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Corona news on Wednesday: The most important developments on Sars-CoV

2021-04-14T03:28:47.952Z


The RKI has registered 21,693 new corona cases. 342 people died related to the virus within 24 hours. And: Moderna downgrades the effectiveness of its vaccine. The overview.


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Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa

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Experts: Vaccine type could cause side effects

04.45 a.m.:

According to German experts, the rare serious side effects after vaccination with the preparations from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson may be related to the special type of these vaccines.

"The fact that both vaccines are based on the same principle and cause the same problems, in my opinion, suggests that the vector itself is the cause," said Johannes Oldenburg from the Bonn University Hospital of the dpa.

However, this is speculative at the moment.

The US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson postponed the market launch of its drug in Europe on Tuesday due to reports of so-called sinus vein thromboses after the vaccination.

Authorities in the United States had previously recommended a temporary suspension of vaccinations after six cases of cerebral vein thrombosis had been recorded in the country.

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It was only in March that Germany temporarily suspended vaccinations with the product from the manufacturer AstraZeneca.

Other European countries also temporarily stopped the vaccinations.

The background was also a noticeable accumulation of special thromboses in connection with a lack of blood platelets (thrombocytopenia) after vaccinations with the preparation.

The use of AstraZeneca is now only recommended in this country for people aged 60 and over.

In both preparations, an inherently harmless adenovirus is used as a so-called vector to channel genetic information from the coronavirus into the body.

It is theoretically also conceivable that the spike protein of the virus, which is presented to the immune system in all available vaccines for the formation of antibodies, causes the side effects, according to Oldenburg.

Clemens Wendtner also suspects that the side effects of both vaccines are based on a similar mechanism.

"In the case of Johnson & Johnson, we have the same side effects that have appeared at AstraZeneca," says Wendtner, chief physician at the Munich Clinic Schwabing.

"The question arises as to whether there is a class effect here, that is, the adenoviruses that are used as vectors that trigger problems."

Study: Unemployment among young Britons rises in pandemic

3:55 a.m.:

According to a study, unemployment among young people in Great Britain rose sharply during the corona pandemic.

The think tank Resolution Foundation announced on Wednesday that young workers, especially blacks, are hardest hit by the crisis.

The reason is, therefore, that younger workers are employed much more frequently in restaurants and leisure facilities, which have been severely affected by the pandemic.

From the second to the third quarter of 2020, unemployment among 18- to 24-year-olds rose from 11.5 to 13.6 percent.

This is the highest quarterly increase in this age group since 1992.

The development among young blacks was even more striking: Here unemployment rose from 25 percent before the pandemic to 35 percent.

The difference was significantly smaller for their Asian peers (21 to 24 percent) and young whites (10 to 13 percent).

The analysis showed that the crisis had increased the existing differences between different ethnic groups, according to the think tank.

Study author Kathleen Henehan called for the government to give young people priority in rebuilding the economy.

The Resolution Foundation is primarily committed to improving the living conditions of people with low and middle incomes.

The data confirm information from the TUC union, which published a similar study a good two weeks ago.

TUC Secretary General Frances O'Grady spoke at the time of further evidence of racism in the labor market.

Moderna downgrades the effectiveness of its corona vaccine to 90 percent

02.45 a.m.:

The US pharmaceutical company Moderna has slightly downgraded the effectiveness of its corona vaccine.

The vaccine protects 90 percent from Covid 19 disease and 95 percent from severe disease, the company said on Tuesday.

In an article published in December in the New England Journal of Medicine, Moderna had given the effectiveness at 94.1 percent.

The new results come from the ongoing third phase of a clinical trial involving more than 30,000 people in the United States.

The company did not give the reason for the decreased effectiveness, but it could be due to the new virus variants that are now circulating.

Moderna is currently working on two versions of the vaccine that are specifically effective against these corona mutants.

According to the company, the first results from tests on mice are promising.

"The new preclinical data on our variant-specific vaccine candidates make us confident that we can proactively address emerging variants," said Managing Director Stéphane Bancel.

According to its own information, the US pharmaceutical company has so far (as of April 12) shipped 132 million doses of its corona vaccine worldwide, around 117 million doses of which went to the USA.

