Johnson & Johnson’s Vaccine Advances, Sparking Optimism in Race

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, September 23, 2020 (with Katie Thomas)

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The feverish race for a coronavirus vaccine got an infusion of energy on Wednesday as Johnson & Johnson announced that it has begun the final stage of its clinical trials, the fourth company to do so in the United States as the country hits a grim milestone of 200,000 deaths from the pandemic.

Johnson & Johnson is a couple of months behind the leaders, but its advanced vaccine trial will be by far the largest, enrolling 60,000 participants. The company said it could know by the end of this year if its vaccine works.

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A Covid-19 Vaccine for Children May Not Arrive Before Fall 2021

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, September 21, 2020

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The pandemic has many parents asking two burning questions. First, when can I get a vaccine? And second, when can my kids get it? It may come as a surprise that the answers are not the same. Adults may be able to get a vaccine by next summer. But their kids will have to wait longer. Perhaps a lot longer.

Thanks to the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed and other programs, a number of Covid-19 vaccines for adults are already in advanced clinical trials. But no trials have yet begun in the United States to determine whether these vaccines are safe and effective for children.

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AstraZeneca Partly Resumes Coronavirus Vaccine Trial After Halting It for Safety

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, September 12, 2020 (with Katie Thomas and Benjamin Mueller)

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The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said Saturday that it had resumed its coronavirus vaccine trial in Britain after suspending it six days ago over potential safety issues but that its trials in the United States and other countries were still on hold.

The news came the same day that a competitor, Pfizer, said it was expanding the trial of its coronavirus vaccine to 44,000 people — a big increase from its previous goal of 30,000 — in an effort to recruit a more diverse group of participants and potentially cut down the time needed to get results from the trial.

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Friday’s Elk, September 5, 2020

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

September greetings! It’s bizarre to think it’s been six months since I joined the huge ranks of full-time Covid-19 reporters. At the time, I found it hard to believe that for the foreseeable future I’d be writing about just one virus. But SARS-CoV-2 has blasted reporters with a firehose of news unlike anything we’ve encountered before. There is simply too much about this virus to write about.

Here’s what I did manage to write since the previous issue of Friday’s Elk. Recently, I looked back at the start of the American epidemic. I wrote about a group of researchers who have closely studied how the virus arrived in Boston in February. They found that a single meeting at the end of that month may have led to tens of thousands of infections around the city and far beyond. It’s likely that many other superspreading events also spread the virus in equally explosive ways. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, September 5, 2020” →

Russians Publish Early Coronavirus Vaccine Results

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, September 4, 2020

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On Friday, a team of Russian scientists published the first report on their Covid-19 vaccine, which had been roundly criticized because of President Vladimir Putin’s decision last month to approve it before clinical trials had proved it safe and effective.

In a small group of volunteers, the scientists found that the vaccine produced a modest level of antibodies against the coronavirus, while causing only mild side effects. The research has not yet shown, however, whether people who are vaccinated are less likely to become infected than those who are not.

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