A U.K. trial has been launched to see if giving people different COVID vaccines for their first and second doses works as well as the current approach of using the same type of vaccine twice. The idea is to provide more flexibility with vaccine rollout and help deal with any potential disruption to supplies. Scientists say that mixing the vaccines …
This is the first set of public health recommendations for fully vaccinated people. This guidance will be updated and expanded based on the level of community spread of SARS-CoV-2, the proportion of the population that is fully vaccinated, and the rapidly evolving science on COVID-19 vaccines. For the purposes of this guidance, people are considered fully vaccinated for COVID-19 ≥2 …
An angry red rash being called “COVID arm” is a harmless but annoying response in some people who get the Moderna vaccine. Aside from sometimes being itchy, it doesn’t appear to be dangerous and people who get it should not hesitate to get their second dose of the vaccine. “We want to reassure people that this is a known phenomenon, …
Moderna has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to fill its COVID-19 vaccine vials with up to five additional doses to ease a bottleneck in manufacturing. The availability of COVID-19 vaccines has been a source of frustration since their clearance in the U.S. in mid-December. While the pace of administration has picked up to more than 1 …
Arguments have been made that because COVID-19 is such a serious disease that is rapidly spreading throughout the world and because vaccines can be made and delivered at a relatively slow rate, a first dose should be given and the second dose delayed until a large amount of the population receives the first dose. To be clear, it is known …
Health experts have conditionally backed the U.K.’s decision to delay administering a second dose of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, warning that the need to suppress the new coronavirus strain “cannot be overstated.” On December 30, 2020, following MHRA approval of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, the four UK Chief Medical Officers, based on a recommendation by the …
The full effects of Pfizer’s vaccine are only slated to kick in around a month after the first shot, but data from Israel, home to the world’s fastest vaccination drive, has already shown that there is a stark drop in infections even before this point. Drawing widespread, international interest by sharing early data, Maccabi Healthcare Services reported earlier this month …
On December 11, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine, administered as two doses separated by 21 days. Notifications and reports of suspected severe allergic reactions and anaphylaxis following vaccination were captured in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the national passive surveillance (spontaneous …
More people with fever and body aches are turning to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to ease symptoms, but the drugs have come under new scrutiny as investigators work to determine whether they are a safe way to relieve the pain of COVID-19 vaccination or symptoms of the disease. One theory is that NSAIDs alter susceptibility to infection by modifying angiotensin-converting …
Moderna Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNA) announced results from in vitro neutralization studies of sera from individuals vaccinated with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine showing activity against emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccination with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine produced neutralizing titers against all key emerging variants tested, including B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, first identified in the U.K. and Republic of South Africa. The two-dose regimen …
