COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States for the second year in a row in 2021, with death rates rising for most age groups, a government study showed on April 22.
A fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID-19 among the elderly but the protection against infection appeared short-lived, a large study in Israel found.
Senior citizens who received a second booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination had a 78 percent lower mortality rate from the disease than those who got one only, a study from Israel showed on March 27.
Valneva is advancing toward U.S. FDA accelerated approval of the France-based biologics company’s VLA1553 after the specialty vaccine was shown to be safe and effective against mosquito-transmitted chikungunya disease, in a published analysis of Phase III results.
The latest wave of COVID-19 infections has “overwhelmed” Hong Kong, the city’s leader said on Feb. 14, as daily cases have surged by some 20 times over the past two weeks, leaving hospitals short of beds and struggling to cope. South Korea will begin giving out fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccines during February and supply millions of additional home test kits to ease shortages amid a surge in Omicron infections, authorities confirmed on Feb. 14.
A fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine given to people over 60 years in Israel made them three times more resistant to serious illness than thrice-vaccinated people in the same age group, Israel’s Health Ministry said on January 23.
The more infectious Omicron variant of Covid-19 appears to produce less severe disease than the globally dominant Delta strain, but should not be categorized as “mild”, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on January 6.
Researchers with the University of Cambridge for the first time leveraged human data to quantify the speed of various processes in the brain that lead to Alzheimer’s disease.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sept. 24 backed a booster shot of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for Americans aged 65 and older, adults with underlying medical conditions and adults in high-risk working and institutional settings.
Booster shots to bolster immunity against the coronavirus would be free and accessible, U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday, one day after federal health agencies backed a booster rollout.