Can the AstraZeneca Vaccine Really Prevent the Spread of the Virus?
It’s good news when a new vaccine proves able to protect you against a disease. It’s even better news when it can also prevent you from carrying the virus asymptomatically and passing it onto others. That explains the hoopla this week when the word went out that the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine was not only 66.7% effective overall in protecting against COVID-19 disease, but could also cut transmission rates.
However, the data from the vaccine’s trials are, as my colleague Alice Park reports, too confusing to adequately assess, especially the claim about reducing spread of the virus.
There were numerous problems with the AstraZeneca studies. For one, the company originally set out to compare two doses of the vaccine to two doses of a placebo. But because of what AstraZeneca said were mistakes in measuring doses, some people in the study received only a half dose for their first shot. Further, those in the placebo group got two different types (some got a benign meningococcal solution and some a saline solution). That could mean nothing, but having two different placebos could introduce confounders into the study. Further still, because of limited supplies, some in the study had to wait more than the three to four weeks originally planned between their doses—and still others, faced with waiting, decided not to take the second dose altogether.
“Frankly the way they did these trials was really confusing,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the vaccine education center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told Alice. “This is the stuff you figure out in Phase 1; you don’t fool around in Phase 3 and see what works.”
The AstraZeneca vaccine is not yet authorized in the U.S., and with other vaccines already available, and still more—like the Johnson & Johnson shot—in the pipeline, the incentive to rush emergency use authorization for AstraZeneca’s product may be lessened. It’s all one more sign that there is often a lot more to vaccine science than what good-news headlines would lead you to believe.
While 37.8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, only about 27.2 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker—representing 8.2% of the overall U.S. population who have received at least one dose.
A sample group of at least 800 people will soon participate in a 13-month trial in the U.K. in which subjects will be given doses of two different vaccines—the AstraZeneca-Oxford formulation and the one developed by Pfizer-BioNTech—according to an announcement today by the British government. The test will seek to determine the efficacy of receiving two different shots, potentially making it easier for patients to be inoculated with whatever health care workers have on the shelf, rather than waiting for a second dose that must match the first.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard much from the Novavax vaccine, produced by a small Maryland-based company that has been struggling with manufacturing problems and looked likely to be left out of the vaccine race. But, as The New York Timesreports, the company announced last week that its formulation showed a 90% success rate in a U.K. trial, enough to boost Novavax’s prospects. The company is now ramping up for testing in the U.S., which could lead to authorization as early as April; in the meanwhile, the company is positioning itself to produce up to 110 million doses by June.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 104 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 2.2 million people have died. On Feb. 3, there were 519,796 new cases and 15,617 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here is every country with over 1.5 million confirmed cases:
Even as Tokyo plans for a scaled-down version of the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics, Beijing is planning for a similarly COVID-conscious staging of the 2022 winter games, the Associated Press reports. With the event just a year away and vaccine rollouts proceeding unevenly around the world, few people expect that the pandemic will be fully contained by then, but China believes it can keep the games safe with protocols of lockdowns and quarantines when necessary and contact tracing and mask wearing at all times. One advantage the winter games have over the summer ones: they’re smaller, with just 3,000 athletes participating, compared to a summertime 11,000.
Politics are getting in the way of public health in Iran as a debate rages over whether or not to purchase and use Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, Al Jazeera reports. Tehran plans to import 10,000 doses of Sputnik V this week, with 400,000 more doses to come by next month. But one of the country’s top infectious disease experts, Minoo Mohraz, supports instead local production of a domestically developed vaccine, pointing to the fact that Sputnik V has not yet been approved by the World Health Organization. She and others claim that the decision to buy the vaccine is a political one, made mostly to strengthen the country’s increasingly close ties to Moscow.
Israel continues to stand as an international model for getting vaccinations right, with one-third of the country already having gotten at least one shot. Now, as the Guardianreports, the country is expanding its efforts, opening vaccinations to all people over the age of 16. That’s an undeniably positive development—but there was bad news mixed in with the good. The country reports a dip this week compared to last in the number of people actually showing up for their vaccination appointments. The reason is unclear but the best guesses are complacency and misinformation about vaccine safety and efficacy.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 26 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 450,000 people have died. On Feb. 3, there were 119,235 new cases and 3,796 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
For all the clamor by many people to be vaccinated, plenty of Americans remain hesitant. According to a survey of 1,000 people by Verywell Health, just 49% of unvaccinated Americans would agree to receive the shot today. Some factors that play into that decision include whether respondents knew anyone who had been vaccinated; those who did were more likely to want to be vaccinated themselves, and whether a person reported a high level of news consumption—the more people read, the more likely they were to want to get vaccinated.
Geography is everything for teachers hoping to receive vaccines, as The New York Timesreports. Only half of all states have made teachers eligible to receive vaccines, despite mandatory school reopenings in some places. In other places, some teachers can get the shots but others not: West Virginia, for example, has imposed an age cutoff, with teachers 50 and older eligible and those younger not.
Counterfeit masks are becoming a growing problem, as U.S. Customs recently reported seizing 13 million fakes in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, according to the Wall Street Journal. China was the source of 51% of the counterfeits. Also in the inventory of seizures: 177,000 test kits not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; 38,000 chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine tablets banned by the FDA; and 37,000 lanyards said to be able to protect wearers from contracting the coronavirus (and which contain substances prohibited by the Environmental Protection Agency).
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Feb. 4, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Swiss Nix AstraZeneca Vax
Switzerland has rejected the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, citing lack of sufficient data to justify approving the shot, reports the Swiss news site The Local. Despite that, the Swiss health minister insists the thumbs-down will not slow Switzerland’s overall effort to get its population vaccinated, citing its purchase of vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. Read more here.
Full-Court Sales Pitch
The Biden Administration is going into overdrive to promote its $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, reports the Associated Press. Representatives of the administration have done more than 60 interviews on national and local TV; commercial spots promoting the package have been running across the country; and briefings were held last week with more than 50 groups including General Motors, Meals on Wheels and Planned Parenthood. Read more here.
Get the Shot or Stay Home From Work
Whether U.S. employers have a right to issue vaccination mandates to returning employees is likely to become a pressing question as more and more people get vaccinated, writes law professor Wendy E. Parmet in The Atlantic. Read more here.
The Stalwart Australians
A single case of community transmission—the first in 10 months in Western Australia—plunged millions of people into a five-day lockdown. And, writes Nikki Stamp in The Washington Post, the locals welcomed the restrictions. Read more here.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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