South Africa VOC in Europe

Europe

South African VOC

23 out of 27 EU countries

Belgium, 557 (6.4% of sequenced cases)

Germany, 535 SA cases

Austria, 15% of sequenced cases

Luxembourg, 13.8%

Chris Whitty

The main thing we're concerned about is the risk of importing into the UK variants which could have a reduced effectiveness of the vaccines we're currently using

International travel implications

France

Mr Macron, live TV

Schools close, at least three weeks

Lockdown measures extended to more districts

All non-essential shops to close from Saturday

Ban on travelling more than 10km from home without good reason

Curfew, 7pm and 6am

People given Easter weekend to get themselves to where they want to spend the lockdown

Jamie Metzl, WHO's international advisory panel on Human Genome editing

They did absolutely nothing to even consider the possibility of an accidental leak

And it's outrageous that they would insert that it's highly unlikely when they didn't even bother to look into it

What they said is that they were given the task of examining the zoonotic origin of the pandemic

So in the framing of the task, a conclusion was already implicit

most likely that Covid-19 accidentally leaked from a lab

Robert Redfield, doctor, virologist, former CDC director

I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped

Now, other people don't believe that, that's fine.

Science will eventually figure it out.

It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in the laboratory to infect the laboratory worker

I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human.

And at that moment in time, the virus came to the human, became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human to human transmission.

Normally, when a pathogen goes from a zoonotic to human, it takes a while for it to figure out how to become more and more efficient

Not a proven fact, I'm allowed to have opinions now

Believes the virus began spreading, perhaps since September or October

Vaccine news

Germany and AZ

Started with AZ for under 65s only

Suspended use

Started again after EMA conformation

Now, only given to over 60s

(France, currently only used in over 55s)

German medicines regulator, Paul Ehrlich Institute

31 cases of cerebral sinus vein thrombosis (CSVT) after AstraZeneca in Germany.

Associated with thrombocytopenia

2.7 million AZ doses

One case in 87,000

Almost all the cases are reportedly in younger and middle-aged women.

German vaccine committee (Stiko)

UK

11 million AZ doses given, 5 cases of CVST, one fatal

One case in 2.2 million

25 times less common than Germany

Canada

Responded by stopping using AZ in under 55s

Has used 300,000 AZ doses, 0 cases of CVST

Sputnik V

Austria buying 1 million doses

Hungary already rolling out

Not yet EMA approved

Novavax (Novavax)

Manufacture in Billingham

Produced in insect cells

Protein based, 2 doses, fridge stable

Efficacy, UK Phase 3, released 28th January

86% effective against the Kent variant

96% effective against original strain

49.4% against SA variant (HIV and non HIV)

Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency assessing now

GlaxoSmithKline to bottle 60 million doses in Barnard Castle, fill and finish

International pandemic treaty

UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Greece, Romania, Portugal

Global settlement for next pandemic

World War Two style deal

Build cross-border cooperation

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

At that time, following the devastation of two world wars, political leaders came together to forge the multilateral system

The aims were clear: To bring countries together, to dispel the temptations of isolationism and nationalism, and to address the challenges that could only be achieved together in the spirit of solidarity and co-operation - namely peace, prosperity, health and security

Leaders

Countries be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly co-ordinated fashion

Systems for alerting people about potential pandemics

Improving the sharing of data

Dr David Nabarro

Without some kind of special action, the world as a whole will not be vaccinated until well into 2022

During that time all sorts of problems with variants will emerge