Germany’s health minister expects a COVID-19 vaccine to be available early next year and believes a large proportion of Germans who want the shot could be vaccinated within six to seven months of enough doses being available.

Jens Spahn was quoted as saying in Der Spiegel on Friday that a vaccine could be available in January, or maybe in February or March, or even later, but said there would be no compulsory vaccination.

“Of course, it would be best if a vaccine could prevent new infections. But it would also be a benefit if it makes the course of the disease milder,” said Spahn, who tested positive for coronavirus this week.

Daily Bild reported on Friday that Germany is making preparations to start vaccinations against the coronavirus before the end of the year.

The paper said the health ministry plans to create 60 special vaccination centres to ensure the vaccines can be stored at the proper temperature and has asked the country’s 16 federal states to provide addresses for them by Nov. 10, Bild reported without citing its sources.

Spahn told Der Spiegel that Germany was securing “considerably more” doses of vaccines then it would potentially need, and said it could sell any surplus shots to other countries or donate them to poorer nations.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-vaccine-idUSKBN27815L?taid=5f92c38b9cca6b0001c94a8f

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Both Victoria and NSW are looking to ease further social distancing restrictions, with each state working hard to keep outbreaks from flaring up.

Premier Daniel Andrews is expected to make "significant announcements" about easing Victoria's restrictions this weekend. 

The state recorded just one new coronavirus case over the past 24 hours, with zero lives lost.

Some "significant announcements" on the easing of restrictions are also expected to be announced in Victoria on Sunday, Mr Andrews said, with hopes for a "COVID-normal Christmas".

Victorian contact tracing chief Jeroen Weimar said 86 tests had been conducted in a community housing building in Broadmeadows on Thursday, which all came back negative. There is still about 30 residents who are yet to undergo testing, Mr Weimar said.

A notice barring residents of the building from leaving their homes has since been lifted.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/daniel-andrews-flags-hopes-for-a-covid-normal-christmas-as-victoria-records-just-one-new-case

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Patients admitted to hospital with the coronavirus are "much less likely to die now than in the early days of the pandemic", a new study has found.

Experts found that over the course of the pandemic, doctors have become better at averting deaths of people they are treating with Covid-19.

Researchers at New York University found that there was a big drop in mortality rates among hospital cases.

This was seen across all age groups and included people with underlying health issues - which is a factor when it comes to the severity of the coronavirus and survival rates.

While mortality rates have gone down in Covid-19 patients, one of the study’s authors, Dr Leora Horwitz, said the mortality rate remained higher in other infectious diseases - including the flu.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12993017/coronavirus-patients-less-likely-die-now-early-days-pandemic/

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As the daily number of new COVID-19 cases in Ontario’s hot spots remain high, the province’s health minister believes that new infections will begin to taper off in “the next week or two.”

Christine Elliott made the comments on Wednesday as the province announced a $24.3 million investment in mental health services for children and youth.

“What we expect to see in the next while, the next week or two, will be a reduction in the number of cases,” Elliott said.

Elliot’s comments came in a response to a question about the efficacy of the government’s modified Stage 2 restrictions that were placed upon Toronto, Peel Region and Ottawa earlier this month.

The new restrictions, which include the closure of indoor dining, gyms and movie theatres in those areas (as well as York Region, more recently) were put in place by the government to curb the spread of COVID-19.

https://www.cp24.com/news/covid-19-cases-in-ontario-s-hot-spots-will-start-to-decline-in-next-week-or-two-health-minister-claims-1.5154850

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Moderna Inc said on Thursday it had completed the enrollment of 30,000 participants in a late-stage study testing its experimental coronavirus vaccine, with over a third of the participants from communities of color.

Over 25,650 participants have so far received their second shot of the vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, the company said.

Moderna said its study includes more than 11,000 participants from minority communities, including 6,000 Hispanic or Latin-American participants and more than 3,000 Black or African-American participants.

The company said it would evaluate the study’s risks and benefits before submitting an emergency-use application for the vaccine to the U.S. health regulator.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires at least two months of safety data after a full vaccination regime to review applications for emergency use authorization of an experimental vaccine.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moderna/moderna-completes-enrollment-in-large-covid-19-vaccine-study-idUSKBN27721B

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The COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca has been shown to work as planned by new analysis.

A method to check the inoculation contains all the correct parts was developed by a team at Bristol University, providing greater evidence that the vaccine works.

Even though the research has not yet been peer reviewed, it has been hailed as a "wonderful example of cross-disciplinary collaboration".

The vaccine is currently undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials to further establish the safety of the treatment.

It comes after confirmation the trials will continue after a man taking part died in Brazil. It is understood that the man was taking a placebo and not the active vaccine.

