Sinovac Biotech’s annual production capacity of COVID-19 vaccine can reach 2 billion doses by June, a company spokesman confirmed to Reuters on Wednesday.
The figure is double its previous yearly capacity of 1 billion doses in the form of bulk ingredient which the firm had said it could reach by February.
State media the Global Times had first reported the news, citing a comment from the firm’s chief executive.
The European Union aims to increase the region’s COVID-19 vaccine production capacity to 2-3 billion doses per year by the end of 2021, Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
In an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera he also urged member states to implement their vaccination policies quickly “because the capacity to produce doses is increasing from week to week”, he said.
Breton said that while around 43 million doses have been delivered to the EU so far, only 30.2 million have been administered, adding the bloc was targeting deliveries of 95-100 million doses by the end of March.
Concerns about China using vaccines to sway other countries are “narrow-minded,” a top political advisory body said, apparently dismissing a notion among rival powers that Beijing exploits the fight against COVID-19 to boost its global influence.
Guo Weimin, spokesman for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said some suspect China is using COVID-19 vaccines to “expand our geopolitical influence.”
“This idea is extremely narrow-minded”, Guo said at a news conference on Wednesday ahead of the opening of the annual meeting of CPPCC on Thursday. China’s President Xi Jinping has pledged to make China’s vaccines a “global public good.”
The Financial Times newspaper on Wednesday reported that the United States is working with allies Japan, India and Australia on a plan to distribute COVID-19 vaccines in Asia to counter the influence of China. It cited people familiar with the talks.
China’s rival India is using its strength as the world’s biggest maker of vaccines for various diseases to improve regional ties during the pandemic by providing COVID-19 vaccines to a range of countries, pushing back against Beijing’s political and economic in Asia.
China plans to provide 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to global vaccine sharing scheme COVAX. Vaccines from Chinese firms are already being rolled out in several countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Oscar Health Inc OSCR.N, a health insurance startup backed by Google parent Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O, sold shares in its initial public offering (IPO) on Tuesday at $39 apiece, above its target range, to raise $1.2 billion.
The IPO gives New York-based Oscar Health a market value of $7.7 billion. The target price range on the offering of 31 million shares was raised earlier on Tuesday to $36-$38 per share, up from $32-$34.
Oscar Health sells health insurance coverage to individuals, families, small businesses and Medicare users, with 529,000 customers on its technology platform across 18 states.
In 2020, Oscar Health said its customers grew 75% year-on-year as the COVID-19 pandemic increased demand for healthcare delivery through online, mobile and at-home methods.
Oscar Health said its premiums jumped 60% to $1.67 billion in 2020. The company, however, ceded most of the claims to reinsurance firms, causing revenue to fall 5.2% to $462.8 million. Net losses widened to $406.8 million from $261.2 million in the previous year, according to regulatory filings.
Oscar Health was founded in 2012 by its chief executive, Mario Schlosser, Kevin Nazemi and Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump. In 2018, Alphabet took a nearly 10% stake in Oscar Health for $375 million.
Shares in Oscar Health will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday under the symbol "OSCR."
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Allen & Company are lead underwriters for the offering.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/alphabet-backed-oscar-health-raises-%241.2-billion-in-ipo-2021-03-02
The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, a dry cough, and losing your sense of taste and smell. Other signs that are frequently seen include headaches, muscle and joint pain, nasal congestion, and fatigue.
A less common symptom are rashes of various forms. These have been slower to be reported, partly due to the wide variety that have appeared in COVID-19 patients, making it more challenging to establish a consistent correlation.
Nevertheless, knowing how COVID-19 affects the skin is important. A recent study found that for 17% of COVID-19 patients with multiple symptoms, skin rashes were the first symptom to appear, while for 21% of patients rashes were their only symptom. Being able to identify the effects of COVID-19 on the skin may allow cases to be spotted earlier – or even picked up altogether in people who are otherwise asymptomatic. This could help limit transmission.
With that in mind, here are the four main types of skin changes to look out for, and the possible reasons why they occur.
Chilblain-like lesions
These are red, swollen or blistering skin lesions that affect mainly the toes and soles of the feet, colloquially known as “COVID toes”. Over the course of one to two weeks, the lesions will become even more discoloured and will flatten, and after this they will spontaneously resolve without treatment.
