COVID-19 WRAP | SA records 273 new Covid-19 cases

November 16 2021 - 19:28

Gauteng leads the way with 54% of SA's new Covid-19 cases in the past day

Gauteng accounted for more than half of the country's 273 new Covid-19 cases, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said on Tuesday.

There were 148 new infections recorded in Gauteng in the past day. The next-worst province was the Western Cape with 31 cases and KwaZulu-Natal with 27. No other province recorded more than 20 new infections.

November 16 2021 - 12:00

Czechs report more than 10,000 new Covid-19 cases

The Czech Republic reported 11,514 new Covid-19 cases for Nov. 15, the fifth time daily infections have topped 10,000 in past seven days, health ministry data showed on Tuesday.

Hospitalisations grew to 4,296, including 635 people in a serious condition, according to the figures.

The outgoing government of Prime Minister Andrej Babis has been debating bringing in tougher restrictions including one proposal for some form of lockdown for unvaccinated people.

Ministers had not reached an agreement by late Monday and would return to the issue on Thursday, officials said.

Reuters

November 16 2021 - 11:00

Ukraine reports record 838 daily coronavirus-related deaths

Ukraine registered a record 838 coronavirus-related deaths over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

The previous high of 833 deaths was on Nov. 9.The ministry's data showed 16,308 new infections were reported over the past 24 hours. Ukraine has reported a total of 3.24 million coronavirus cases and 77,985 deaths. 

Reuters

November 16 2021 - 10:00

AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 vaccine supply hits two billion doses

Two billion doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine have been supplied worldwide, the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker and its partner said on Tuesday, in just under a year since its first approval.

The shot, which is the biggest contributor to the COVAX vaccine sharing scheme backed by the World Health Organization, is being made in 15 countries for supply to more than 170 countries, London-listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University said in a joint statement.

AstraZeneca in June last year signed on India's Serum Institute, the world's biggest manufacturer of vaccines by volume, to help double the vaccine's manufacturing capacity to two billion doses.

The ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 shot, sold under the brand names Vaxzevria and Covishield, has faced challenges around efficacy data, supplies and links to rare blood clots.

AstraZeneca last week said as the world learns to live with the coronavirus which causes Covid-19, it would begin to earn a modest profit from the shot after having made a commitment to sell it at cost during the pandemic.

The company's chief executive officer, Pascal Soriot, however, reassured that low-income countries would continue to receive vaccines on a non-profit basis.

Reuters

November 16 2021 - 09:40

Czechs report more than 10,000 new Covid-19 cases

The Czech Republic reported 11,514 new Covid-19 cases for November 15, the fifth time daily infections have topped 10,000 in past seven days, health ministry data showed on Tuesday.

Hospitalisations grew to 4,296, including 635 people in a serious condition, according to the figures.

The outgoing government of Prime Minister Andrej Babis has been debating bringing in tougher restrictions including one proposal for some form of lockdown for unvaccinated people.

Ministers had not reached an agreement by late Monday and would return to the issue on Thursday, officials said.

Reuters

November 16 2021 - 08:28

Are people living with HIV at greater risk of catching Covid-19?

While studies are conflicted on whether there is an increased risk of getting Covid-19 if you are living with HIV, the WHO has urged those with HIV to sanitise frequently, wear a mask, social distance and stock up on ARVs

November 16 2021 - 06:00

No graves for the dead in eThekwini

A shortage of burial plots and viable land for new cemeteries has been worsened by the pandemic’s death toll, forcing people to buy rural land on which to bury their loved ones.

November 16 2021 - 06:00

Pfizer shot the sharpest in Covid-19 immune response study

Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 shot yielded the strongest immune response among four vaccines tested in a study, which found people getting Sinopharm’s inoculation may be particularly susceptible to a breakthrough coronavirus infection.

Levels of protective antibodies to the part of the coronavirus that SARS-CoV-2 uses to infect human cells varied widely across each of the four vaccine groups. “Relatively low” antibody concentrations were stimulated by the Sinopharm and Sputnik V vaccines, intermediate levels for the AstraZeneca vaccine and the highest values for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, a study in the journal Cell Host and Microbe showed. 

The reasons for the differences in immune responses between vaccine types are the subject of intense research. They are likely to include factors such as the amount of active ingredient in each dose and the interval between getting the first and second shots, said the authors from the US’s Stanford University and Mongolia’s Onom Foundation and National Centre for Zoonotic Diseases in the paper published on Thursday.