monoclonal antibodies—Covid-19 therapies authorized for emergency use last month—are sitting unused in hospital pharmacies, even as cases surge across the country. Hospitals say the rollout of the therapies has been stunted by a lukewarm response from infectious-disease specialists, who say they want more clinical trial data before using them on a regular basis. …

Reuters reports: Novavax has begun a large late-stage study of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine in the United States, the drug developer said on Monday, after delaying the trial twice due to issues in scaling up the manufacturing process. It will enroll up to 30,000 volunteers across about 115 sites in the United States and Mexico, with two-thirds of them receiving …