Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

[g.sarkar]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/china/ch ... -+World%29
With 100M inoculations in just 9 days, a fresh batch of Covid cases finally helped China combat vaccine hesitancy
Ben Westcott, CNN, May 19, 2021
As vaccination hesitancy slows inoculation rates in some Western countries, China is going into overdrive.
Over 400 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have now been administered in China, according to the National Health Commission -- more than in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany combined.
Of course, 400 million doses doesn't even cover half of China's population of 1.4 billion people, but the vaccination rate is speeding up. Chinese authorities announced the first 100 million people had been vaccinated on March 27. After that, it took another 26 days to reach 200 million, and then 17 days to hit 300 million. The latest 100 million doses were given in just nine days.
While there has been a concerted push for vaccines by the central government and local authorities, that campaign has been helped recently by another factor -- fear.
Anhui and Liaoning provinces have both seen a large spike in vaccinations over the past two weeks, following small local outbreaks of Covid-19 -- 17 and 25 cases, respectively. But that was all it took for Anhui to inoculate more than 1.1 million people in a day on May 16. The province's average daily vaccination was more than 840,000 in the past week.
In Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province, there have been more than 100,000 vaccinations a day since May 12, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.The impact of the new outbreaks has also been felt nationwide: on Friday alone, 14 million people were vaccinated across China, days after the news broke of cases in Anhui and Liaoning. And in Beijing, almost 80% of those age 18 and over have now received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, the state-run Global Times said this week, bringing the capital close to the coveted goal of achieving herd immunity.
......
Gautam

[vijayk]

We were hoping for this 10M/day when we hot 4.3M/day in April.

This is where we took our eyes off the ball notwithstanding the supply constraints.

https://swarajyamag.com/news-brief/over ... une-centre

The Centre on Wednesday (19 May) said that over 5.8 crore doses of the Covid-19 vaccines will be provided to states and union territories till 15 June.

That is 2.3M/day

In addition, as per information received from vaccine manufacturers, a total of 4 crore, 87 lakh and 55 thousand doses will also be available till end of June 2021 fo

This is addition 1.2M/day.

So we can give 4M per day over next month

[RajaRudra]

DRDOs D2 is in third phase trials. To day got a whats app audio about a person from Gujrat made a miraculous survival thanks to the deug.

Since its DRDO, i cant stop thinking about summer trials, winter trials, high and dry trials etc

[chola]

Not that I would ever want India to go though the last two months given a choice but the flip side where those East Asian states like Taiwan, Singapore, etc. are using tight border controls to close themselves off from the virus and the world will have their own issues once the world starts to open up:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ning-virus

Taiwan hasn't done any serious vaccinations while depending on border closures onlee, they have to open up if they want to stay competitive and they are getting into trouble:
https://www.bloombergquint.com/business ... of-defense

A smattering of places, mainly across the Asia Pacific region, have seen breathtaking victories in the battle against Covid-19 by effectively wiping it out within their borders. Now they face a fresh test: rejoining the rest of the world, which is still awash in the pathogen.

In some ways, the success of “Covid Zero” locations is becoming a straitjacket. As cities like New York and London return to in-person dealmaking and business as usual -- tolerating hundreds of daily cases as vaccination gathers pace -- financial hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong risk being left behind as they maintain stringent border curbs and try to stamp out single-digit flareups.

After a brutal 18 months that claimed 3.3 million lives worldwide, nations like China, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand have suffered fewer deaths during the entire pandemic than many countries, even highly vaccinated ones, continue to log in a matter of days.

That achievement has allowed people to have largely normal lives for much of the past year. Some haven’t even had to wear masks. But sustaining this vaunted status has also required stop-start lockdown cycles, near-blanket bans on international travel and strict quarantine policies. The few travelers permitted to enter have had to spend weeks in total confinement, unable to leave a hotel room.

“The whole world is not going to be Covid Zero,” said Rupali Limaye, director of behavioral and implementation science at the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. “That’s not an option here.”

Cheen has the same issues. They have a zero tolerance policy like Taiwan and they go one further by jailing entire regions over a handful of cases. They have done vaccinations but with horrible vaccines of 50% efficacy (onlee reason l would doubt the biowar theory) they will be in trouble once they truly open up:
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-econ ... -justified

India has gone through hell and high water. The lesson Indians learn will prove an advantage going forward because this thing will come back in new variants year after year. Those East Asians will have to eventually open up or live as hermits.

[vijayk]

https://swarajyamag.com/politics/data-s ... 9-in-india
Data Story: Did The 'Farmers' Protest' Cause The Second Wave Of Covid-19 In India?

