Merck has submitted data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the company’s antiviral pill molnupiravir.

Johnson & Johnson is expected to ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize a booster for the company’s one-shot Covid-19 vaccine this week. In other news, President Biden’s chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNBC that they expect the FDA to review data on Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’ new oral antiviral against Covid-19 “as quickly as they possibly can.”

Worldwide deaths related to Covid-19 surpassed 5 million on Oct. 1, according to a Reuters tally, with unvaccinated people particularly exposed to the virulent Delta strain.

COVID death toll

The United States surpassed 700,000 coronavirus-related deaths on Oct. 1, according to a Reuters tally, as officials roll out booster doses of vaccines to protect the elderly and people working in high-risk professions.

The Covid-19 pandemic reduced life expectancy in 2020 by the largest amount since World War Two, according to a study published on Sept. 27 by Oxford University, with the life expectancy of American men dropping by more than two years.

September 20, 2021, marked a grisly milestone for the United States, recording more American deaths from Covid-19 than from the 1918–1919 Spanish flu. 

An outbreak of dengue fever is suspected of killing dozens of people in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh since the start of September, and authorities launched a campaign to destroy mosquito breeding grounds.

In a summary of some recent studies on Covid-19, an arthritis drug cuts the death risk in high-risk patients and heart medications might help prevent Covid-19 blood clots.

Data from Johns Hopkins University demonstrate that daily Covid-19 infections increased 316 percent from Labor Day 2020, or about four times more.

Astellas

Astellas Pharma paused the screening and dosing of an investigational gene therapy for patients with X-linked Myotubular My-opathy (XLMTM) following a serious adverse event report in a trial participant.