A Covid-19 vaccine could be broadly rolled out in the United States by the middle of 2021 or a little later, the head of the federal government’s disease control agency said.
Becton Dickinson is investigating reports from U.S. nursing homes that the company’s rapid coronavirus testing equipment is producing false-positive results.
U.S. hospitals have turned down about a third of their allocated supplies of the Covid-19 drug remdesivir since July as need for the costly antiviral wanes, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed.
The Trump administration will send most of its newly purchased 150 million rapid Covid-19 tests to U.S. states for schools and critical services, a White House official said, as New York City pushed back reopening classrooms in a deal with union leaders.
The U.S. government will send an “overwhelming majority” of the rapid Covid-19 tests purchased from Abbott Laboratories to governors of states and territories to support school reopenings and other critical tasks, an administration official said at a press briefing.
A majority of U.S. states have rejected new Trump administration Covid-19 testing guidance in an extraordinary rebuke of the nation’s top agency for disease prevention, according to officials at state health agencies and public statements reviewed by Reuters.
The U.S. government said pharmacists would be allowed to administer routine vaccines to children, calling a drop in immunization from lockdowns aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus a “public health threat.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said McKesson Corp. will be the central distributor for future coronavirus vaccines, sending the U.S. drug distributor’s shares up more than 3%.
Drugmakers will likely have tens of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines in the early part of next year, Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases official, said in a Reuters interview.
Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies entered into an agreement with the U.S. government for the large-scale domestic manufacturing and delivery in the United States of 100 million doses of Janssen’s SARS-CoV-2 investigational vaccine, Ad26.COV2.S, for use following approval or Emergency Use Authorization by the Food and Drug Administration.