[Kakkaji]

COVID-19 Vaccination Update- Day 124

Nearly 18.7 Cr Cumulative Vaccine Doses administered so far

Over 70 lakh beneficiaries of age group 18-44 Vaccinated so far

More than 11.4 lakh Vaccine Doses administered today

The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country stands at 18,69,89,265 as per the 8 pm provisional report today.

5,27,067 beneficiaries of the age group 18-44 years received their first dose of COVID vaccine today and cumulatively 70,12,752 across 36 States/UTs since the start of Phase-3 of the vaccination drive.

As on Day-124 of the vaccination drive (19th May, 2021), total 11,45,569 vaccine doses were given. 9,91,831 beneficiaries were vaccinated for 1st dose and 1,53,738 beneficiaries received 2nd dose of vaccine as per the provisional report till 8 P.M.

The daily vaccination numbers are not going up at all, even though the Min of Health says there are 2 crore doses available with the states. Don't know what is going on.

[Amber G.]

Quick update (From SUTRA model)
This is on 5/19
Fig 1 - Actual and model computed curves continue to move in sync but with a four day delay. Sharp drop in cases should continue for a few more days before slowing down.

Fig 2 - Active cases (which generally shows constraint on health care system) are dropping a little faster than predicted. The blue line is clearly visible now. Hope it continues this way.

Source (sutra-india.in now has almost all states/district level prediction and graphs)
---
From past curves for last month or so: The peak period (May 8 ) was consistent with (May 8-11) predicted long ago, The height was, as explained was hard to predict earlier - but last figures - few weeks ago were quite accurate. (May 5-8 between 340 K to 440 K cases per day; the actual peak appears to have come on May 8 at 390 K cases. These numbers are 7-day moving averages of new cases.

[Amber G.]

The daily vaccination numbers are not going up at all, even though the Min of Health says there are 2 crore doses available with the states. Don't know what is going on

FWIW: Graphical form:

[Amber G.]

Saw something quite interesting from sero-survey etc type data - latest surge in India hit the middle class heavily. For example for Mumbai slums around 58% of the people were exposed to virus while Mumbai Hi-rise apartments this number was around 18%. (Many of scientists requested comprehensive and widespread survey of this kind but the data is quite spotty).

This explains why the this stuff spread so fast among middle class - more people were susceptible - combined with high transmissivity (poor ventilation having much more effect).

[vera_k]

I'm wary of accepting simplistic explanations for Covid transmission when the role of variants (or as yet unknown factors) is not fully understood. For example, if the above is true, what now explains how Pune tops the number of infections in India, and even now has 4x the daily number of infections compared to Mumbai?

Article from September 2020 -
Explained: How did Pune top coronavirus count for all of India?

[Amber G.]

^^^ There is nothing simplistic in the sense that something will provide *answers* to all or even if it can, one can describe it in a brf post...

Pandemics are complex - even simple things like Newton's gravity model needs good math to *understand* finer points. But one can simplify to get some main points.

Anyway in mathematical modeling, say for SUTRA, the knowing about % of people from sero-survey help fine-tune the model. The contact parameter (beta) depends on people practices/lockdowns etc..and in past pandemics (like one wave in 1919/20 where where young people were affected more) such things have happened.

The low rate among one set of people and high rate in slums around the same geographical area was a little surprise to many but in some sense it may not be that unusual.

[Tanaji]

One factor this time from anecdotal experience of course is that in high rises, the middle class was quite lax. People were having large amounts of get togethers, Birthday parties, drinks parties etc without any concern. There was vaccine hesitancy as well.

Plus the other factor was maid servants. I have seen so many cases where a household was infected and the same maid was working in other households. Some societies placed restrictions but there were lots of these cases. During the first lockdown, societies strictly barred maid servants. No such restrictions were in place from September onwards. This is also a contributor in my opinion.

[Raja]

People just seem surprisingly poorly informed. In my aunt's high rise society in Ahmedabad, almost everyone but my aunt's family got infected this time around with several deaths. The entire time they kept blaming the frigging elevator as the culprit. Even though they have spent so many resources at disinfecting it continuously throughout the day. Yet, the same maid visits most of the flats. They don't seem to think that is a problem. Somehow people seem to be stuck with the perception that it passes via touch and not air. They were also lax about visiting each other now and then.

PS. My aunt had not been using the maid since September and strictly not socializing with others. Plenty of elevator usage though.

[nam]

The rate of spread within an area depends on life style of the area. A slum with high density population may have low infection, if people there decide to not meet others or have bad neighbors relations, keep their doors open, walk instead of taking public transport, work in construction or open area jobs.