A substantial number of these lesions have been seen, primarily in adolescents and young adults with no or only mild symptoms of COVID-19. They make up the majority of skin issues associated with the virus. In two international reports on different types of suspected COVID-related skin conditions, around 60% of patients with skin complaints reported these lesions.
However, given these lesions correlate with mild disease, many of the patients with them in these studies didn’t qualify for a COVID-19 test at the time, and 55% were otherwise asymptomatic. So while the swift rise of these lesions during the pandemic suggests they’re associated with COVID-19, direct confirmation of this hasn’t been established. It’s possible they’re caused by some other related factor.
Exactly when they appear is also somewhat unclear. In a study analysing 26 patients with suspected COVID-related skin changes, 73% presented with chilblain-like lesions. None of the patients had respiratory symptoms and they were all COVID-negative at the onset of their lesions. An explanation is that these lesions appear only after a long delay – up to 30 days after infection.
The cause of these lesions has been debated. A possible culprit could be type 1 interferons, proteins that regulate the antiviral properties of the immune system. The theory is that high production of these interferons might result in patients rapidly clearing the coronavirus, but also cause injury to blood vessels and increased inflammation. This would explain the coincidence of mild or nonexistent disease, negative tests and skin damage.
Another theory concerns ACE2, the molecule that the coronavirus uses to get inside cells. It is present on many types of cell, including those in the sweat glands, which are common on the palms of the hand and soles of the feet. This could make these areas particularly vulnerable to damage from the virus.
Or, it could be that damage to blood vessels, caused either by the immune response or the virus, leads to cell death and multiple mini blood clots in the toes.
This term describes both flat and raised areas of discoloured skin. A study of 375 patients in Spain found that 47% of patients with COVID-related skin changes had this kind of rash.
These were associated with more severe COVID-19 symptoms, and were mainly found on the trunk in middle-aged to elderly patients. They tended to last 7-18 days, appearing 20-36 days after infection.
A suggested cause is the body’s immune system going into overdrive. In some patients, a hyperinflammatory phase occurs 7-10 days after infection, which leads to tissue damage and, potentially, more severe disease and death.
Also known as urticaria, these are raised areas of itchy skin. In a study involving four hospitals in China and Italy, 26% of COVID-19 patients that complained of skin changes presented with hives.
Hives typically precede or present at the same time as other symptoms, making them useful for diagnosis. They are more common among middle-aged patients and are associated with more severe disease. Viral infections are a known trigger of hives, as they cause the breakdown of cells and the release of histamine through a cascade of reactions in the immune system.
However, it’s important to remember that hives are also a noted side-effect of many drugs that have been used to treat COVID-19, such as corticosteroids and remdesevir.
These are clear fluid-filled sacs under the skin, similar to those seen in chicken pox. They are less common compared to the skin conditions above: in the previously mentioned Spanish study of skin changes associated with COVID-19, only 9% of patients had these vesicles.
However, they are thought to be a more specific indication of someone having COVID-19 than those already listed, and so are more useful for diagnosis. They appear to present in patients with mild disease around 14 days after infection. It’s thought that they’re caused by prolonged inflammation, with antibodies attacking the skin and damaging its layers, resulting in fluid-filled sacs.
Senior Clinical Lecturer in Cardiovascular Medicine, University of East Anglia
Visiting Researcher in Medicine, University of East Anglia
https://theconversation.com/four-covid-related-skin-complaints-everyone-should-look-out-for-152716
In recent weeks, pregnant women have been prioritized for coronavirus vaccinations across the country.
Washington, D.C. and 15 states — most recently including Kentucky, Illinois and Florida — have added pregnancy to their lists of eligible high-risk conditions, according to NBC News' research. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers Covid-19 an acute threat during pregnancy. Eight states are not following the CDC's recommendation to prioritize pregnant women over the general population.
As states move forward with plans to add pregnant women to their eligibility lists, Pfizer-BioNTech has begun a clinical trial of their vaccine's effect on pregnant women to supplement the lack of data about pregnancy and the vaccines.
Pregnant women have no biological reason for concern, said Dr. Brenna Hughes, vice chair of obstetrics and quality at Duke Medical. "Based on the biologic mechanism of vaccines, we can't see a biologic reason it would be unsafe."
