November 18 coronavirus news

The United States plans to have about 40 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine available to distribute by the end of the year, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said during a briefing on Wednesday.

The companies Pfizer and Moderna this week both announced that their vaccine candidates were about 95% effective in Phase 3 trials. Pfizer on Wednesday said final Phase 3 data confirmed the efficacy and it’s planning to apply for emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration on Friday.

The FDA must authorize any vaccine, but doses have already been manufactured in the hope that one or more would get authorization.

"By the end of December, we expect to have about 40 million doses of these two vaccines available for distribution pending FDA authorization — enough to vaccinate about 20 million of our most vulnerable Americans," Azar said. "And production of course would continue to ramp up after that."

There are now 10 college football games that have had to be postponed or canceled this week due to Covid-19. It’s the second straight week college football has lost double-digit games to its schedule.

On Wednesday, the American Athletic Conference (AAC) announced that Saturday’s games featuring Houston at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and Navy at University of South Florida (USF) have been postponed due to Covid-19.

In a statement Wednesday, USF vice president of athletics Michael Kelly said, “Our student-athletes are continuing to work hard with energy and enthusiasm and look forward to the opportunity to compete and get better each week."

According to AAC officials, the conference will work with all four schools involved on potential dates to reschedule the games.

Here are the other games affected so far this week:

Millions of children have missed routine vaccinations during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that is putting the US at risk from diseases like measles, whooping cough and polio, according to new data from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association released Wednesday.

Children are on track to miss an estimated 9 million doses of vaccine in 2020, an up to 26% decrease compared to 2019, according to the association’s survey of medical claims.

Forty percent of parents and legal guardians said the pandemic made them miss routine vaccinations for their children. The majority of these happened during two time periods: March through May and August.

The measles vaccine rate is down 26% from 2019, whooping cough immunizations are down 26% and polio vaccination is down 16%, the release said.

“The new BCBSA vaccine data, based on medical claims from millions of Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) members, provides clear evidence that the United States is at risk of widespread outbreaks of preventable disease,” the group said in a statement. “If current trends continue, the U.S. would fall dangerously below the vaccination levels for measles and whooping cough that the CDC says are needed to protect community health.”

 The analysis of member claims data looked at vaccine doses delivered from January to September 2020 and compared that with the same period in 2019.

Delta Air Lines said on Wednesday it will keep middle seats empty on its flights through next March, an extension of the social distancing policy it put in place at the start of the pandemic. 

Delta maintains it is the only US airline to keep blocking middle seats on its flights.

The move comes as other airlines are ending similar policies, gearing up for a potential onslaught of air travelers during the busy holiday rush. 

Last week, JetBlue announced it will start to phase out capping capacity on its flights — currently 70% — and fill every seat starting Jan. 8. Southwest Airlines said in September it will fill every seat after Nov. 30, following the Thanksgiving travel period. American Airlines and United Airlines have been selling every seat on their flights since the summer.

Airlines say they feel empowered by new research from Harvard University, the Department of Defense, airlines, and aircraft manufacturers that claims the transmission rates of coronavirus through the filtered air of an airliner is low, so long as all passengers wear masks. 

Last week, Delta announced that a total of 550 people have been put on Delta’s no-fly list for refusing to wear a mask.

The German biotech company BioNTech is working on a formula for its vaccine that would allow it to be shipped at room temperature, CEO Uğur Şahin told CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. 

Concerns were raised that it would be difficult to distribute the vaccine BioNTech is working on with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer because it needs to be stored at about minus 75 degrees Celsius, which is about 50 degrees colder than any vaccine currently used in the United States. 

Doctors' offices, pharmacies and state labs don't have freezers that go nearly that low but Sahin is now saying that is a temporary issue. 

“Since the development was so fast, we were not able to work out better, more stable conditions,” he said. “We believe that in the second half of 2020 we will have come up with a formulation which is comparable to any other type of vaccine.”

Watch:

German pharmaceutical company BioNTech, which has been working on a Covid-19 vaccine with US Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, will file paperwork for the emergency use of its vaccine in the United States on Friday, the company CEO, Uğur Şahin told CNN in an interview on Wednesday. 

Earlier today, Pfizer announced that a final analysis of the Phase 3 trial of its coronavirus vaccine shows it was 95% effective in preventing infections, even in older adults, and caused no serious safety concerns.

CNN's Sanjay Gupta explains Pfizer's 95% effectiveness rate:

Wall Street started mixed on Wednesday, following more good news on the vaccine front. 

Pfizer announced its Covid-19 vaccine was 95% effective in preventing infection, according to a final analysis of its Phase 3 trial.

The Dow opened higher, gaining 0.2%, or 61 points. The S&P 500 was flat at the opening bell. Both indexes closed in the red in the prior session, but hit new record highs on Monday. 

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also opened flat.

Immunity to the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 can last for at least six months, and possibly much longer, perhaps even years, when all components of the body's immune memory are taken into consideration, early research suggests.

The pre-print paper, published on Monday to the online server biorxiv.org, appears to contradict previous research that has found immunity to the novel coronavirus wanes over time based on measurements of antibodies, or protein components of the immune system. 

Yet the new study — which has not been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal — involves analyzing multiple compartments of immune memory over time: antibodies, B cells and T cells, among other features of immune memory.

About the study: The study included 185 adults, ages 19 to 81, in the United States who had recovered from Covid-19. Most of the adults had mild disease. 

The researchers – from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, University of California, San Diego, and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai – analyzed blood samples from the adults, collected at various points following the onset of symptoms, with some collected more than six months later.

In the blood samples, the researchers examined components of immune memory. They found that antibodies "were durable" with only "modest declines" emerging at six to eight months, but noted that there was about a 200-fold range in the level of antibody responses among the adults. 

The researchers also found that memory B cells were detected in almost all Covid-19 cases, and there appeared to be an increase in memory B cells over time. "B cell memory to some other infections has been observed to be long-lived, including 60+ years after smallpox vaccination, or 90+ years after infection with influenza," the researchers wrote in their study.

The researchers identified two types of T cells and their data suggest that "T cell memory might reach a more stable plateau, or slower decay phase, later than the first 6 months post-infection," they wrote. 

Remember: The study comes with limitations, including that more research is needed to determine whether similar findings would emerge among a larger group of people across more time points.

Coronavirus is continuing to spread in Europe. While World Health Organization data today showed that Europe has recorded a 10% decline in Covid-19 cases over the past week "for the first time in over three months," deaths continued to increase.

Deaths in Europe jumped by 18% during the past week in comparison to the previous one.

Here's a look at where things stand in some countries across the continent:

CORRECTION: This post has been updated to reflect that Poland set a new record for daily Covid-19 deaths.