LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) – Britain recorded 16,135 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, a large jump from a day earlier and the highest figure since early February, official data showed. There were also 19 deaths reported within 28 days of a positive test, up from five recorded the day before.
LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) – Britain recorded 16,135 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, a large jump from a day earlier and the highest figure since early February, official data showed. There were also 19 deaths reported within 28 days of a positive test, up from five recorded the day before.
The Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has been linked to an increased chance of developing thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), a rare blood disorder, Israeli researchers said Monday. TTP is an autoimmune disease that causes blood clots to form in various organs of the body. According to the National Institutes of Health, these clots can limit or block the flow of oxygen-rich blood to key organs like the brain, kidneys and heart, resulting in serious health problems. Researchers from the Institute of Hematology at Shamir Medical Center said they were alerted to the problem after seeing a sudden increase in TTP in the country – four cases detected in one month compared to two or three cases per year. The medical team said they found a “chronological connection” between the vaccination of the patient and the onset of symptoms of the disease. They stressed that these are both new patients and patients whose disease flared up after a long period of remission. The Health Ministry is currently evaluating the research. As a result, the medical team, led by Dr. Maya Koren-Michowitz, head of the Hematology and the Translational Hemato-Oncology Laboratory, recommended that people who have had TTP only get vaccinated with special permission from their doctor – and if they do vaccinate, to have a follow-up clinical evaluation. A spokesperson from the hospital stressed that this study, which was very small, should in no way deter people from vaccinating and encouraged anyone who has not yet been inoculated to get the jab. “Physicians and patients need to be alert to the clinical symptoms: weakness fatigue, neurological disorders, hemorrhage and chest pain,” the team said in a release. They also called on “healthy people” who are vaccinated to be vigilant and seek medical help immediately if symptoms appear. Early diagnosis and modern treatments have increased TTP patient survival rate from 10% in the past to 80% today.
Chief Executive of New York Federal Reserve, John Williams, estimated on Monday that the American economy hasn’t improved enough to pair the stimulus policy brought by the Biden administration. Commenting about the economic forecast, Williams said he expects inflation to reach 3% in 2021 before returning to the targeted 2% range over the next two years. Furthermore, he said the US economy will grow around 7% this year. Williams also touched on the topic of interest rates, insisting the accommodative policy will globally continue even after the end of the coronavirus pandemic.
People who are vaccinated against COVID-19 with BioNTech’s vaccine were found to have “substantially higher” levels of antibodies than those who received Sinovac’s jab, the South China Morning Post reported on Saturday, citing a Hong Kong study. Some who received the Sinovac vaccine might need a third booster shot as well, the newspaper said, citing lead researcher Professor Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist with the University of Hong Kong (HKU). The government-commissioned study was conducted by HKU’s school of public health and involved tracking the antibody responses of 1,000 people who received either vaccine, the report added.Earlier this week, officials in Indonesia warned that more than 350 medical workers have caught COVID-19 despite being vaccinated with Sinovac and dozens have been hospitalized, raising concerns about its efficacy against more infectious variants of the virus.
(Reuters) – European shares hit a record high on Monday (NASDAQ:MNDY) as investors bet on global central banks sticking to an accommodative stance on monetary policy even as the post-pandemic economic recovery gathers pace. The pan-European STOXX 600 was up 0.5% by 0704 GMT after ending Friday with its fourth consecutive weekly gain. Germany’s DAX and the UK’s FTSE 100 led gains on regional bourses. After the European Central Bank last week stood pat on monetary policy, all eyes this week will be on the U.S. Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting for signs it could start tapering its massive stimulus programme sooner than expected. In company news, Dutch medical equipment company Philips fell 3.4% to the bottom of the STOXX 600 as it said it would recall some “CPAP” breathing devices and ventilators globally because of a foam part that might degrade and become toxic.
The numbers: After hitting a pandemic high in April, and falling precipitously in May the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment rebounded in June. The University of Michigan’s gauge of consumer sentiment rose to a preliminary June reading of 86.4 from a final May reading of 82.9. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal has forecast a reading of 84.4.
What happened: A sub-index that measures how consumers feel about the economy right now rebounded somewhat, likely due to rapid job gains in recent month. Rising inflation fears are still weighing on Americans, leaving Americans feeling significantly more confident that earlier this year
Big picture: Americans are feeling the benefits of a relatively strong recover as more than 1 million jobs in the past three months, but they are still concerned about the prospect of runaway inflation.
Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down into negative territory after the report.
“Last year, we thought we had learned about our new enemy, but it changed,” Ghafur said. “This virus has become so, so unpredictable.”
Stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, hearing loss and joint pain are among the ailments Covid patients are experiencing, according to six doctors treating patients across India. The beta and gamma variants — first detected in South Africa and Brazil respectively — have shown little or no evidence of triggering unusual clinical signs, according to a study by researchers from the University of New South Wales last month. “I saw three-to-four cases the whole of last year, and now it’s one patient a week,” Manudhane said. India has reported 1.86 crore Covid cases thus far in 2021, compared with 1.03 crore last year. The delta variant was the “primary cause” behind the country’s deadlier second wave and is 50 per cent more contagious than the alpha strain that was first spotted in the UK, according to a recent study by an Indian government panel. The surge in cases may have driven an increase in the frequency with which rare Covid complications are being observed. Even still, Manudhane said he is baffled by the blood clots he’s seeing in patients across age groups with no past history of coagulation-related problems. “We suspect it could be because of the new virus variant,” he said. Manudhane is collecting data to study why some people develop the clots and others don’t. Doctors are also finding instances of clots forming in blood vessels that supply the intestines, causing patients to experience stomach pain — their only symptom, local media have reported. As the second wave of Covid-19 recedes, nearly a dozen cases of Covid-induced intestinal clots and gangrene have been reported in Mumbai. According to doctors, if the gangrene is left untreated for 24 hours, the chances of survival drop to 50 percent. “Every person is showing different symptoms” in the second wave, she said. The unusual presentations for delta and a closely related variant known as kappa, whose spread led to a fourth lockdown in the Australian city of Melbourne, are still being confirmed, said Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biosecurity at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “In the meanwhile, it is important to take note of this and be aware of possible atypical presentations,” she said. The most alarming aspect of the current outbreak in India is the rapidity with which the virus is spreading, including to children, said Chetan Mundada, a pediatrician with the Yashoda group of hospitals in Hyderabad. Apollo’s Ghafur said he was also seeing entire families with Covid symptoms, unlike last year when individuals dominated, reflecting an increase in household transmission caused by the delta variant. Cases of Mucormycosis — a rare opportunistic fungal infection — have also been surging in India. It had infected more than 8,800 Covid patients and survivors as of May 22, forcing local health care authorities to call it an epidemic. Even as India’s outbreak begins to ease — daily infections have slipped to less than a quarter of the May 7 peak — the delta variant is sparking outbreaks elsewhere, including hitherto virus havens such as Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam, bolstering calls for mass immunisation. German politician and scientist Karl Lauterbach said Tuesday the variant will probably become more prevalent in Germany too in the coming months. “To avoid it completely seems unrealistic to me,” he said on Twitter in German. “The decisive factor is a very high vaccination rate, which reduces mortality.”
But with emerging evidence delta and at least one other variant may be adept at evading vaccine-induced antibodies, pharmaceutical companies are under pressure to tweak existing shots or develop new ones.
“New vaccines have to prepared with new variants in mind,” said Ghafur. “We can’t get ahead of the virus, but at least we can least keep up with it.”