COVID19

GHealth News - Beijing's subway has dropped mandatory mask requirements for travellers, local media reported on Sunday, days after a Chinese health expert said the threat of COVID-19 to humans is no longer at a serious level. The mask move is in line with broader measures by China, which said last week it was now no longer mandatory to wear face masks when using public transport, according to state media. "It's as if an era has passed," a user said on China's popular social e-commerce app Xiaohongshu, as social media was abuzz with news of the rules being eased. Staff at a Beijing subway station tore down signs reminding people to wear masks, Beijing Daily reported. The pandemic is nearing its end, based on World Health Organization data, said Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at...

A campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China The virus that drove the Covid-19 pandemic most likely emerged from a laboratory leak but not as part of a weapons program, according to an updated and classified 2021 US energy department study provided to the White House and senior American lawmakers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The department’s finding – a departure from previous studies on how the virus emerged – came in an update to a document from the office of national intelligence director, Avril Haines, the WSJ reported. It follows a finding reportedly issued with “moderate confidence” by the FBI that the virus spread after leaking out of a Chinese laboratory. The conclusion from the energy department – which oversees a network of 17 US ...

The US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday halted the emergency use authorization of Evusheld because it does not appear to protect against Covid-19 from viral variants currently circulating in the United States. Evusheld is a monoclonal antibody therapy used to prevent Covid-19 in immunocompromised people, who are less likely to generate an immune response from Covid-19 vaccination. US officials have warned for months that the antibody therapy was not working against certain emerging variants, but it was still available. CNN had previously reported that many patients who used the medication weren’t aware the medication was no longer as effective as it once was, and continued to rely on it for protection against Covid-19. On Thursday, the FDA revised Evush...

GHealth News - WHO has updated its guidelines on mask wearing in community settings, COVID-19 treatments, and clinical management. This is part of a continuous process of reviewing such materials, working with guideline development groups composed of independent, international experts who consider the latest available evidence and the changing epidemiology. Masks continue to be a key tool against COVID-19 WHO continues to recommend the use of masks by the public in specific situations, and this update recommends their use irrespective of the local epidemiological situation, given the current spread of the COVID-19 globally. Masks are recommended following a recent exposure to COVID-19, when someone has or suspects they have COVID-19, when someone is at high-risk of severe COVID-19, a...

By Jacqueline Howard As the world enters a new year, many public health and infectious disease experts predict that monitoring for new coronavirus variants will be an increasingly important part of Covid-19 mitigation efforts – and some are turning their attention to a surge in cases in China. Subvariants of the Omicron coronavirus variant continue to circulate globally, and “we’re seeing Omicron do what viruses do, which is it picks up mutations along the way that helps it evade a little bit of immunity that’s induced by previous infection or vaccination,” said Andrew Pekosz, a microbiologist and immunologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “We haven’t seen any major jumps in terms of Omicron evolution in some time,” he said. But “it’s ge...

People queue at a Covid testing station in Beijing. The capital is one of several Chinese cities where cases are rising rapidly © Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images GHealth News - A top Chinese health official says he believes China is experiencing the first of three expected waves of Covid infections this winter. The country is seeing a surge in cases since the lifting of its most severe restrictions earlier this month. The latest official figures appear to show a relatively low number of new daily cases. However, there are concerns that these numbers are an underestimate due to a recent reduction in Covid testing. The government reported only 2,097 new daily cases on Sunday. Epidemiologist Wu Zunyou has said he believes the current spike in infections would run until mid-...

GHealth News - A week after China began dismantling its tough 'zero-COVID' controls, the World Health Organization warned of "very tough" times ahead and state media reported some seriously ill patients at hospitals in Beijing, raising fears of a wave of infections. China last Wednesday announced sweeping changes to testing and quarantine rules, aligning with a world that has largely reopened, after historic protests against mass lockdowns that caused mental strain for millions but kept the virus in check. The elation that met those changes has quickly faded amid mounting signs that China may pay a price for shielding a population that lacks "herd immunity" and has low vaccination rates among the elderly. "It's always very difficult for any country coming out of a situat...

Khalifa International Stadium, Doha, Qatar GHealth News - Fans attending the World Cup in Qatar must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test regardless of their vaccination status, organisers said in a statement on Thursday. All visitors aged six and over must present a negative result from a PCR test taken within 48 hours before their departure or from a rapid antigen test taken in the 24 hours before arriving, the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy said. Results of the rapid antigen tests will only be accepted if they are from official medical centres and not self-administered. No further tests will be required in Qatar if visitors do not develop symptoms of COVID-19. Visitors aged 18 and above will also be required to download a government-run contact tracing ph...

GHealth News - About 21 million people in the Chinese city of Chengdu have gone into lockdown as authorities raced to snuff out a new Covid-19 outbreak. China is the last major economy wedded to a zero-Covid policy, stamping out virus flare-ups with snap shutdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines. Chengdu, in the south-west, became the latest city to announce a shutdown, saying in an official notice that residents must “stay home in principle” from 6pm on Thursday to combat a new wave of infections. Each household will be allowed to send one person out to buy groceries and essential goods per day, provided they have tested negative in the previous 24 hours, the notice said. It said all residents would be tested for the virus between Thursday and Sunday, and urged them not ...

GHealth News - Biotechnology company Novavax announced on Friday that its Covid-19 vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by the U.S Food and Drug Administration for adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17. In July, Novavax’s two-dose Covid-19 vaccine for adults ages 18 and over got its emergency approval from the FDA. Having more vaccine options for adults and children will “hopefully help increase vaccination rates, particularly as we prepare for ongoing surges of Covid-19 with the start of fall and the back-to-school season,” Stanley C. Erck, president and CEO of Novavax, said in a statement. Novavax was one of the original participants in the U.S. government’s race to develop a Covid vaccine in 2020, receiving $1.8 billion in taxpayer funding from Operation Warp Speed...