Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Moderna Now Testing Updated Vaccine As UK Variant Proves More Deadly
Reuters: UK COVID-19 Variant Has Significantly Higher Death Rate, Study Finds
A highly infectious variant of COVID-19 that has spread around the world since it was first discovered in Britain late last year is between 30% and 100% more deadly than previous dominant variants, researchers said on Wednesday. In a study that compared death rates among people in Britain infected with the new SARS-CoV-2 variant - known as B.1.1.7 - against those infected with other variants of the COVID-19-causing virus, scientists said the new variant’s mortality rate was “significantly higher”. (Kelland, 3/10)
CIDRAP: Death Rate 64% Higher With B117 COVID Variant, Study Finds
The 28-day risk of death for the B117 COVID-19 variant was 64% higher than for previously circulating strains in people older than 30 years, a UK study finds. The study, led by University of Exeter researchers and published today in BMJ, involved community-based testing and death data from 54,906 matched pairs of participants who tested positive for COVID-19 from Oct 1, 2020, to Jan 29, 2021. (Van Beausekom, 3/10)
Moderna begins testing modified vaccine on humans —
The Hill: First Study Subjects Receive Modified Moderna Vaccine To Fight South Africa Variant
Moderna announced Wednesday that it has administered the first doses of a modified vaccine designed to fight coronavirus variants to study participants. The company said it is observing the efficacy of two different modified vaccines in a small study involving 60 people who already received the original vaccine. (Sullivan, 3/10)
The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Variant Vaccine From Moderna Begins Human Testing
The Cambridge, Mass., company, which has one of the Covid-19 vaccines widely in use, plans to enroll 60 people to test the new shot. The subjects had previously received the standard two doses of Moderna’s original shot as part of a mid-stage study that began last year. In the new portion of the study, these adult volunteers will receive a booster shot containing Moderna’s modified vaccine, code-named mRNA-1273.351. (Loftus, 3/10)
In other news about the variants —
Axios: More Contagious Variants Make Up Half Of NYC COVID Cases
Two variants of the coronavirus that are possibly more infectious currently make up 51% of New York City's new coronavirus cases, health officials said Wednesday. Jay Varma, a senior adviser to Mayor Bill de Blasio, said preliminary analysis suggests that the strain first discovered in the United Kingdom, B.1.1.7, and a new strain found in New York City, B.1.526, may spread more easily than other strains of the virus but are not more deadly. (Knutson, 3/10)
CNN: Brazil Coronavirus: Country In Crisis As Second Wave And Deadly New Variant Overwhelm Hospitals
A second wave of Covid-19 is ripping through Brazil, pushing hospitals and ICUs toward collapse and claiming record numbers of daily deaths. While a new variant of the coronavirus spreads throughout the country, many Brazilians continue to defy mask mandates mobility restrictions following the example of President Jair Bolsonaro, who recently said people need to "stop being sissies" and "whining" about the virus. (Charner and Reverdosa, 3/11)
The Atlantic: A Massive Global Hunt For Variants Is Under Way
In the beginning, there was one. The first genome for the virus causing a mysterious illness we had not yet named COVID-19 was shared by scientists on January 10, 2020. That single genome alerted the world to the danger of a novel coronavirus. It was the basis of new tests as countries scrambled to find the virus within their own borders. And it became the template for vaccines, the same ones now making their way to millions of people every day. That first coronavirus genome may have been the most important 30,000 letters published in all of 2020. Since then, the number of sequenced genomes has simply exploded, to 700,000. In just over a year, the virus that causes COVID-19 has become the most sequenced virus of all time—soaring past such longtime contenders as HIV and influenza. Thousands of coronavirus genomes are sequenced around the world every day; several were generated in just the minute it’s taken for you to read these three paragraphs. “It’s been a revolution,” says Judith Breuer, a virologist at University College London. (Zhang, 3/9)
