"First Demo COVID-19 Lockdown Exit Analysis" 26th Jan 2021
COVID-19 Health Minute
Today's Top News
- UK scientists argue data not dates drive lockdown decisions
- Can masks be shed after vaccination? Not yet
- Four steps to a safer lockdown exit
- Vaccine Hesitancy - train up people who look like vulnerable communities to be community champions
- Sweden tackled COVID-19 differently to all its neighbours - is it working?
- U.S. Emergency Use Application for Pfizer vaccine lasting longer in standard freezer
- More severe mental illness may mean worse COVID-19 outcomes - study
- Italian doctors remember night that ushered in Europe's first COVID-19 lockdown
- Germany sees drop in virus cases flatten as variant surges
- India - almost 14,000 new cases and lockdown imposed in parts of Maharashtra
Learning to live with COVID-19 - Data not dates drive decisions
Escaping lockdown: when will life return to normal?
Governments and societies will have to learn how to manage a complex series of risks, both in the short term while only part of the population has been vaccinated, and in the long term as the disease lingers even after most people have received the jab. International travel could face restrictions for some time to come. Some scientists describe a long drawn-out battle with an endemic virus that constantly evolves — with new vaccines and treatments being deployed in a way that they hope will allow much but not all of normal life to return. “The challenge is to find a way to live with it without keeping huge restrictions in place,” says Azra Ghani, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London.
Can masks be shed after COVID-19 vaccination - not yet
What's safe after COVID-19 vaccination? Don't shed masks yet
It’s great if the vaccine means someone who otherwise would have been hospitalized instead just has the sniffles, or even no symptoms. But “the looming question,” Fauci said during a White House coronavirus response briefing last week, is whether a person infected despite vaccination can still, unwittingly, infect someone else. Studies are underway to find out, and hints are starting to emerge. Fauci pointed to recent research from Spain showing the more coronavirus an infected person harbors — what’s called the viral load — the more infectious they are. That’s not surprising, as it’s true with other illnesses.
Four steps to a safe lockdown exit
Here are the four steps needed to safely end the UK's Covid lockdown
Our first collective aim should be reducing transmission to as low a level as possible – and keeping it low. Secondly, it will be crucial that we continue to monitor transmission and quickly identify any new variants. The third important aspect of this roadmap should be a highly effective test, trace, isolate and support system. As cases fall and people begin to mix again, keeping the virus under control will depend upon the effectiveness of this system. Councils and communities must work together to ensure those who are least likely to take up the offer of a vaccination are engaged and supported, whether through targeted, culturally aware communication campaigns or enlisting community representatives to encourage uptake. Local community leaders, businesses, faith groups, libraries, schools, sports clubs and local media will all be central to these efforts.
Vaccine Hesitancy - People trust those who lock like them, train up community champions
Gen V: The Young Vaccine Heroes Convincing Their Elders To Get The Covid Jab
Neesie has recruited 20 young people aged between 18 and 25 who are from Black, Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds, and teamed up with Bradford’s university and hospital to teach them about Covid and arm them with facts about the vaccine. The plan was for the young people to go out into their communities to spread awareness – but, due to the lockdown, they are speaking to community groups through online platforms to eradicate myths and misconceptions. Someone who looks like you and speaks the same language and has the same cultural or faith background as you is often better at relaying the message and being trusted
Sweden did it differently - is it working for them?
Reporters - Covid-19: The Swedish exception?
With the arrival of winter, the threat from Covid-19 increased, requiring a change in strategy: the Swedish government limited public gatherings but allowed shops to remain open. Our reporters have been to Sweden, but also to Finland and Denmark, to meet the Swedes who have left their country out of fear of catching coronavirus. Although Sweden's Covid-19 figures are no worse than the European average, the country has reported 10 times more deaths than its Scandinavian neighbours.
U.S. Emergency Use Application for Pfizer vaccine that lasts longer in a standard freezer
Pfizer and BioNTech Coronavirus Vaccine Effective After 1 Dose, Can Last 2 Weeks in Standard Freezer, Separate Research Shows
On Friday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they have submitted new data about their BNT162b2 vaccine to the Food and Drug Administration. With this submission, the two companies hope that the FDA will update the emergency use authorization (EUA) it has granted the vaccine. The new data indicates that Pfizer and BioNTech's BNT162b2 can be kept for as long as two weeks at temperatures common to pharmaceutical freezers and refrigerators, as opposed to the constant ultra-low temperature storage it initially seemed to necessitate.
More severe mental illness may mean worse COVID-19 outcomes - South Korea study
Association between mental illness and COVID-19 in South Korea
In their nationwide cohort study, Seung Won Lee and colleagues suggest that patients with a severe mental illness had a slightly higher risk for severe clinical outcomes of COVID-19.1 Although the authors classified region of residence into urban and rural categories to adjust for potential confounding, the high number of COVID-19 cases in Daegu (the fourth most populous city in South Korea) indicates that bias could remain due to uncontrolled confounding as a result of regional differences.
Italian doctors remember night that ushered in Europe's first COVID-19 lockdown
Italian doctors remember night that ushered in Europe's first COVID-19 lockdown
A year ago, Laura Ricevuti and Annalisa Malara, both doctors at Codogno hospital in Italy, had a hunch that something was different about a patient in the intensive care ward. Their decision to take matters into their own hands wound up triggering a national emergency - they had identified the first case of COVID-19 in the area that would become Europe’s first lockdown zone. A previously healthy 38-year-old man, now known as Mattia, his first name, or “patient one”, had gone to the hospital with a high fever, cough and shortness of breath on Feb. 18, 2020. He refused to be admitted so was given antibiotics and went home.
Germany sees drop in virus cases flatten as variant surges
Germany sees drop in virus cases flatten as variant surges
The head of Germany’s disease control agency is warning that the decline in new coronavirus cases the country had been seeing has leveled off and the share of cases involving more contagious variants is rising
India records 13,993 new cases and 101 deaths, lockdown imposed in parts of Maharashtra
Coronavirus: India records 13,993 new cases and 101 deaths, lockdown imposed in parts of Maharashtra
India reported 13,993 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours on Saturday, as the total number of cases went up to 1,09,77,387, according to health ministry data. The toll rose to 1,56,212, with 101 new deaths, while the number of active cases in the country stood at 1,43,127. A total of 1,07,15,204 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered so far to health workers and frontline workers, according to the government data.