Category: Asia
Asian Coronavirus News
South Korea: 779 vaccine breakthroughs by vaccine
Janssen’s Covid-19 vaccine recipients reported the largest number of Covid-19 breakthrough infections among the fully vaccinated in South Korea, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said in a regular briefing on Tuesday.
The KDCA said 779 out of 5,543,933 vaccinated people in Korea, or 14.1 per 100,000, are estimated to have had breakthrough infections as of Thursday.
By type of vaccine, 16.9 per 100,000 people given the AstraZeneca vaccine had breakthrough infections, 5 per 100,000 with the Pfizer vaccine, 38.5 per 100,000 with the Janssen vaccine, and 0.7 per 100,000 with cross vaccination with the first dose of the AZ vaccine and the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
Deepti Gurdasani: “This is a virus that we need to eliminate”, condemns “herd immunity” policies
“There’s no country that has attained herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2. And, certainly, there are countries with different levels of vaccination. I mean, some countries have over 60 percent of their population fully vaccinated. There are also countries that have had natural exposure to the infection at very high rates. But it hasn’t extinguished the pandemic. We’ve always seen surges even after that. And I think that reflects several factors.
One, I think natural immunity can wane over time. And I think the durability of that immunity does depend on the severity of original infection. When infections are mild and asymptomatic, we can have at least weighting of neutralizing antibodies and how that correlates with waning immunity. We don’t know yet, but we know that re-infection, or the getting infected again with the virus, either the same variant or another variant, are far more common than we originally thought. Although there is protection, even over longer duration of time, it’s not absolute.”
WSWS.org interview with Dr. Deepti Gurdasani **
** One of just a handful of people on Earth who seems to understand the existential threat that Sars-CoV-2 poses
Israel: booster vaccine jab rollout begins – third vaccination in 8 months for some
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced on Thursday the world’s first vaccination drive to inoculate people over 60 with a third Covid vaccine dose, starting Sunday. Speaking at a press conference at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, where 60-year-old Herzog received the jab, Bennett said: “We are launching our third jab campaign to protect seniors in Israel. From today there is a new mitzvah: to vaccinate your fathers and mothers.”
Israel: 60% of severely ill Covid patients are fully vaccinated
NEJM: Vaccine breakthrough infections leading to long Covid
Among 1497 fully vaccinated health care workers, 39 SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections were documented. On follow-up questioning, 31% of all infected workers reported having residual symptoms 14 days after their diagnosis. At 6 weeks after their diagnosis, 19% reported having “long Covid-19” symptoms, which included a prolonged loss of smell, persistent cough, fatigue, weakness, dyspnea, or myalgia.
Nine workers (23%) took a leave of absence from work beyond the 10 days of required quarantine; of these workers, 4 returned to work within 2 weeks. One worker had not yet returned after 6 weeks.
NEJM research article: Covid-19 Breakthrough Infections in Vaccinated Health Care Workers
See also MedrXiv preprint: Breakthrough Symptomatic COVID-19 Infections Leading to Long Covid: Report from Long Covid Facebook Group Poll
Image by David Mark from Pixabay
Israel: Are recovered Covid patients more protected than the vaccinated?
Since 1st May 2021 in Israel, 72 people who previously had Covid-19 were infected again, accounting for 1% of confirmed new cases, while 3,000 people who were vaccinated have been infected, which represents 40% of confirmed new cases.
More….
More than 7,700 new cases of the virus have been detected during the most recent wave starting in May, but just 72 of the confirmed cases were reported in people who were known to have been infected previously – that is, less than 1% of the new cases.
Roughly 40% of new cases – or more than 3,000 patients – involved people who had been infected despite being vaccinated.
Israelinationalnews.com report
Israel: 60% of severely ill Covid patients are fully vaccinated
Image by LuAnn Hunt from Pixabay
Israel: 60% of severely ill Covid patients are fully vaccinated
At least 153 patients in Israel’s hospitals are in serious condition, of whom 28 are ventilated. 93 out of the 153 severely ill patients have been fully vaccinated, or 60% of the total.
According to the Israeli Health Ministry, 102 of the severely ill patients are aged 65 and over, 76 of whom are fully vaccinated. At least 39 of the severely ill are between the age of 40 and 65, while 16 of them are fully vaccinated. Six of the severely ill are below the age of 40 but only one of them is fully vaccinated.
Israel: Are recovered Covid patients more protected than the vaccinated?
Image by Parentingupstream from Pixabay
Israel: We have to learn to live with Covid
“We all need to change our thinking and draw a road map for living with Covid,” says Dr. Manfred Green. We disagree, and we will be explaining why we disagree in a post later.
Editors note: This report comes just 48 hours after our warning that Boris Johnson’s government was proposing to his countrymen that they should also “learn to live with Covid” (see original post below).
Have you ever wondered what happens when you search for “We have to learn to live with Ebola”? Try it.
It’s an idea so insane that only one person in recorded history has actually written it down.
