Category: Africa
African Coronavirus News
UK.GOV: Vaccine booster doses wane after just 10 weeks
“The latest data suggests this extra protection starts to wane more rapidly, being about 15 to 25% lower from 10 weeks after the booster dose.” More...
3 billion Omicron infections worldwide predicted
A report from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is predicting 3 billion new infections of the Omicron variant worldwide over the next two months. More...
Omicron overpowers monoclonal antibody treatments in early tests
Preliminary experiments suggest that most of the monoclonal antibody treatments for Covid-19 are powerless against Omicron. More...
Preprint: Omicron now binds to mouse ACE2
“Here, we show that the Omicron RBD binds to human ACE2 with enhanced affinity relative to the Wuhan-Hu-1 RBD and acquires binding to mouse ACE2.” More...
Vaccines: Pfizer CEO says fourth dose of vaccine may be needed sooner than expected
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Wednesday that people might need a fourth Covid-19 shot sooner than expected after preliminary research shows the new Omicron variant can undermine protective antibodies generated by the vaccine the company developed with BioNTech. More...
Preprint: Omicron incompletely escapes immunity induced by the Pfizer vaccine
Laboratory research from South Africa strongly suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant escapes antibody immunity induced by the Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) vaccine, but that considerable immunity is retained in people who were both vaccinated and previously infected. More...
FFP2 masks more effective at preventing Covid infection than vaccines
Max Planck: “When both wear a surgical mask, while the infectious is speaking, the very conservative upper bound remains below 30% after 1h, but, when both wear a well-fitting FFP2 mask, it is 0.4%”
We find, for a typical SARS-CoV-2 viral load and infectious dose, that social distancing alone, even at 3m between two speaking individuals, leads to an upper bound of 90% for risk of infection after a few minutes. More...
Preprint: Omicron is the product of extensive evolution that has left no obvious traces of intermediate forms
The Omicron variant identified in Southern Africa in late November 2021 is the product of extensive evolution within an infection context that has so far left no obvious traces of intermediate forms since it diverged from the B.1.1 lineage (presumably at some time in mid to late 2020). More...
Belgium: Two hippos test positive for Sars-Cov-2 in Antwerp Zoo
Two hippos have tested positive for Covid-19 at Antwerp zoo, according to a press release. More...