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Coronavirus Watch
AstraZeneca’s new antibody cocktail Evushield is more effective than its own vaccine
AstraZeneca has solidified its lead in the race to develop a preventative COVID-19 drug, announcing in a statement last Thursday (18 November), that its...
Only six healthy children died of COVID-19 in first year — Public Health England
Data from England reveals that of the 25 deaths among children in the first year of the pandemic that were caused by COVID-19, just...
Students believe in vaccines and put their faith in Pfizer and pharmacists — Wits
South African students believe the COVID vaccine is safe, with 83% willing to take the jab, and most of them preferring the Pfizer and...
The demographic face of COVID-19 in South Africa — Johannesburg University
Existing socioeconomic inequalities shape COVID-19 impacts, with a disproportionate effect on black Africans and marginalised and low socioeconomic groups, found a study in the...
Discovery analysis: Pfizer vaccinated SA adults have 94% lower risk of death from COVID
Unvaccinated South Africans have a five times higher risk of
COVID-19 infection and 20 times higher risk of dying from
COVID complications than people...
Infection + vaccination delivers better protection than immunisation only — Large US study
In what is believed to be one of the largest studies of its kind, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have shown that antibody levels against...
Cheap, generic anti-depressant may reduce severe COVID-19 — Brazil trial
The cheap, generically available anti-depressant fluvoxamine may reduce the risk of severe COVID by as much as a third in people at high risk,...
No causal effect of school closures in Japan on COVID-19 spread
School closures have been widely implemented as a non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) to reduce the spread of COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus...
Large US evaluation of school closures' effect on spread of COVID
Schools can reopen for in-person learning without substantially increasing community case rates of SARS-CoV-2, found national, retrospective cohort study in the US, published in...
Nearly a quarter of hospitalised COVID-19 patients have ‘brain fog’ — Mount Sinai registry
Nearly a quarter of COVID-19 patients in a Mount Sinai Health System registry experienced some issues with their memory, found a study in JAMA...
Increased human use of veterinary Ivermectin reflected in Oregon Poison Centre calls
Correspondence in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) chronicles increased use of veterinary-use Ivermectin and increased COVID-19-related calls at the Oregon Poison Centre.
The writers...
New device can diagnose COVID-19 from saliva samples
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University have designed a small tabletop device that can detect SARS-CoV-2 from a saliva sample...
WHO to investigate Eastern Cape’s high COVID-19 death rate
Experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), accompanied by a team from the national health department, has started the probe into the Eastern Cape’s...
More than one in 10 COVID patients infected in hospital in UK's first wave
Prevention of hospital-acquired infections is a critical aspect of clinical management of COVID-19, as hospital-acquired infections have been a common feature of previous novel...
Cerebral venous thrombosis and the AstraZeneca vaccine — UK cohort study
The largest study yet of cerebral venous thrombosis after vaccination against COVID-19 (VITT), shows that those affected were younger, had fewer venous thrombosis risk...
Confronting America's next national health disaster: long-haul COVID-19
Now that more than half of all US adults have been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, masking and distancing mandates have been relaxed, and COVID-19 cases...
FDA committee endorses Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds
On Tuesday this week, the US Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory committee overwhelmingly endorsed a smaller dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for...
Moderna interim results show that its low-dose vaccine works for 6-11-year-olds
A low dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine appears to be efficacious in 6- to 11-year-olds, says the manufacturer as it joins its rival Pfizer...
J&J vaccine: Booster jabs from Moderna or Pfizer might be better – NIH trial
People who received a Johnson & Johnson (J&J) coronavirus vaccine may be better off with a booster shot from Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech, according to...
Interferon worse than placebo in severe COVID — US NIAID trial
Interferon beta-1a plus remdesivir (Veklury) was not superior to remdesivir alone in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. Patients who required high-flow oxygen had worse...
COVID herd immunity may be a family affair — Swedish cohort study
Family members without immunity had a 45% to 97% lower risk of contracting COVID-19 as the number of immune family members increased, found a...
Aspirin substantially lowers COVID risk — George Washington University study
Aspirin reduced the risk of mechanical ventilation by 44%, ICU admissions by 43%, and overall in-hospital mortality by 47%, found a George Washington University...
Obese COVID patients twice as likely to be admitted to ICU or die — Swedish cohort study
A Swedish cohort study determined that obese patients, (BMI >35 kg/m2), were twice as likely to experience a prolonged ICU stay or die, according...
Having flu at the same time as COVID doubles death risk — UK Health Security Agency
People who catch flu and COVID at the same time are twice as likely to die than those who only have coronavirus, found a...
Convalescent plasma fails to improve outcomes in critically ill COVID-19 patients
Convalescent plasma didn’t help adults with critical COVID-19 have better outcomes, according to a randomised trial published in JAMA.
The 2,011-person study was rolled out...
Merck’s COVID antiviral pill may halve the risk of hospitalisation and death
Merck has announced that its experimental drug for severe COVID cuts the risk of hospitalisation or death by about half, according to interim clinical...
Delta variant increases COVID-19 risks for pregnant women
Compared to coronavirus cases earlier in the pandemic, infections with the Delta variant lead to worse outcomes for unvaccinated pregnant women, new data suggest.
Doctors...
Pfizer vaccination ‘highly effective’ against Delta in adolescents — Israel study
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) was effective against the Delta variant among adolescents aged 12 to 15 in the month after vaccination, a case-control...
European Medicines Agency approves Pfizer booster for 18-years and older
The European Medicines Agency has approved the administering of booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people 18 and older.
The EMA said the...
Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine antibodies gone in many by seven months — Small US study
Six months after receiving the second dose of the two-shot vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, many recipients no longer have vaccine-induced antibodies that can...
Pandemic triggers biggest fall in life expectancy in decades — 29-country study
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered significant mortality increases in 2020 of a magnitude not witnessed since World War II in Western Europe or the breakup...
Casirivimab–Imdevimab reduced hospitalisation of high-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID-19
Among high-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID-19, casirivimab–imdevimab treatment was associated with a significantly lower rate of hospitalisation, reports a Mayo Clinic study...
Plant-based diet associated with lower risk and severity of COVID-19
A plant-based diet was associated with lower risk and severity of COVID-19, particularly evident among individuals living in areas with higher socioeconomic deprivation, found...
Long COVID less common than previously estimated — UK National Statistics
One in 40 people with coronavirus has symptoms lasting at least three months, concludes the largest and most comprehensive analysis yet, by the UK...
Double vaccination cuts breakthrough infection risk substantially — King’s College London
In the unlikely event of catching COVID-19 after being double vaccinated, the risk of long COVID was reduced by almost half, found a study, in...
CDC: Unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die of COVID
Unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are fully vaccinated, research has found, bolstering evidence that the...
CDC: Two-dose mRNA vaccines best at avoiding hospitalisations
In terms of preventing COVID-related hospitalisations, the two-dose mRNA vaccines from Pfizer (Comirnaty) and Moderna offered the best protection upfront and over time, a...
Remdesivir did not affect COVID-19 outcomes or mortality — DisCoVeRy trial
Remdesivir treatment did not significantly affect mortality, clinical outcomes, or time to improvement in patients hospitalised with severe COVID-19, found a study in The...
Pfizer/Moderna vaccine side effects in breastfeeding women and infants
Breastfeeding mothers who received either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccination reported the same local or systemic symptoms as previously reported in non-breastfeeding women, except...
Fully-vaccinated account for only 1.2% COVID deaths in England — Office of National Statistics
People who were fully vaccinated accounted for just 1.2% of all deaths involving COVID-19 in England in the first seven months of this year,...