All pregnant women are at a greater risk of complications if exposed to the coronavirus and should be vaccinated as soon as they are eligible, no matter how far along in their pregnancies they are or if they are breastfeeding, Hughes said.
The CDC recommends that all states include pregnant women in its phase 1C of vaccinations; not all states are following the guidelines, and some may require pregnant women to have doctor's notes or verification of their pregnancies before they get vaccine shots.
Many states recommend, some on their websites, that those eligible with high-risk health conditions, such as pregnancy, consult with their doctors before they schedule their vaccination appointments.
In New Mexico, those seeking vaccinations may be asked to verify any health conditions, pregnancy included, before they get shots. In New York, you must have proof of your current eligibility, which may be a doctor's letter, medical information with evidence of underlying condition or a signed certification. Florida requires a note from a doctor, and those in Washington, D.C. must show proof that they meet the eligibility criteria.
Emerging data shows that, after COVID-19, some survivors experience major neuropsychiatric symptoms. Although COVID-19 primarily targets the human respiratory system, it also affects other parts of the body including the central nervous system (Chaves Filho et al., 2021).
It is known, of course, that infections generally trigger inflammation in the body. Normally this is a helpful protective response of the immune system to an invasion. Although it is still early days in understanding this phenomenon, previous documentation of other systemic viral infections provides possible insights. For some people, inflammation triggers an autoimmune response. The immune system becomes over-alert and indiscriminate; in its over-reaction, it begins to attack the body itself. This may be what is happening when neuropsychiatric symptoms appear in individuals after COVID-19. (Troyer et al., 2020).
In a just-published study, Chaves Filho et al. (2021) assert that the severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by COVID1-9 has the potential to lead to neuroinflammation that leads to the manifestation of psychiatric symptoms. They review studies that document that some COVID-19 patients experience confusion, disturbed attention, depression, anxiety, insomnia, emotional lability, and irritability. They suggest in response the use of certain kinds of antibiotics as a possible treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurological manifestations after COVID-19.
These authors (Chaves Filho, et al. 2021) report that COVID may lead to brain infection in two possible routes: (1) “neuronal cells transported along olfactory axons to the brain” and (2) components of the virus may cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Once the virus invades the Central Nervous System (CNS) it induces inflammation and leads to neuroinflammation.
Antibiotics for post-COVID19 neuropsychiatric manifestations
Inflammation and oxidative stress are among the root causes of several neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Antibiotics, some of which have a powerful anti-inflammatory impact in addition to their antimicrobial impacts, could possibly address these symptoms (Chaves Filho et al., 2021).
Tetracyclines are a group of broad-spectrum antibiotics that may prevent or address the inflammation caused by COVID. Minocycline and Doxycycline in particular were found to be useful to address viral infections such as “Dengue, Ebola, HIV, Zika and Influenza A” (Chaves Filho et al., 2021).
Based on their review of literature, Chaves Filho et al. (2021) report, “Promising results have been obtained in clinical trials using tetracyclines for major psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and major depression.” They suggest therefore that antibiotics such as Tetracyclines that have both antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects with minor side effects should be considered as “the most promising strategies". Doxycycline and Minocycline handicap viral replication, reduce severe viral-induced inflammation and autoimmune response, and have the additional benefit of being cost-effective.
The growing body of evidence regarding the link between inflammation and neuroinflammation and how they link to psychiatric symptoms has big implications for mental health practitioners, educators, and patients. It is important that we expand broad awareness of it.
*This study report is not a substitute or recommendation for the use of antibiotics without consulting a medical professional.
References
Chaves Filho, A. J. M., Gonçalves, F., Mottin, M., Andrade, C. H., Fonseca, S. N. S., & Macedo, D. S. (2021). Repurposing of Tetracyclines for COVID-19 Neurological and Neuropsychiatric Manifestations: A Valid Option to Control SARS-CoV-2-Associated Neuroinflammation?. Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, 1-6.
Troyer, E. A., Kohn, J. N., & Hong, S. (2020). Are we facing a crashing wave of neuropsychiatric sequelae of COVID-19? Neuropsychiatric symptoms and potential immunologic mechanisms. Brain, behavior, and immunity.
