Vaccine-makers’ job is done if they can reduce Covid to ‘the sniffles’ even if the jabs don’t stop people catching or spreading the disease, one of Oxford’s vaccine chiefs said today. Professor Andrew Pollard, who is running the studies of the university’s vaccine, said the South African variant was not a ‘reason for alarm’ and … Read more
EU’s South Africa covid-variant hotspot Tyrol has gone into lockdown, with no one allowed to leave the Austrian region without a negative coronavirus test. Austria’s leader announced the measure on Tuesday as authorities try to prevent the spread of a coronavirus variant first discovered in South Africa. Some 293 cases of the more contagious variant … Read more
Results suggesting the Oxford University Covid vaccine doesn’t stop people falling mildly unwell with the South African variant were ‘expected’, the lead scientist behind trials of the jab said today. Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, claimed the findings, from a small study on 2,000 people in Johannesburg, were not ‘any reason … Read more
The Prime Minister has been urged to toughen border controls after a passenger arriving from South Africa revealed she walked through Heathrow unchecked. Sharon Feinstein, who lives in Islington, north London, claims she walked through the terminal following a trip to Johannesburg, where the mutant strain is rife. Ms Feinstein landed yesterday after visiting her … Read more
French health minister Olivier Veran has received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine today as he praised the jab for providing sufficient protection against ‘nearly all the variants’ of the coronavirus. Veran was seen on French television with his shirt off while being inoculated at a vaccination centre in the city of Melun near Paris. It comes after South … Read more
A booster jab that will help tackle the South African variant of coronavirus should be ready by the autumn, scientists said yesterday. The promise of an improved formulation will be necessary because the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has a ‘minimal’ effect against the variant in reducing the number of cases, according to preliminary research. Government sources said … Read more
Two years ago, Boris Johnson visited Howletts Wild Animal Park where he was introduced to cheetahs Saba and Nairo. In a newspaper article praising the zoo and its proprietor, the gambling tycoon and conservationist Damian Aspinall, our future Prime Minister waxed lyrical about how the animals had decided to ‘nibble my beanie hat’. ‘Damian’s plan … Read more
Oxford University and AstraZeneca plan to have a new Covid vaccine ready by the autumn to tackle new variants of the coronavirus, they confirmed yesterday. Growing evidence suggests that a mutation first found in the South African variant of the virus, and now cropping up elsewhere, can reduce how well current vaccines work because it … Read more
Antibody cocktail drugs that offered ‘great hope’ in treating Covid-19 are ineffective against worrying new variants of the virus, research suggests. Lab tests found the experimental treatments, known as monoclonal antibodies, failed to neutralise strains one or more of strains which emerged in Kent, South Africa and Brazil. The drugs are derived from cloning a … Read more
The US is only sequencing about 2,300 coronavirus genomes a week in search of variants, and aims to sequence 7,000 weekly. The far smaller UK sequences 12,000 genomes a week.