Meanwhile a well to do group living in high rise will have heavy infection, when they use the same maid, meet their neighbors, attend society parties & weddings, live in AC houses, work in AC offices, travel by AC public transport.

The infection spread is similar to a regular flu. Just the the resultant effect is worse than a flu.

[Ashokk]

Indian Navy designs Oxygen Recycling System to mitigate current oxygen crisis

NEW DELHI: Amidst the second wave of Covid-19, the Diving School of the Southern Naval Command of the Indian Navy has conceptualised and designed an Oxygen Recycling System (ORS) to alleviate the existing oxygen shortages.
According to an official statement, the ORS has been designed by Lieutenant Commander Mayank Sharma of the Diving School. The system's design has been patented, and an application to this effect has been filed by the Indian Navy on May 13.
The Diving School has expertise in this area as the basic concept is used in some of the diving sets used by the school. Earlier, a similar idea on a miniaturised lab model was demonstrated to the Prime Minister during the Combined Commanders Conference at Kevadia on March 6.
According to a press release, the ORS is designed to extend the life of the existing medical oxygen cylinders two to four times, using the fact that only a small percentage of oxygen inhaled by a patient is actually absorbed by the lungs, the rest being exhaled into the atmosphere along with carbon dioxide produced by the body.
The first fully operational prototype of the ORS was produced on April 22 and underwent a series of in-house trials and design improvements at the Southern Naval Command, with third-party observers from ISO-certified firms.
Thereafter, on the directives of NITI Aayog, the system underwent detailed analysis and assessment by a team of specialists at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) at Thiruvananthapuram. The team of specialists at SCTIMST found the concept and design of the Oxygen Recycling System feasible, and also suggested a few additional modifications.
The overall cost of the ORS prototype has been capped at Rs. 10,000 against an envisaged saving of Rs 3,000 per day due to the recycling of O2. Besides substantially enhancing the existing oxygen capacity in the country, the ORS can also be used to extend the life of oxygen cylinders used by mountaineers/ soldiers at High Altitude, for HADR operations and onboard naval ships and submarines.

[IndraD]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586- ... ign=nature

Heterologous prime & boost trial to boost Pfizer sale?
Small trial suggest powerful immunity response to mix & match of Oxford & Pfizer vaccine

[Ashokk]

ICMR gives nod for home-based Covid-19 rapid antigen test

NEW DELHI: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved a home-based rapid antigen test (RAT) kit for Covid-19 that will soon be available in the market and can be used for detecting positive cases at home.
"Home testing by RAT is advised only in symptomatic individuals and immediate contacts of laboratory confirmed positive cases," the ICMR advisory, issued on Wednesday, said.
The move is expected to make testing widely available and accessible, particularly in rural areas. Besides, with home-based RAT, symptomatic people will not need to step out for testing, thereby lowering the risk of transmission.
The Council also advised against indiscriminate testing. It said that all test positive individuals are advised to follow home isolation norms and care as per the ICMR protocol.
Currently, the approved kit is manufactured by Mylab Discovery Solutions and home testing should be conducted as per the procedure described by the manufacturer in the user manual. The home testing mobile app is available on Google play store and Apple store and must be downloaded by all users.
All users are advised to click a picture of the test strip after completing the test procedure with the same mobile phone, which has been used for downloading the mobile app and user registration.
Data in the app of the mobile phone will be centrally captured in a secure server, which is connected with the ICMR Covid-19 testing portal, where all data will be eventually stored.
Manufacturer’s instructions must be strictly followed for disposal of the test kit, swab and other materials.
All individuals, who test positive, may be considered as true positives and no repeat testing is required, the ICMR also said.

[chetak]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586- ... ign=nature

Heterologous prime & boost trial to boost Pfizer sale?
Small trial suggest powerful immunity response to mix & match of Oxford & Pfizer vaccine

I think that there are some reports from norway where this was tried out.

[Kakkaji]

Vaccine shortage: Bharat Biotech makes fresh despatch of Covaxin

Amid reports that many States are facing Covaxin shortage, its maker Bharat Biotech claimed that they have made a fresh despatch of the vaccine to government and private hospitals in as many as 30-odd cities across the country.

The latest despatch was made on May 17, said sources, without revealing the quantity. Till date, Bharat Biotech has supplied around 24 million doses of Covaxin. According to company sources, as per the agreement with the government, Bharat Biotech had to supply 5 million doses of Covaxin every fortnight in April and May.

The Hyderabad-based vaccine maker has promised to produce 700 million doses of Covaxin till April next year.

Early this month, the Centre had told the Supreme Court that Covaxin production is expected to touch 55 million doses per month by July this year.