The new method of analysis allowed scientists to check that the vaccine was properly designed to replicate the parts of the COVID-19 make-up needed to train the immune system to fight the disease.

The study proved that the vaccine is correctly programmed to replicate the "spike protein" associated with COVID-19 that has been inserted into the immunisation shot.

"Until now, the technology hasn't been able to provide answers with such clarity, but we now know the vaccine is doing everything we expected and that is only good news in our fight against the illness."

Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford and lead on the Oxford vaccine trial, added: "This is a wonderful example of cross-disciplinary collaboration, using new technology to examine exactly what the vaccine does when it gets inside a human cell.

"The study confirms that large amounts of the coronavirus spike protein are produced with great accuracy, and this goes a long way to explaining the success of the vaccine in inducing a strong immune response."

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-behaves-as-desired-analysis-finds-12111085

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Passengers flying from London Heathrow to Hong Kong and Italy will now be able to get rapid coronavirus tests before checking in.

The test, which can be booked online from Tuesday, costs £80 ($104), and results will be available within 60 minutes.

The aim of the test is to help people traveling to destinations where proof of a negative result is needed on arrival.

Authorities in Hong Kong require passengers to provide a negative COVID-19 test result before they are allowed in, while those arriving in Italy from the U.K. need to either show that they have had a negative coronavirus test before departure or take a test on arrival at an airport.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heathrow-offers-rapid-one-hour-covid-19-tests-it-isnt-cheap-11603193070

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Singapore plans to roll out rapid COVID-19 tests for events such as weddings and business conferences as the city-state looks to further reopen its economy, its health ministry said on Tuesday.

Governments around the world are turning to so-called antigen tests that can deliver results in minutes but are less accurate than the standard molecular polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which have suffered shortages in some places and outstripped manufacturers’ production capacity.

Singapore had one of the highest coronavirus caseloads in Asia earlier this year due to outbreaks in crowded migrant worker dormitories but in recent weeks has seen daily infections fall dramatically to the low single digits.

The health ministry said it will from now until the end of the year identify events that will require rapid tests for entry, adding they will likely include business or sports events, wedding receptions and live performances.

Currently, up to 100 people are permitted to attend weddings and religious events.

https://www.reuters.com/article/healthcoronavirus-singapore/singapore-to-use-rapid-coronavirus-tests-for-weddings-events-idUSS7N2BI02J

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AstraZeneca Plc's AZN.L COVID-19 vaccine trial in the United States is expected to resume as early as this week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration completed its review of a serious illness, four sources told Reuters.

AstraZeneca’s large, late-stage U.S. trial has been on hold since Sept. 6, after a participant in the company’s UK trial fell ill with what was suspected to be a rare spinal inflammatory disorder called transverse myelitis.

The sources, who were briefed on the matter but asked to remain anonymous, said they have been told the trial could resume later this week. It was unclear how the FDA would characterize the illness, they said.

An FDA spokeswoman declined to comment.

The agency is requiring researchers conducting the trial to add information about the incident to consent forms signed by study participants, according to one of the sources.

UK regulatory officials previously reviewed the illness and determined there was “insufficient evidence to say for certain” that it was or was not related to the vaccine. It permitted the trial to resume enrolling participants in the UK, according to a draft of the updated consent form shared with Reuters.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-astrazeneca-usa-ex/exclusive-astrazeneca-u-s-covid-19-vaccine-trial-may-resume-as-soon-as-this-week-sources-idUSKBN2752C5

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A new trial of rapid, mass Covid testing has begun in hospitals and will soon be rolled out to schools, universities and care homes, Downing Street has announced, in the latest attempt to push ahead with the so-called Operation Moonshot.

The pilot scheme is under way with tests of asymptomatic NHS staff at hospitals in Manchester, Southampton and Basingstoke, Boris Johnson’s spokesman said, and in the coming weeks this will be extended to hospitals in Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle.

The trial will then begin testing people in schools, universities and care homes in the worst-affected regions, the spokesman said without specifying which these were.

Two types of tests will be used. Hospitals will use lamp tests, an abbreviation for loop-mediated isothermal amplification, which is a swab and saliva method that delivers results in 60 to 90 minutes.

Schools, universities and care homes will use lateral flow tests, a swab test that does not need processing in a laboratory and gives a result in less than an hour, and often significantly less.

It is the latest incarnation of what Johnson announced in September as Operation Moonshot, a £100bn plan to deliver up to 10m tests a day, seen by ministers as the best way to bring back some sort of more normal life before an effective vaccine for coronavirus is fully available.

By showing that asymptomatic people do not have Covid, such huge-scale testing could allow workplaces to operate more normally or be used to bring crowds back to theatres and sports venues by testing them before they arrive.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/19/operation-moonshot-pilot-of-rapid-covid-tests-under-way-in-nhs-hospitals

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