The U.S. Department of Education has requested information from the University of Alabama regarding alleged undisclosed ties between the university and the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
“It appears that UA has failed to report an alleged partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China,” a letter sent to UA President Stuart Bell on Dec. 22 stated.
“The WIV, owned by the Chinese government’s Academy of Sciences, includes a maximum biocontainment laboratory (“MCL”) that may be closely linked to the origin and/or spread of the Chinese COVID-19 virus,” the letter continued.
The investigation was initiated in light of the fact that the University of Alabama is listed as an international partner on the Wuhan Institute’s official website.
“The UA reference on the Wuhan Institute of Virology website was brought to our attention earlier this year,” the university said in a statement provided to Campus Reform.
German company BioNTech said Friday a preliminary study shows that its vaccine works against the key mutation in coronavirus variants uncovered in Britain and South Africa which experts have said is more contagious than the original COVID-19 strain.
Tests carried out have shown that "antibodies from people who have received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine effectively neutralise SARS-CoV-2 with a key mutation that is also found in two highly transmissible strains," said the German company of the vaccine it developed with US group Pfizer.
All of this would seem to be an indication ofsupply chainproblems or systems breakdowns. In fact, it's more about ashortage of employeesto support the supply chains and distributions. Some states are even considering calling up theNational Guard.
I am an expert on supply chains, and I construct models and algorithms to identify how to enhance their operations as well as to identify their vulnerabilities. Labor problems—and a lack of taking them into account—have contributed in a major way to these delays. My recent paper studied the effect of labor constraints on supply chains and possible disruptions. It quantifies the effects on product flows, firm costs and consumer prices of changes in labor availability and productivity.
From maker to market
As countries evolved from agrarian societies, where food and other goods were consumed close to where they were produced, businesses became more complicated and spread out. Supply chains emerged as networks that tie raw material providers with other suppliers, manufacturers and partners, such as warehouse managers and freight service providers.
Supply chains are networks with links corresponding to important activities of production, transportation, storage and distribution. Pathways in supply chains carry the flow of products from origin nodes to the destinations.
Much of my work also entails mitigation against disasters. We are in the midst of a health care disaster that has adversely affected millions of workers in the United States and around the globe.
Much research has been done on identifying critical links in supply chains, inspired, in part, by various natural disasters impacting supply chain activities. But until recently, few researchers have quantified the impacts of labor disruptions on product supply chains, along with the associated costs.
This may be due, in part, to the fact that previous supply chain disruptions were localized in terms of both geography and time period. Mitigation and recovery procedures reduced the impacts.
Indeed, until the pandemic struck, few people paid much attention to the role of labor in the role of supply chains. And product shortages were few and far between for necessities from toilet paper to cleaning supplies.
I wanted to look at this in more depth, by quantifying the explicit inclusion of labor, its productivity and possible reallocations in the pandemic. To do so, I constructed computer-based models for product supply chains that are perishable, such as those for food, pharmaceuticals and vaccines. I also investigated the impacts of competition among organizations for labor.
The studies, currently in press, reveal the benefits of sharing workers as well as having labor reallocated to different supply chain network activities, as the needs arise. Proper training of workers may allow for greater mobility of labor across distinct supply chains. This has has been happening in Europe, where certain airline workers are being retrained to work in health care.
Relaxing constraints on labor, so that they can engage in other supply chain activities as needed, can have immense positive effects on product flows and even firms' profits. On the other hand, a labor shortage in a single link, be it in freight, storage, manufacturing or processing, can result in a big decrease in product availability.
Until the days that supply chains are fully computerized and automated, labor will continue to be an essential resource that must be nurtured and supported. Getting through this pandemic will depend on labor as a critical resource in supply chains.
Supercomputing facilities set up to track the spread and evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic have received £1.2M in government funding to expand globally. The grant is part of a major £213M investment by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to upgrade the UK's scientific infrastructure.
The new funding will enable the CLIMB COVID-19 project, led by the University of Birmingham and Cardiff University, to carry out significant upgrades to its computational equipment, enabling it to process and store genomic data on a global scale.
CLIMB COVID-19 is a big data project currently supporting the COVID-19 Genomics consortium (COG-UK), set up to deliver large scale, rapid sequencing of the causes of COVID-19. Partners also include the Universities of Warwick, Swansea, Bath and Leicester, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Quadram Institute Bioscience.