While all this is happening, Covaxin shortage is a reality in many States.

Telangana, where Bharat Biotech is located, on Sunday said it was postponing the second dose for persons above 45 years, in view of inadequate stock and non-receipt fresh stocks from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Maharashtra and Delhi, too, had complained about the shortage of Covaxin.

But Atishi Marlena, senior Aam Aadmi Party leader and MLA in Delhi Assembly, said on Tuesday that the Delhi government had received a supply of 60,240 doses of Covaxin from the Centre, which would help them to pull on for two days. Meanwhile, the Centre, on Wednesday, assured the States and UTs that over 5.86 crore vaccine doses – Covishield and Covaxin – will be made available to them between May 1 and June 15.

This would include vaccine doses that have been supplied so far in this month. Besides, quoting vaccine manufacturers, it said nearly 4.88 crore vaccine shots will be available for States and UTs for direct purchase till June-end.

Bharat Biotech, on its part, plans to ramp up production step-by-step, and is already in the process of commencing Covaxin production in facilities in Kolar in Karnataka and Manjari near Pune, besides Hyderabad.

During a recent media event, Bharat Biotech CMD Krishna Ella had said thatvaccines based on inactivated viruses are extremely complex and expensive to manufacture, resulting in lower yields when compared to live virus vaccines.

The Covaxin technology has also been transferred to three public sector enterprises, including Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL), a Hyderabad-based subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board.

IIL, which has expertise in handling viral vaccines, is in a better position to commence production at the earliest compared to Haffkine Biopharmaceuticals Ltd and Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Corporation Ltd, which together are expected to produce 35 million doses of the vaccine.

According to an industry expert, a facility that already has a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) facility for handling viruses may be able to come online in three to six months; a facility that has to begin from the ground up could take as much as one to one-and-a-half years for commencing production.

[chanakyaa]

Sales must grow. From extreme cold storage to refrigerator. If someone places a large order, they would be fine storing the vaccine in the drawer Okay (cynicism off), it shouldn't take them 6 months to figure that one out.

FDA allowing longer refrigerator storage for Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled to allow longer storage of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines in typical refrigerator temperatures on Wednesday, in a decision expected to boost accessibility to doses.

The agency moved to extend the storage time for thawed shots to up to one month between 35 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit, instead of the previous regulation of up to five days.

The FDA permitted the increased storage time after Pfizer submitted data showing that its vaccine remained “stable” at refrigerator temperatures for up to a month....

[Kakkaji]

More than 21 crore vaccine doses provided to States/UTs

More than 1.97 crore doses still available with States/UTs to be administered

Nearly 2.00 crore (1,97,70,555) COVID Vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs to be administered.

Furthermore, nearly 26 lakh (25,98,760) vaccine doses are in the pipeline and will be received by the States/UTs within the next 3 days.

[Amber G.]

Quick update (From SUTRA model)
This is on 5/20
Fig 1 - Actual and model computed curves continue to move in sync but with a four day delay. Sharp drop in cases should continue for a few more days before slowing down. We are on track to hit ~150,000 infections per day by this month-end.

Fig 2 - Active cases (which generally shows constraint on health care system) are dropping a little faster than predicted. The blue line is clearly visible now. t is very good news for the health infra.

Source (sutra-india.in now has almost all states/district level prediction and graphs)
---
From past curves for last month or so: The peak period (May 8 ) was consistent with (May 8-11) predicted long ago, The height was, as explained was hard to predict earlier - but last figures - few weeks ago were quite accurate. (May 5-8 between 340 K to 440 K cases per day; the actual peak appears to have come on May 8 at 390 K cases. These numbers are 7-day moving averages of new cases.[/quote]

[Kakkaji]

Covid drug 2DG’s price being fixed: Dr Reddy’s

Pharma major Dr Reddy’s Laboratories said that the price of oral anti-viral drug for Covid-19 patients, 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) , is being determined and it will be commercially launched only in mid-June. The company has cautioned the general public and Covid patients to beware of agents selling fake products in the name 2DG drugin the market.

In an advisory, the Hyderabad-based company said, “2DG has not yet been launched in the market and price per sachet has not been announced.’’

“The price is being determined with a view to making it accessible and affordable to as many patients as possible and will be announced soon,’’ the company said. People should also beware of unverified messages relating to 2DG being circulated on social media, Dr Reddy’s added

[vijayk]

Covid drug 2DG’s price being fixed: Dr Reddy’s

Pharma major Dr Reddy’s Laboratories said that the price of oral anti-viral drug for Covid-19 patients, 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) , is being determined and it will be commercially launched only in mid-June. The company has cautioned the general public and Covid patients to beware of agents selling fake products in the name 2DG drugin the market.

