Georgia Bio Blog
In a major setback, Merck to stop developing its two Covid-19 vaccines and focus on therapies
Merck said Monday it will stop developing both of the current formulations of the Covid-19 vaccines the company was working on, citing inadequate immune responses to the shots. Work will continue on at least one of the vaccines, which is being developed in partnership with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), to see if using…
Read MoreMore vaccines could be coming soon and they could be a big boost to the rollout
(CNN)States may be scrambling for vaccines now, but the United States could see additional Covid-19 vaccines by the end of March, if not sooner. Millions of vaccine doses could be added to the pipeline in the coming months, perhaps easing the squeeze that Americans have felt as vaccines slowly start rolling out. Janssen, the vaccine…
Read MoreWith painstaking effort, Black doctors’ group takes aim at Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy
In September, after the Food and Drug Administration authorized Covid-19 treatments based more on presidential puffery than on clinical data, some physicians decided to take matters into their own hands. Specifically, the National Medical Association, a professional society of African American doctors, formed its own in-house FDA to vet the data when the official one seemed not to…
Read MoreWhat to expect during the Biden administration’s first 100 days
This week marked the beginning of a new era in U.S. politics with the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. In his inauguration speech, President Biden made it clear that confronting COVID-19 is a priority of his administration, stating, “We must set aside the politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation.”…
Read MoreCovid-19 vaccine supply is running low. Here’s how Biden hopes to fix that
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is willing to consider almost anything to boost the nation’s dwindling supply of Covid-19 vaccines. A new strategy document released Thursday, totaling nearly 200 pages, offers the first clear list of the options President Biden has before him, though it doesn’t specifically say he’ll actually take all of the steps. On the…
Read MoreCDC says 15.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in United States
(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 15,707,588 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Tuesday morning and distributed 31,161,075 doses. The tally of vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, as of 6:00 a.m. ET, the agency said. (bit.ly/2XVAfoZ) The agency said 13,595,803 people…
Read MoreThe 9 biggest challenges Biden will face on Covid-19, from today on
WASHINGTON — No president wants a federal emergency. No one in that role is waiting to call in FEMA reservists or deploy the National Guard. But on Wednesday, after Joe Biden raises his right hand and swears his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution, that’s exactly the plan. Their mission: to set…
Read MoreRogue antibodies could be driving severe COVID-19
Evidence is growing that self-attacking ‘autoantibodies’ could be the key to understanding some of the worst cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection. More than a year after COVID-19 emerged, many mysteries persist about the disease: why do some people get so much sicker than others? Why does lung damage sometimes continue to worsen well after the body…
Read MoreWhat we now know — and don’t know — about the coronavirus variants
The coronavirus variants are, in a word, confusing. By now, you have likely heard about different variants that first raised trouble in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, and now maybe California — though the jury is very much out on whether that last one is cause for concern. To make a messy alphabet soup…
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