With so many reports, articles and stories on COVID-19 here is a news round up of the most significant stories this week.
The UK
On 8 December 2020, the UK started to vaccinate people aged 80 and over with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, click here to read a dedicated piece about this.
Although the UK was criticised for “rushing” the vaccine approval it was officially approved in Canada on 9 December 2020 and the US looks likely to approve it today, the 10 December 2020. (1) (2)
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is currently being evaluated by the MHRA (The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency), if approved it will allow a much wider vaccination programme to be rolled out world-wide. Click here for more about this vaccine.
There is one more week to go until the current tier levels in England are reviewed on 16 December 2020. Whilst many are hoping their tier level will drop from level 3 to level 2, or even from level 2 to level 1, it seems likely that London and possibly parts of the South-East, (all currently in tier level 2) will be moved up into tier 3. Cases of COVID-19 continue to rise in these two areas and London now has more cases per 100,000 of the population than any other area, including those currently in tier 3 restrictions. (3)
Germany
Having fared better than most of Europe in the first wave of the pandemic, Germany is seeing a rapid increase in both cases and deaths from COVID-19. It has now recorded over 1.2 million cases and over 20,200 deaths, figures which still place them below the UK, France, Italy and Spain but case and deaths numbers are all declining in these four countries whereas in Germany they are continuing to rise. (1) (2)
As a result, the country is moving into tighter lockdown restrictions. In the eastern state of Saxony, all schools and non-essential businesses will be shut from 14 December 2020 as governors there fear that the current partial lockdown of restaurants and leisure venues is not curbing the infection rate.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that the current lockdown measures (expected to be in place until 10 January 2021) are unlikely to be adequate to prevent German hospitals from being overwhelmed and the government is to discuss introducing tighter restrictions next week. The state led style of government in Germany has allowed individual states to bring in their own restrictions but it seems likely that a nationwide approach will soon be adopted. (3)
China
China appears to have recovered from the pandemic with official figures reporting no second wave of infection anywhere in the country. However, the officially released figures should be viewed with extreme caution as scientists and politicians worldwide continue to express doubt over them. (1) (2)
The Chinese state media meanwhile is running repeat stories claiming that COVID-19 was imported into China on frozen food packaging from Europe. When a German scientist, Dr Alexander Kekulé the director of the Institute for Biosecurity Research in Germany, said in an interview that the outbreak in Europe began in Italy this was seized on by Chinese sources who falsely claimed that Dr Kekulé said the virus itself had originated in Italy. In fact, in the same interview Dr Kekulé had clearly and repeatedly said that he believed the virus emerged in Wuhan in China. Despite giving a second interview specifically to make this clear, his name and image continue to be used in Chinese media alongside the false claims.
In recent months Chinese officials have also claimed that the US army brought the virus to Wuhan, that it originated in India and that it entered China on frozen products from Ecuador. (3) (4)
Whilst scientists have found that the virus can survive on any surface, including that of frozen food, it is in such small quantities that ongoing transmission does not occur. As Dr Emanuel Goldman, a microbiologist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School reports, “the chance of transmission through inanimate surfaces is very small, and only in instances where an infected person coughs or sneezes on the surface, and someone else touches that surface soon after. Surface transmission of COVID-19 is not justified at all by the science.” (5)
The World Health Organization (WHO) is investigating the origins of the COVID pandemic and has made clear that it would be “highly speculative to say that COVID did not emerge in China” (4).
Scientists think the virus originated in bats, but how it jumped to people is still unknown. WHO officials are sending a team of epidemiologists, virologists and researchers to Wuhan but are not releasing the names of individuals. The wet markets where many of the first cases of COVID-19 emerged from remain a focus of interest but the group will look beyond China too. It is still unknown if the virus passed from bats to humans or if there is a missing link between the two. (6)
The USA
The US has been discussed several times in this blog. Click here to read the previous update on the US and here to read a background piece on COVID-19 in the US.
After a chaotic time in the run-up to the election which saw mass gatherings in many states with no social distancing measures in place, the US is still struggling with rapidly rising cases and deaths across the country. It has now recorded nearly 16 million cases and just under 300,000 thousand deaths from COVID-19 and there is no sign of the numbers plateauing let alone declining at present. At the time of writing, 10 December 2020, the US has reached several unfortunate records with more than 3,000 deaths and 106,000 hospital admissions recorded in the last 24 hours, their highest yet. It is perhaps significant that it is now exactly two weeks since Thanksgiving when many ignored the advice to avoid travel and family gatherings. (1)
California, Texas and Rhode Island have set up field hospitals in order to cope as hospitals run out of intensive care beds with many other states announcing that their hospitals are close to full occupancy. Dr Robert Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has warned that: “The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.” (2)
President-elect Biden has announced that he will bring in 100 days of mask wearing in all public places when he takes office. A particularly interesting trend is emerging in one city in South Dakota, one of the states whose governor has refused to instigate any restrictions or social distancing measures. Along with North Dakota it is one of the worst affected states in the US with the most cases per 100,000 of the population. In North Dakota, medical staff who have tested positive for COVID-19 are even encouraged to stay at work. (3) (4)
One city, Brookings in South Dakota, has however followed a different path and implemented lockdown restrictions and mask wearing and is now seeing a decrease in cases of COVID-19, the only place in North or South Dakota to do so. (5)
The US is likely to approve the Pfizer vaccine today (10 December 2020) with a vaccination programme beginning on 14 December 2020. Some states are considering making vaccination mandatory. Private companies in the US can already insist their employees be vaccinated. (6)
South Korea
South Korea is seeing a third wave of infection take hold, primarily across the capital Seoul. After an exemplary response to its first two waves, where a robust track and trace policy helped avoid extreme lockdowns and kept numbers down, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun is this time mobilising the army to help. Shipping containers are being converted into temporary hospital wards and the army will also assist the track and trace workers. (1)
Although a worrying time for South Korea its overall numbers remain low compared with most other countries. To date, it has recorded a total of just under 41,000 cases and 600 deaths. Even allowing for population size these figures are still well below those for the US and UK who have seen 48,000 and 26,000 cases per 1 million of their populations respectively, South Korea has recorded only 795 cases per 1 million. Likewise, South Korea’s death toll stands at 11 deaths per 1 million of the population, a stark contrast to the US with 904 deaths per 1 million people and UK with 927 deaths per 1 million people. (2)