In an advisory, the Hyderabad-based company said, “2DG has not yet been launched in the market and price per sachet has not been announced.’’

“The price is being determined with a view to making it accessible and affordable to as many patients as possible and will be announced soon,’’ the company said. People should also beware of unverified messages relating to 2DG being circulated on social media, Dr Reddy’s added

Why only Reddy Labs got license?
Why can't we expand it to 2 or 3 companies to scale up production?

[sanjayc]

COVAXIN® production volumes ramped up by Bharat Biotech, by additional 200 million.

Hyderabad, India, 20th May 2021: Bharat Biotech a global leader in vaccine innovation, developing vaccines for infectious diseases, announced today, the quick ramp up of additional manufacturing capacities for COVAXIN®, India’s 1st Indigenous Covid 19 Vaccine at CHIRON BEHRING Vaccines, Ankleshwar Gujarat, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharat Biotech.

The company plans to produce 200 million doses of COVAXIN® per annum in the GMP facilities that are already operational for the production of vaccines based on Inactivated Vero Cell Platform Technology, under stringent levels of GMP and biosafety. Product availability at Ankleshwar to commence from Q4 2021.

Bharat Biotech had already deployed multiple Production lines at its Hyderabad & Bengaluru campuses, Adding Chiron Behring to this line up of high containment BSL rated GMP facilities that are required to manufacture COVAXIN®. This effectively takes the volumes upto ~ 1 Billion doses per Annum, with its own established campuses specialised for manufacturing inactivated viral vaccines under the highest levels of biosafety.

[vijayk]

http://www.ddinews.gov.in/national/cova ... 00-million

Bharat Biotech announced today, the quick ramp up of additional manufacturing capacities for COVAXIN, India’s 1st Indigenous Covid 19 Vaccine at CHIRON BEHRING Vaccines, Ankleshwar Gujarat, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharat Biotech.

The company plans to produce 200 million doses of COVAXIN® per annum in the GMP facilities that are already operational for the production of vaccines based on Inactivated Vero Cell Platform Technology, under stringent levels of GMP and biosafety. Product availability at Ankleshwar to commence from Q4 2021.

Bharat Biotech had already deployed multiple Production lines at its Hyderabad & Bengaluru campuses, adding Chiron Behring to this line up of high containment BSL rated GMP facilities that are required to manufacture COVAXIN®. This effectively takes the volumes upto ~ 1 Billion doses per Annum, with its own established campuses specialised for manufacturing inactivated viral vaccines under the highest levels of biosafety.

What happened in 2019 is helping now

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.c ... n-behring/

GSK to divest Chiron Behring Vaccines to Bharat Biotech
18 Feb 2019 (Last Updated February 18th, 2019 11:12)
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Asian subsidiary is set to divest its Chiron Behring Vaccines unit in Gujarat, India to domestic clinical biotechnology company Bharat Biotech.

[Kakkaji]

Facts or agenda? Interesting article in Economic Times:

Are some Covid vaccines working better than others? The jury is out

With hundreds of millions of people now vaccinated against Covid-19, the coronavirus outbreak should begin to die down in places where a large chunk of the population has been inoculated. But that isn’t happening everywhere.

Instead, two paths are emerging: In countries such as Israel, new Covid cases are declining as vaccinations spread, while in other places like the Seychelles — which has fully inoculated more of its population than any other nation — infections continue to increase or even reach new highs.

One reason for that may be the different types of vaccine being used. Evidence derived from the expanding global inoculation rollout indicates that the messenger RNA shots developed by Moderna Inc. or Pfizer NSE -0.23 % Inc. and BioNTech SE are better at stopping people from becoming contagious, helping reduce onward transmission — an unexpected extra benefit as the first wave of Covid vaccines were intended to stop people from becoming very sick.

Other vaccines, while effective in preventing acute illness or death from Covid, appear not to have this extra perk to the same degree.

“This will be an increasing trend as countries start to realize that some vaccines are better than others,” said Nikolai Petrovsky, a professor at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in South Australia. While the use of any vaccine “is still better than nothing,” he said, some doses “may have little benefit in preventing spread, even if they reduce the risk of death or severe disease.”

Studies of millions of people in Israel vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech shot show the mRNA doses prevented more than 90% of asymptomatic infections — those who contract the virus but show no symptoms. That’s important, said Raina MacIntyre, an epidemiologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, because a vaccine’s ability to stop asymptomatic infection “is the determinant of whether or not herd immunity is possible.”

