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More COVID-19 vaccines in the pipeline as US effort ramps up

AP Medical Writer A huge U.S. study of another COVID-19 vaccine candidate got underway Monday as states continue to roll out scarce supplies of the first shots to a nation anxiously awaiting relief from the catastrophic outbreak. Public health experts say more options in addition to the two vaccines now being dispensed — one made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, the other by Moderna — are critical to amassing enough shots for the country and the world. The candidate made by Novavax Inc. is the fifth to reach final-stage testing in the United States. Some 30,000 ...

Nursing homes see large-scale vaccination effort

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Pharmacy chains CVS Health and Walgreens launched a large-scale effort on Monday to help vaccinate residents and staff of Minnesota long-term care facilities for coronavirus. CVS Health plans to vaccinate more than 63,000 residents and staff of nearly 600 skilled nursing and assisted living facilities across Minnesota during a 12-week effort that began in several states last week. The pharmacy will make three visits to each facility to ensure residents and staff receive both doses of the vaccine, spokeswoman Abby Major said. Walgreens aims to vaccinate nearly 3 ...

Tribes try to shield elders and their knowledge from virus

Associated Press As Monica Harvey watched, crowds flocked to a Sam’s Club in northern Arizona where she works, picking shelves clean of toilet paper and canned goods. Native American seniors couldn’t move fast enough, and Harvey saw their faces fall when they reached empty shelves. The Navajo woman wanted to help tribal elders get household staples without leaving their homes and risking exposure to COVID-19, so she started Defend Our Community, a group that delivers supplies. Tribes across the nation are working to protect elder members who serve as honored links to customs ...

‘Believe in science’: EU kicks off COVID-19 vaccine campaign

ROME (AP) — Doctors, nurses and the elderly rolled up their sleeves across the European Union to receive the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine Sunday in a symbolic show of unity and moment of hope for a continent confronting its worst health care crisis in a century. Weeks after the U.S., Canada and Britain began inoculations with the same vaccine, the 27-nation bloc staged a coordinated rollout aimed at projecting a unified message that the shot was safe and Europe’s best chance to emerge from the pandemic. For health care workers who have been battling the virus with ...

Fauci: US taking hard look at variant of coronavirus

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials believe the coronavirus mutation that set off alarms in parts of Britain is no more apt to cause serious illness or be resistant to vaccines than the strain afflicting people in the United States but it still must be taken “very seriously,” the government’s top infectious disease expert said Sunday. Dr. Anthony Fauci endorsed the decision of U.S. officials to require negative COVID-19 tests before letting people from Britain enter the U.S. He declined to weigh in on whether that step should have been taken sooner. He said the variant ...

Wars, instability pose vaccine challenges in poor nations

DAR MANGI, Pakistan (AP) — Arifullah Khan had just administered another polio vaccine when the gunfire blasted from the nearby hills. “It happened so suddenly. There was so much gunfire it felt like an explosion,” he said, recalling details of the attack five years ago in Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal region near the Afghan border. A bullet shattered his thigh and he fell to the ground. His childhood friend and partner in the vaccination campaign, Ruhollah, lay bleeding on the ground in front of him. “I couldn’t move,” Khan said. “I watched him lying right in front of ...