Statutory health insurance physicians: "Vaccination campaign stalls massively"

2.30 a.m.:

The resident doctors criticize a disadvantage compared to vaccination centers in the corona vaccination campaign.

"In the coming weeks, the practices will be assigned far fewer Biontech doses than promised, because the vaccine obviously goes primarily to the vaccination centers," said Andreas Gassen, chairman of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), of the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung".

“The GP allocation has been cut in half.

As a result, there is growing concern among general practitioners that they will be less than more likely to be able to participate in the vaccination process in the coming weeks. "

According to the information, doctors' practices are receiving more doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to compensate for Biontech cuts.

"But it won't work that way," Gassen warned.

“If the vaccination centers completely receive the comparatively unproblematic vaccine, but the practices receive the controversial vaccine, which is not allowed to be injected into the under 60s, the vaccination campaign will come to a massive halt.

That mustn't happen! "

If Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) does not change his allocation strategy again, herd immunity will be a long way off, according to the KBV boss.

The delivery reductions this week and the next gave rise to "fears of the worst".

The practices could vaccinate up to five million people per week.

»Around 75,000 medical practices are available for this.

If the practices get enough vaccine, we could have achieved herd immunity by June. "

Dreyer: The proportionality of the Infection Protection Act is questionable

02.05 a.m.:

The Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Malu Dreyer is pushing for improvements to the new Infection

Protection Act

.

There are "questions regarding the legal consequences and also the proportionality," the SPD politician told the newspapers of the "Funke Mediengruppe".

The discussion about changing the Infection Protection Act should "not distract from the fact that we have to act now."

"I appeal to everyone to hold on to the emergency brake and I ask the population to comply with the protective measures."

Marburger Bund warns of triage in clinics

1.40 a.m.:

In view of the delays in the adoption of the national emergency brake, the chairwoman of the Marburger Bund doctors' association, Susanne Johna, warns of the need for triage in the clinics.

“The emergency brake comes late anyway.

But if we wait any longer, there is a risk of the intensive care units being overloaded.

Then a triage may be necessary «, says Johna to the editorial network Germany (RND).

In the case of triage, the medical staff decides who will receive life-saving treatment and who will not due to insufficient capacities.

Pfizer boss promises US government more vaccine doses by the end of May

0.35 a.m.:

The US pharmaceutical company Pfizer wants to deliver 20 million more vaccine doses to the US government than previously agreed by the end of May.

This is possible through an increase in production, said the chairman of the board Albert Bourla on Tuesday on Twitter.

The United States would get 220 million doses of the vaccine developed jointly with Biontech by the end of next month.

The total amount of the agreed delivery of 300 million cans by the end of July will remain the same, wrote Bourla.

The early Pfizer delivery should also help the US offset possible delays in the vaccine from the manufacturer Johnson & Johnson.

US health authorities had suspended vaccinations with the active ingredient on Tuesday to check reports of isolated cases of serious side effects.

The White House said suspending vaccinations with the compound would "have no significant impact" on the US vaccination campaign.

It could continue to be vaccinated around three million people per day, it said.

By the end of July, the USA had secured enough vaccine for 300 million people from the manufacturers Moderna and Biontech / Pfizer.

However, President Joe Biden has promised to have enough vaccine for all 260 million adults in the country by the end of May.

The vaccination campaign is proceeding rapidly.

According to official data, almost 192 million vaccine doses have been injected since mid-December.

According to this, 47 percent of adults have received at least one vaccination dose, and almost 29 percent are fully vaccinated.

Mostly younger people in intensive care units in Brazil

0.10 a.m.:

In Brazil, increasingly younger people are affected by a severe course of Covid 19 disease.

In March, the intensive care units were mostly patients who were 40 years of age or younger, according to hospital data.

A total of 52 percent of the beds were occupied by people from this group.

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The reason for the increase is not clear.

Scientists believe it is possible that the Brazilian virus variant could be a reason.

Other factors could be that so far mainly older people have been vaccinated or that younger people may behave more carelessly.

The data from more than a third of all intensive care units in the country were analyzed by the Brazilian Association of Intensive Care Medicine.

cop / AFP / dpa / Reuters / AP

Source: spiegel

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