Indonesia: Mortality rate in children as high as 40% in PCR confirmed Covid-19 cases
During the study period, 490 [child] patients were admitted and diagnosed with suspected and probable COVID-19. Of these patients, 50 (10.2%) were confirmed to have COVID-19, and 20 (40%) had a fatal outcome.
The fatality rate was higher in patients aged ≥10 years, categorized with severe disease upon admission, PaO2/FiO2 ratio ≤300 mmHg and chronic underlying diseases. The most common clinical manifestations were generalized symptoms, while acute respiratory distress syndrome (8/20) and septic shock (7/20) were the two most common causes of death. Increased procalcitonin, D-dimer, lactate dehydrogenase and presepsin levels were found in all fatal cases. One patient met the criteria of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.
Conclusion: Our work highlights the high mortality rate in paediatric patients with positive SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction test. These findings might be related to or co-incided with COVID-19 infection. Further studies are needed to improve understanding of the role of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 in elaborating the mechanisms leading to death in children with comorbidities.
Pubmed paper: Mortality in children with positive SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction test: Lessons learned from a tertiary referral hospital in Indonesia
See also:
NYtimes report: Children Are Dying as Virus Surges in Indonesia – hundreds have died from Covid-19 in recent weeks, many of them under the age of 5.
Image by Fikih Firmansyah from Pixabay
Singapore: 1,096 new infections of which 484 were fully vaccinated, 333 were partially vaccinated and 279 unvaccinated
In its daily update on Thursday night (July 22), the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) revealed that of 1,096 locally transmitted infections over the last 28 days, 484 were fully vaccinated, 333 cases were partially vaccinated and 279 were unvaccinated.
Editors note: 484 out of 1,096 infections is 44 per cent of the total. If you add the 333 partially vaccinated, the percentage of vaccine breakthroughs is nearly 75% of total infections.
Israel: Those vaccinated early are twice as likely to become infected with Covid-19 as those jabbed later
People vaccinated before late February are twice as likely to catch the coronavirus than other inoculated Israelis. “We looked at tens of thousands of people tested in the month of June, alongside data on how long had passed since their second shot, and found that those vaccinated early were more likely to test positive,” Dr. Yotam Shenhar, who headed the research, told The Times of Israel.
“This definitely reinforces the argument for giving a third vaccine dose to the elderly.”
Image by sarcifilippo from Pixabay
We have to learn to live with Covid.
“Learning to live with Covid” will be coming to your country soon. Be prepared.
Boris Johnson tells Britons to “learn to live with Covid”
Israel: 5,770 vaccine breakthrough infections, 495 hospitalized, 123 died
The Israeli Health Ministry reported Thursday the efficacy of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine in preventing infection has dropped to 39% but the effectiveness in preventing severe illness still remains relatively high.
The report adds the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing serious illness has also dropped and now stands at 91%. The efficacy in preventing hospitalizations among vaccinated now stands at 88%.
5,770 people diagnosed with Covid-19 were fully vaccinated, 495 patients were hospitalized, 334 were hospitalized in a serious condition, and 123 died.
Update 1:
Israel has already begun administering a third dose of Pfizer- BioNTech vaccine to adults with compromised immune systems.
Update 2:
In a separate surprising development, Israel has said it is moving away from the Pfizer vaccine and over to the Moderna vaccine
Update 3:
This Jerusalem Post article gives a credible explanation as to why Israel is reporting vaccine efficacy numbers that are different to those published by recent British studies:
“It is beginning to become clear that vaccine immunity begins to wane after about six months. The Israeli study showed that for people vaccinated more than six months ago, the effectiveness of the vaccine at stopping coronavirus dropped to as low as 16%.”
So what is Plan B if the vaccines fail with a new #coronavirus super-variant?
Israel: Of 143 hospitalized Covid patients, 58% were vaccinated, 3% were partially vaccinated and 39% were not vaccinated
So far this month, 20 people have died of the virus in Israel. Fifteen of the 20 people who died were fully vaccinated. Some 143 Israelis were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Wednesday 21st July 2021, according to the Health Ministry. Fifty-eight percent of them were vaccinated, 39% were not and 3% were partially vaccinated, meaning they had taken one dose or a full week had not passed since their second shot.
From August 2021, Israel will switch from using the Pfizer vaccine to the Moderna vaccine
Israel: Pfizer vaccine effectiveness waning
“My colleagues @hillaalroy and @Meir_Marciano have tonight published the data leading the Israeli MoH to suspect that @pfizer vaccine’s immunity is waning.”
My colleagues @hillaalroy and @Meir_Marciano have tonight published the data leading the Israeli MoH to suspect that @pfizer vaccine's immunity is waning. In this graph, you can see infections and hospitalizations in the last 3 weeks, normalized. Chances of a January vaccinnated pic.twitter.com/qFNjeGqNXu
— נדב איל Nadav Eyal (@Nadav_Eyal) July 21, 2021
Israel: 90% of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the over-fifties are fully vaccinated
Image by Eduardo Castro from Pixabay