Get ready for annual COVID-19 shots
Vaccines may need updating as variants spread, says J&J CEO. Meantime, the White House shifts more vaccine doses to community health center and vulnerable groups.
Here are today’s top COVID-19 stories:
Johnson & Johnson’s CEO says coronavirus variants and the spread of the virus likely mean that people should expect getting annual COVID shots, much like flu vaccines, which are tweaked each year based on variants. Data on J&J’s vaccine is now in review by the FDA for possible emergency use authorization. An advisory committee meets on it on February 26.
Vaccines will be distributed directly to community health centers as an additional path to people, especially to marginalized communities, the White House announced. The program begins next week with an allocation of 1 million doses for these facilities, which are mostly in inner city and other areas where they serve vulnerable people.
A World Health Organization scientific team that has been investigating the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, for the past four weeks says the virus almost certainly passed from animals to humans. They found nothing to support claims that the virus came from a laboratory, such as at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The team says the virus probably moved from small animals like bats into other animals and then to humans.
While Australia’s strict anti-COVID measures are credited with good control of the pandemic, the country’s system of quarantining individuals in hotels has not been perfect, reports the BBC. For example, one person is thought to have become infected via a hotel hallway when a COVID+ guest happened to open his room door at the same time. Other cases were traced to staff working in multiple locations, similar to the way the virus spread among nursing homes in the Pacific Northwest.
Anti-science “COVID deniers” have much in common with anti-government activists: in some cases, they are the same people. The Los Angeles Times reports that Ammon Bundy, the leader of a deadly 2016 standoff with federal agents in Oregon, has been organizing anti-mask and other protests. His organization “has attracted tens of thousands of members and sponsored more than 50 demonstrations across the country, dispatching gun-toting activists to the homes of politicians, health agency managers and even a police officer who had arrested a protester,” the newspaper reports.
The White House announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has organized a National Forum on COVID-19 Vaccine for February 22-24, aiming to bring government, tribal, state, local and other leaders together with healthcare systems, education and private industry representatives to promote “the most effective strategies to build trust and confidence in COVID-19 vaccines” and optimize vaccine access and implementation.