The differences in effectiveness are already leading to preferred brands in countries where more than one vaccine is available. In the Philippines, immunization centers have been instructed not to announce which shots are being given after a crowd turned up at one location hoping to get access to the Pfizer shot.

In the US, nearly 40% of the population has been fully vaccinated, mostly with mRNA shots, and the number of new cases each day has dropped by more than 85% in the past four months. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month said those who are fully vaccinated can gather without masks or social distancing.

A similar trajectory is evident in Israel, which fully vaccinated nearly 60% of its population with the Pfizer-BioNTech shot and has gradually lifted restrictions as new cases declined to fewer than 50 a day, from more than 8,000 at the beginning of this year. Qatar and Malta are also witnessing a decline in new cases after giving around 30% of their populations two doses of mostly mRNA vaccines.

The results provide further evidence of the surprise efficacy of the new mRNA shots; the pandemic is the first time this vaccine technology is being widely used. They work by delivering genetic codes that instruct the human body to make proteins of the virus that in turn stimulate an immune response.

The existing mRNA shots require ultra cold storage, limiting their accessibility to countries with poor transport and storage infrastructure.

That’s one reason why most countries, though, are relying predominantly on non-mRNA shots ranging from the adenovirus vector vaccines from AstraZeneca Plc, to those from Chinese developers Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech Ltd. that use an inactivated form of the virus. These more traditional vaccine types have shown efficacy rates of between 50% to 80% in preventing symptomatic Covid in clinical trials, compared with more than 90% for mRNA ones. There’s little data regarding their ability to prevent onward transmission, but signs are emerging that it may be much lower.

AstraZeneca pointed to the success of the UK’s campaign as evidence of its shot’s benefits, though the results include the impact of Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s mRNA inoculation. Covid-19 infections in the UK fell by 65% after a first dose of either shot, while household transmissions dropped by as much as 50%. Sinopharm didn’t immediately respond to queries for this story.

An archipelago in the Indian Ocean, the Seychelles has fully vaccinated about 65% of its population with AstraZeneca and Sinopharm shots, yet weekly new infections increased rapidly this month, with 37% of those patients having already received their two doses. The surge led authorities to close schools, cancel sporting events and ban household gatherings. Among fully inoculation people, around 60% received the vaccine from Sinopharm and the rest got AstraZeneca’s shot.

In Chile in South America, the steady ramp-up in vaccination using mostly Sinovac’s shot didn’t prevent the number of new daily cases from almost doubling in mid-April from a month earlier, despite administering enough doses to cover 30% of the population. Authorities had to reintroduce a lockdown across the country in late March.

But in the case of both countries, the type of vaccine available seems to be only one of many factors affecting the spread of the disease. Policy failures in places that reacted too slowly to impose restrictions, or lifted them prematurely, have been a major contributor, as has speed of diagnosis and access to medical facilities. Different transmission rates of virus variants also play a part.

Seychelles President Wavel Ramkalawan said transmission increased in his country after the nation’s world-beating vaccine roll-out caused people to let down their guard.

The uptick in infections in Chile was attributed by Sinovac’s Chief Executive Officer Yin Weidong to the nation prioritizing elderly people in their initial vaccination efforts. “It’s normal that the country sees a resurgence of infections as social activities increase among the younger people who are mainly not inoculated,” he said in a May 11 interview.

What seems clear is that all the approved doses reduce the incidence of people becoming severely ill or dying from the disease — the primary goal of a vaccine. That takes pressure off hospitals and medical resources. Most new Covid patients in the Seychelles, for example, are only experiencing mild symptoms, according to the nation’s president.

This is a crucial first step for countries without access to mRNA vaccines, said Helen Petousis-Harris, a vaccinologist at the University of Auckland. After using available vaccines to crush the number of severe cases, countries can stamp out remaining infection with shots that curb transmission once they become available.

Another possibility is that vaccination along with the spread of mild cases could also end up building so-called herd immunity, said Ben Cowling, head of the University of Hong Kong’s department of epidemiology and biostatistics. “The places with less immunity against infection but more immunity against severe disease will see circulation of the virus causing mainly mild infections, boosting immunity to a higher level.”

Experts say a lot remains unknown and so-called breakthrough infections — where people who received shots still get Covid — do occur, even with mRNA vaccines. It’s also not yet fully known how well the different kinds of shots perform against the different variants of the virus.

A study conducted in Qatar among some 2,60,000 people who completed two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine showed the mRNA shot’s effectiveness at preventing infections caused by the South African variant dipping to 75%.

The improvements in the US and Israel came before those places were affected by concerning new strains, which include variants that have emerged in Brazil and India.

