Covid-19: Cuba’s home-grown vaccines have massively cut case numbers

Four months after hospitals collapsed in Cuba due to skyrocketing covid-19 case numbers, the country has rolled out its own vaccines and cases are down to 5 for every 100,000 people Health 23 December 2021 By Luke Taylor Abdala is one of Cuba’s covid-19 vaccines YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images Four months after Cuba reported … Read more

Omicron Is Here: A Lack of COVID Vaccines Is Partly Why

Editor’s Note (12/21/21): This article is being showcased in a special collection about equity in health care that was made possible by the support of Takeda. The article was published independently and without sponsorship. The past few days have been awash with news of the emergence of the latest concerning variant of the virus behind … Read more

COVID Quickly, Episode 21: Vaccines Against Omicron, and Pandemic Progress

Josh Fischman: Hi, and welcome to COVID, Quickly, a Scientific American podcast series. This is your fast-track update on the COVID pandemic. We bring you up to speed on the science behind the most urgent questions about the virus and the disease. We demystify the research and help you understand what it really means. I’m … Read more

Why Is Omicron So Contagious?

The Omicron variant is spreading rapidly worldwide. New travel restrictions and mounting anxiety have followed this heavily mutated version of the coronavirus, which has been reported now in more than 60 countries. In South Africa, where Omicron’s 50 or so mutations were first identified, the variant has shown that it can reinfect people who already … Read more

Covid-19 news: Myocarditis more common after infection than vaccines

By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson, Jessica Hamzelou, Sam Wong, Graham Lawton, Adam Vaughan, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Jason Arunn Murugesu and Layal Liverpool Latest coronavirus news as of 1pm on 15 December Huge study finds myocarditis is at least four times more likely to occur after a covid-19 infection than after a vaccination Heart inflammation is … Read more

How Well Does Pfizer Protect From Omicron? New Preliminary Results Give Us an Idea

Two doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine shot offered about 70 percent protection against hospitalization during a recent surge in Omicron cases in South Africa, preliminary real-world data found.   This was a drop from about 92 percent in a previous Delta wave, the researchers from Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest insurer and South Africa’s Medical Research Council, said … Read more

Omicron variant: Can we adapt covid-19 vaccines fast enough to make a difference?

Vaccine-makers are already adapting vaccines to fight the omicron coronavirus variant, but it will probably already have swept the world by the time these arrive Health | Analysis 30 November 2021 By Michael Le Page A health worker holds a vial of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine CHAMILA KARUNARATHNE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Is omicron better at evading existing vaccines than … Read more

Children and covid-19 vaccines: Why has the UK been so slow to vaccinate teenagers and children?

Compared with other high-income countries, the UK has been slow to approve and roll out covid-19 vaccines to teenagers, prompting concerns over long covid and the new omicron variant Health 3 December 2021 By Clare Wilson Children at a school in Cardiff, UK, in September Matthew Horwood/Getty Images For the first few months of this … Read more

Sputnik V: Why hasn’t the West embraced Russia’s covid-19 vaccine?

Scepticism in Western countries around Russia’s vaccine reflects politics not science – the Sputnik V vaccine has the highest protection against symptomatic disease of any covid-19 vaccine Health 10 December 2021