CLIMB COVID-19 emerged from the CLIMB-BIG-DATA project in March 2020 as a bioinformatics platform providing data analysis pipelines, computing and storage capacity required to analyse the large genome datasets produced by COG-UK. The project has so far sequenced more than 150,000 genomes in the UK.
Bioinformatics and phylogenetics are key steps to making use of genome data to understand better how the virus spreads, and how it is evolving.
The recent global spread of novel variants of concern have demonstrated the value of genomic surveillance as viruses do not respect borders and can move quickly and easily. It is important to track viruses with different biological properties in order to make informed public health interventions, and to understand better the efficacy of drugs and vaccines.
Use of genome sequencing for COVID-19 in many countries has been limited, however. This new funding will enable global genomic data to be stored and processed. It will also enable researchers to extend research to cover other pathogens with pandemic potential as well as tracking other threats such as anti-microbial resistance (AMR).
Nick Loman, Professor of Microbial Genomics and Bioinformatics at the University of Birmingham, said: "This funding will be transformative to pay for additional capacity to permit us to offer our SARS-CoV-2 analysis infrastructure to a global audience.
"We anticipate being able to help support the sequencing efforts of many countries who may have limited computing resources by offering our cloud-based system which can be accessed from anywhere. Researchers can see how genomes from their local population relate to the hundreds of thousands of others collected around the world easily.
"By allowing a global audience to benefit from the new CLIMB resources we can help facilitate equitable data sharing for fighting COVID-19."
Professor Thomas Connor, of the School of Biosciences at Cardiff University, said: "The success of CLIMB-COVID has been built on collaborative endeavour, and we are excited that we will be able to support global collaboration through this new award.
"Within the NHS in the UK we have seen first-hand the considerable benefit of genomics to support the response to COVID-19. This funding will provide a valuable route to share these translational benefits with other public health agencies and healthcare professionals around the world."
Professor Connor added: "SARS-CoV-2 provides a great example of the relevance and power of genomics to track and characterise pathogens in real time. There are many other pathogens which are globally significant, and which would benefit from a global collaborative platform - and we are looking forward to being able to support global genomics efforts for other many of these key pathogens."
Professor Mark Pallen, from the Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich, is Principal Investigator for the CLIMB-BIG-DATA project. He said: "It's highly rewarding to see the intellectual and financial investment that has gone into the CLIMB cloud computing project, and its successor CLIMB-BIG-DATA, underpinning such cutting-edge efforts to control infection on the world stage".
The funding is part of UKRI's World Class Labs programme, which has announced awards to 43 medical research institutes across the UK. It is designed to expand and upgrade existing research infrastructure to help UK researchers tackle major challenges such as the COVID-19 research and recovery.
Announcing the funding, Science Minister Amanda Solloway said: "The response from UK scientists and researchers to coronavirus has been nothing short of phenomenal. We need to match this excellence by ensuring scientific facilities are truly world class, so scientists can continue carrying out life-changing research for years to come as we build back better from the pandemic."
With the Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute getting approval for the emergency use of the coronavirus vaccine, India getting nasal vaccine against the infection is going to be a reality soon as the trails for the purpose is all set to begin in Nagpur soon.
Bharat Biotechis planning to start phase 1 and 2 trials of the nasal vaccine at Gillurkar Multi Speciality in Nagpur.
Speaking to India Today, Bharat Biotech chief Dr Krishna Ella said that the company is working on a nasal vaccine and has partnered with the Washington University School of Medicine. He further said the research has proven that the nasal vaccine is the best choice as the coronavirus also attacks through the nose.
The trials of the nasal vaccine will be conducted on at least 30-45 healthy volunteers above the age of 18 till the age of 65 years at four trial sites in the country such as Bhubaneshwar, Pune, Nagpur and Hyderabad.
Bharat Biotech said it is working on two intranasal vaccines — one with US-based vaccine maker FluGen and scientists from the University of Wisconsin Madison and the other with the University of Washington School of Medicine.
The nasal variant of the Covid-19 vaccine is expected to play a major role in stopping transmission of the virus.
Unlike other Covid-19 vaccines that are administered intramuscularly, the vaccine is delivered through the nose, which is also an initial point of infection in humans.
According to a study by the University of Washington School of Medicine, the nasal delivery route created a strong immune response throughout the body, but it was particularly effective in the nose and respiratory tract, preventing the infection from taking hold.