“I would be careful about over-interpreting the data,” said Petrovsky at Flinders University, who points out that no head-to-head studies — where shots are tested against each other — have been performed to identify the best vaccines. For the mRNA shots, “data on their effects on transmission is very limited.”

In the end, it may need the development of new, modified versions of the vaccines to finally win the war against Covid, said Petousis-Harris. Some vaccine developers are working on nasal spray inoculations, which can prevent the virus from taking hold in the respiratory track, thus cutting off infection at its entry point.

“We’ve got some super vaccines that are beyond expectation,” she said. “We’ve learned a lot and so imagine what the next one is going to look like.

Would the Gurus like to comment on the above?

TIA

[Suraj]

The article states the vaccinated population gets only mild symptoms so the vaccines fundamentally do work at almost entirely eliminating hospitalization and deaths. Regardless of vaccines, there will still be case surges until herd immunity level, but it won't amount to the kind of overload on medical facilities the previous waves have caused.

[Kakkaji]

Govt says it aims to ramp up daily testing capacity for COVID to 45 lakh by June-end

The government aims to ramp up India's daily testing capacity for COVID-19 to 45 lakh by end of June from the current capacity of 16-20 lakh per day, the Centre said on Thursday as a record 20.55 lakh tests were conducted in a span of 24 hours. On augmenting testing for COVID-19 while ICMR has so far approved a home-based rapid antigen testing (RAT) kit manufactured by Mylab Discovery Solutions Ltd, Pune, ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said kits by three more companies are in pipeline and likely to get the approval within a week.

[Kakkaji]

The article states the vaccinated population gets only mild symptoms so the vaccines fundamentally do work at almost entirely eliminating hospitalization and deaths. Regardless of vaccines, there will still be case surges until herd immunity level, but it won't amount to the kind of overload on medical facilities the previous waves have caused.

Agree. But the thrust of the article is that herd immunity is built better with m-RNA vaccines, and not-so-good with inactivated or adenovirus vaccines.

I think this article is a pre-emptive strike against the exports of Covaxin.

[Suraj]

Well they are still going to have to convince countries to pay 2-3x more for Pfizer regardless of whatever hitjobs they do. The argument can simply be turned around to 'are you going to pay 3x to avoid a mild cold ?'

Further, any comparison involving two countries is pointless unless the population profile and primary variants are overlap significantly. Pfizer has no publicly released data vs B.1.167 variant for example. They have also declined to do any form of trials that every other vaccine candidate has done in India.

Sino* vaccines have known lower efficacy levels at preventing mild symptoms. But they're all effective at protection against severe illness.

[Tanaji]

The article is poorly written in my opinion as the conclusions or implications are not borne out by any study , published or otherwise. For one to say that vaccine A is better than B, it has to be tested in the same cohort of people under the same conditions and with the same variants. No such study has been done yet by anyone at any scale.

In fact, the studies that have been done are from the other angle: is a particular vaccine effective against a certain variant? Everybody seems to say they are, so how does one say one is more effective?

I think the UK is one place where such a study can be undertaken as they had all the major vaccines except the Chinese and Russian ones. However the case load is very low so it is doubtful how long it will take.

[sohamn]

http://www.ddinews.gov.in/national/cova ... 00-million

Bharat Biotech announced today, the quick ramp up of additional manufacturing capacities for COVAXIN, India’s 1st Indigenous Covid 19 Vaccine at CHIRON BEHRING Vaccines, Ankleshwar Gujarat, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharat Biotech.

The company plans to produce 200 million doses of COVAXIN® per annum in the GMP facilities that are already operational for the production of vaccines based on Inactivated Vero Cell Platform Technology, under stringent levels of GMP and biosafety. Product availability at Ankleshwar to commence from Q4 2021.

Bharat Biotech had already deployed multiple Production lines at its Hyderabad & Bengaluru campuses, adding Chiron Behring to this line up of high containment BSL rated GMP facilities that are required to manufacture COVAXIN®. This effectively takes the volumes upto ~ 1 Billion doses per Annum, with its own established campuses specialised for manufacturing inactivated viral vaccines under the highest levels of biosafety.

What happened in 2019 is helping now

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.c ... n-behring/

GSK to divest Chiron Behring Vaccines to Bharat Biotech
18 Feb 2019 (Last Updated February 18th, 2019 11:12)
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Asian subsidiary is set to divest its Chiron Behring Vaccines unit in Gujarat, India to domestic clinical biotechnology company Bharat Biotech.

