Category Archives: COVID-19 News and Info

Rockefeller Foundation’s third National Covid-19 Testing Action Plan calls on the U.S. government to massively scale up Covid-19 testing

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Rockefeller Foundation’s third National Covid-19 Testing Action Plan calls on the U.S. government to massively scale up Covid-19 testing an lays out a new plan for the largest domestic testing scale up to date and proposes 14 executive actions for the current and incoming administrations to take in order to rapidly alter the trajectory of the pandemic in the United States. Testing all U.S. public K-12 public schools would cost $42.5 billion, or $8.5 billion per month for the remainder of the school year from February to June 2021.Continue reading→

AquaVitas, LLC Announces Contract from U.S. Government and Health and Human Services for Nationwide Testing of Wastewater for SARS-CoV-2

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Award will fund a collaborative effort between AquaVitas, LLC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Health and Human Services to identify best practices for wastewater SARS- CoV-2 assessment and subsequent data analytics across the U.S.

Phase 1 award will fund assessment of wastewater at up to 100 treatment plants (representing ~10% of the U.S. population).

Optional Phase 2 award will scale to fund assessment of wastewater at up to 340 treatment plants (representing ~30% of the U.S. population in at least 42 states).Continue reading→

Regeneron’s REGEN-COV2 is First Antibody Cocktail for COVID-19 to Receive FDA Emergency Use Authorization

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First treatment of any kind to have prospectively confirmed and statistically significant anti-viral activity against SARS-CoV-2

Authorized for recently diagnosed, mild to moderate COVID-19 in high-risk patients

Initial doses of REGEN-COV2 will be made available to approximately 300,000 patients, with no medication out-of-pocket costs, under U.S. government allocation programContinue reading→

Banner Health recommends alternatives to in-person gatherings this Thanksgiving

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PHOENIX (November 17, 2020) – The United States is experiencing uncontrollable spread of COVID-19, and social gatherings are an important contributor to the rise in COVID-19 cases. Banner Health advises that individuals evaluate the risk level of their Thanksgiving plans and consider safer alternatives for those activities that present a higher risk of contracting or spreading the virus.Continue reading→

Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Meets its Primary Efficacy Endpoint in the First Interim Analysis of the Phase 3 COVE Study

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  • First interim analysis included 95 participants with confirmed cases of COVID-19
  • Phase 3 study met statistical criteria with a vaccine efficacy of 94.5% (p <0.0001)

Moderna intends to submit for an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) with U.S. FDA in the coming weeks and expects the EUA to be based on the final analysis of 151 cases and a median follow-up of more than 2 monthsContinue reading→

Pfizer and BioNTech Announce Vaccine Candidate Against COVID-19 Achieved Success in First Interim Analysis from Phase 3 Study

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  • Vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis
  • Analysis evaluated 94 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in trial participants
  • Study enrolled 43,538 participants, with 42% having diverse backgrounds, and no serious safety concerns have been observed; Safety and additional efficacy data continue to be collected
  • Submission for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) planned for soon after the required safety milestone is achieved, which is currently expected to occur in the third week of November
  • Clinical trial to continue through to final analysis at 164 confirmed cases in order to collect further data and characterize the vaccine candidate’s performance against other study endpoints

Continue reading→