FDA Approves Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine For Emergency Use in America

Friday night America’s Food and Drug Administration finally authorized Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in the United States, reports CNN. The Verge calls it “a landmark moment in the fight to suppress a virus that has killed nearly 300,000 people in the United States and sickened tens of millions around the world.” The vaccine is authorized in the…

UK Warns People With Serious Allergies To Avoid Pfizer Vaccine

Britain’s medicine regulator warned people with significant allergies not to get Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine after two people suffered adverse reactions, but was set to give more detailed guidance on Wednesday based on reviews of those cases. Reuters reports: Starting with the elderly and frontline workers, Britain began mass vaccinating its population on Tuesday, part of a global drive that poses one…

Celebrating the Path-Breaking Research That Lead to Coronavirus Vaccines

The Washington Post tells the remarkable story of how both Moderna’s vaccine and the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine relied on a specially designed spike protein partially created by America’s Vaccine Research Center — along with messenger RNA, “a technology never before harnessed in an approved vaccine.” And also decades of path-breaking research: If, as expected in the next few weeks, regulators give those…

US Secures World Stock of Key COVID-19 Drug Remdesivir

The U.S. has bought up virtually all the stocks of remdesivir, perhaps the most closely watched experimental drug to treat COVID-19. The Guardian reports: Remdesivir, the first drug approved by licensing authorities in the U.S. to treat Covid-19, is made by Gilead and has been shown to help people recover faster from the disease. The first 140,000 doses, supplied to drug…

Dr. Anthony Fauci Says New Virus In China Has Traits of 2009 Swine Flu, 1918 Pandemic Flu

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that U.S. health officials are keeping an eye on a new strain of flu carried by pigs in China that has characteristics of the 2009 H1N1 virus and 1918 pandemic flu. The virus, which scientists are calling “G4 EA H1N1,” has not yet been…

Emergency Preparedness: How Much Food & Water Per Person

Dr. Michael Beach is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, who teaches and practices disaster preparation and response. He’s a member of disaster medical assistance teams and has helped respond to Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti—and most recently, those on cruise ships during the COVID-19 […]
The post Emergency Preparedness: How Much…

Ask Slashdot: Did Fear and Groupthink Drive Unnecessary Global Lockdowns?

An anonymous reader writes: There’s an interesting analysis, which looks at several data points, to conclude that media may have flamed fears that drove the world to enforce lockdowns. From the story: “To put things in perspective, the virus is now known to have an infection fatality rate for most people under 65 that is no more dangerous than driving 13…

Largest Study To Date Finds Hydroxychloroquine Doesn’t Help Coronavirus Patients

A new hydroxychloroquine study — “the largest to date” — was published Thursday in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. It concluded that Covid-19 patients taking the drug “do not fare better than those not receiving the drug,” reports Time:
Dr. Neil Schluger, chief of the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine at Columbia, and his team studied more…