I would only believe that BB is doing 1 Billion a year when I see the run rate of 70 million a month happening in the real world. These vaccine manufacturers claim big but falls short of promises especially because of multiple points of failure in the assembly line and supply chain. The main issue that GoI needs to resolve is vertically integrating everything within the country. We can't take dependency on such critical life saving drugs on foreign country like China or USA.

[Amber G.]

(Some technical numbers - needs some understanding about basics and how to interpret the data - but posting here anyway):
Estimate of the effective reproduction rate (R) of COVID-19

source: ( https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244474
Data published by Arroyo-Marioli F, Bullano F, Kucinskas S, Rondón-Moreno C

India's number started increasing (became more than US etc) around end of January/beginning of February . It started spreading faster .. New variants and may be gathering of crowds ??

I was looking at local data and putting it in mathematical model to see what triggered the phase change -
For India in genreral:

beta (contact parameter - roughly measures how fast it spreads - depends on people's behavior/transmissivity of virus etc) which remained around 0.13 (around the time I shared the super model data here in brf) went up to .18 in November and December (prob. due to festivals etc) shot up to 0.4 in Feb/March phase .. it is about .27 now.
Other parameters (from Super/Sutra Model) eg gamma, epsilon et remained almost the same - but "reach" (rho) almost doubled in that phase. Will be looking at Delhi data where the change is even more dramatic.

(In nutshell I believe if protests etc did not take place, people wore masks etc, even with new variants the peak would much less than what it is now)
PLEASE STAY SAFE, WEAR MASKS AVOID CROWD, GET VACCINE!

[krithivas]

Connecting the "protest" dots, There was an Arson attempt on Serum Institute sometime January, 2021. The question is who would benefit the most had the entire facility gutted?
a) Business interests (competitors); or,
b) Those who wanted uncontrolled chaos and spread of the disease.

Reference: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55753586

[Kakkaji]

Today's official data on vaccination:

COVID-19 Vaccination Update- Day 125

India crosses the 19 Cr Cumulative Vaccine Doses landmark

Nearly 86 lakh beneficiaries of age group 18-44 Vaccinated so far

More than 14.5 lakh Vaccine Doses administered today

India achieves a new landmark in its vaccination drive as the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country exceeded 19 Cr (19,18,10,604) as per the 8 pm provisional report today.

7,36,514 beneficiaries of the age group 18-44 years received their first dose of COVID vaccine today and cumulatively 85,84,054 across 36 States/UTs since the start of Phase-3 of the vaccination drive.

As on Day-125 of the vaccination drive (20th May, 2021), total 14,56,088 vaccine doses were given. 12,73,785 beneficiaries were vaccinated for 1st dose and 1,82,303 beneficiaries received 2nd dose of vaccine as per the provisional report till 8 P.M.

[Suraj]

BioNTech CEO says vaccine up to 75% effective against B.1.167 variant

A BioNTech spokeswoman said lab tests show that when the blood of vaccinated people is exposed to the B.1.167 variant, 25% to 30% fewer antibodies were binding to the virus than would have been the case with the original coronavirus.

That suggests protection against the variant, whether symptomatic or not, is a bit lower but still 70% to 75%.

It is about 95% effective against the original version of the virus.

[Vayutuvan]

I'm wary of accepting simplistic explanations for Covid transmission when the role of variants (or as yet unknown factors) is not fully understood. For example, if the above is true, what now explains how Pune tops the number of infections in India, and even now has 4x the daily number of infections compared to Mumbai?

Pune is ridiculously crowded. The real worry is that if cases spike in rural areas - there is news about Umravati dist. recently - then things are going to get real tough. Healthcare facilities are spotty at best. But as luck would have it, there is lot more open space than cities that are crowded beyond belief and Sft living area per capita is extremely low. On top of that, city folks are totally addicted to A/C running all the time. But then they have more beds/ICUs per 1000. So it is a wash. The hardest hit will be urban lower middle class. Upper and upper-middle classes can use "influence" and possibly throw money to get priority for ICUs/beds.

[Shameek]

^^ Pune is not as crowded as Mumbai next door. Pune was also quite high in the first wave. One of the challenges it faces is the rural areas surrounding Pune don't have facilities anywhere close, so people travel to Pune for treatment. The numbers we see are for the district and not just the city. Pune has one problem of a large population that spits in public and that has been said to be a factor. Also the administration was quite slow in implementing and enforcing restrictions.

[Vayutuvan]

Connecting the "protest" dots, There was an Arson attempt on Serum Institute sometime January, 2021. The question is who would benefit the most had the entire facility gutted?
a) Business interests (competitors); or,
b) Those who wanted uncontrolled chaos and spread of the disease.

Both!