Indonesia’s highest Islamic body on Friday gave its religious approval to China’s Sinovac vaccine, paving the way for its distribution in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
The Indonesian Ulema Council announced that the COVID-19 vaccine is holy and halal, or fit for consumption by Muslims.
The head of the council’s Fatwa Department Asorirun Niam Sholeh also said that the complete fatwa, or religious edict, related to the safety of the vaccine is still waiting for the green light from the Indonesian Food and Drug Authority.
The drug regulator said it would draw from data of the clinical trials in Brazil and Turkey, as well as own trial results before authorizing use of the vaccine.
Indonesia has had its own late-stage clinical trials of the vaccine, but with smaller pool size than Brazil with just 1,620 participants. The clinical trial research team is expected to report the results to the regulator and state-owned pharmaceutical firm Bio Farma soon.
If given conditional approval, President Joko Widodo said that he will receive the first shot next week, with some of the ministers and senior officials, followed health care workers and other public servants.
Indonesia has signed agreements with Sinovac for millions of doses of the vaccine, which requires two shots. Some 3 million doses have already arrived in Indonesia and are being distributed across the vast archipelago nation in preparation for rollout.
Indonesia also has agreements with other vaccine companies including Novavax and AstraZeneca, though none has arrived in the country yet.
Indonesia recorded the highest daily toll with 10,617 on Friday. It brings the total to 808,340. It also recorded 233 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 23,753.
The immunization agreement reached by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Pfizer CEO Albert Burla includes the transfer of statistics on the vaccinated from the health funds, without violating the medical confidentiality of the citizens. The Prime Minister confirmed this in his statement Thursday night.
The deal between Israel and Pfizer, Ynet has learned, was made following a request by the American pharmaceutical giant to obtain the medical data of the vaccinated to examine the effects of the vaccine on different population.
The request on behalf of Pfizer came because the company knew that Israel was one of the few countries in the world in which the entire medical history of its citizens was stored in the HMOs' computers. Sources involved in the matter told Ynet that they estimate that Pfizer has agreed to advance the vaccine shipments in exchange for an Israeli promise to provide the statistics. Prime Minister Netanyahu declared such an intention, as stated, this evening.
"Israel will be a model country - a global model for the rapid vaccination of an entire country. We will share with Pfizer the statistics that will help develop strategies to defeat the corona virus," Netanyahu said tonight. "We can do this because our health system is one of the most advanced in the world, a real light to the Gentiles."
Pfizer was impressed by the ability of Israeli health funds to effectively vaccinate large numbers of citizens. To date, Israel has refused to provide Pfizer with the information, but in Netanyahu's recent conversation with Pfizer's CEO, the two reached a deal: The American pharmaceutical giant will advance vaccine deliveries so that Israel can accelerate the vaccination campaign and complete it in less than three months. The statistics, without compromising the medical confidentiality of citizens.
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein denied the allegations about two weeks ago. "Such a question arose (to receive a medical history - AA), and our answer was no, in Greater A. Both ethically, both medically and legally. We cannot, do not intend and are not allowed to pass on to anyone in the world a medical history of Man Dhao. We were
A statement from the Ministry of Health said tonight: "We are continuously monitoring the results of the vaccination operation. The monitoring includes general data on the epidemic data - number of verified, critically ill, deaths and number of vaccinated. This knowledge is important for understanding 'real world' data on vaccine impact "Dealing with the plague. These data are shared with the public on a
In his statement tonight, Prime Minister Netanyahu presented the new vaccination campaign - "Returning to Life", in which Israel will receive a large shipment of vaccines, which will be sufficient for the entire population aged 16 and over. "The first plane is scheduled to arrive as early as Sunday and there will be more in a row. As part of the agreement, we determined that Israel will be a model country, a global
He noted that "the agreement with Pfizer allows us to vaccinate all Israeli citizens over the age of 16 until the end of March and maybe even before that. We will vaccinate all relevant populations and anyone who wants to can be vaccinated. We
Netanyahu added that "very soon, by the end of March, all Israeli citizens will be able to get vaccinated. We will be able to hug each other. On the coming Seder night, if there are no surprises, we can turn around the holiday table with grandparents, and when asked what has changed - the answer will all change." .
Earlier today, the first shipment of modern vaccines landed at Ben Gurion Airport, which will be given to people confined to their homes. Earlier, Netanyahu approved Defense Minister Bnei Gantz's request to give priority to vaccine teaching staffs, with the arrival of the new shipment
