One Minute Overview

WHO Chief, Germany's Merkel Open Global Pandemic Hub in Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Wednesday officially opened the international Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin — a center designed to pool the world’s resources to fight future global health emergencies. The hub, originally announced in May, will be a collection agency for health data from around the world. Equipped with a supercomputer, it will collect, analyze and disseminate information from international governments, and academic and private sector institutions.

U.K. Plans to Give Third Vaccine Dose to Vulnerable People - The U.K. is set to offer a third dose of Covid vaccines to people 12 and older with severely weakened immune systems following a recommendation from a committee that advises the government. The extra doses should be given to people with leukemia, advanced HIV, recent organ transplants and others who were significantly immunosuppressed at the time of their first or second shot, according to a statement Wednesday from Public Health England. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is still deliberating on the potential benefits of boosters for the wider population and awaiting further evidence to make a decision, health authorities said.

Opposition to vaccine crumbles: Just 14% of US adults now say they won't take the shot as work mandates kick in - Work mandates biggest driver, 43 percent saying this would make them get jab. A further 57% of workers said they support vaccine requirements from employer. Those who are in hard opposition to the vaccine make up a new low of 14 percent

Pfizer starts dosing patients in oral COVID-19 drug trial - Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co Inc announced on Wednesday new trials of their experimental oral antiviral drugs for COVID-19 as the race to develop an easy-to-administer treatment for the potentially fatal illness heats up. Pfizer said its latest mid-to-late-stage trial will enroll 1,140 non-hospitalized adults diagnosed with coronavirus infection who are not at risk of severe illness. Patients in the trial will be given Pfizer's pill, known as PF-07321332, and a low dose of ritonavir, an older medication widely used in combination treatments for HIV infection.

UK Plans to Give Third Vaccine Dose to Vulnerable People - The U.K. is set to offer a third dose of Covid vaccines to people 12 and older with severely weakened immune systems following a recommendation from a committee that advises the government. The extra doses should be given to people with leukemia, advanced HIV, recent organ transplants and others who were significantly immunosuppressed at the time of their first or second shot, according to a statement Wednesday from Public Health England. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is still deliberating on the potential benefits of boosters for the wider population and awaiting further evidence to make a decision, health authorities said.

Massive randomized study is proof that surgical masks limit coronavirus spread, authors say - The authors of a study based on an enormous randomized research project in Bangladesh say their results offer the best evidence yet that widespread wearing of surgical masks can limit the spread of the coronavirus in communities. The preprint paper, which tracked more than 340,000 adults across 600 villages in rural Bangladesh, is by far the largest randomized study on the effectiveness of masks at limiting the spread of coronavirus infections.

WHO: New Coronavirus Variant 'Mu' May Be Resistant to Vaccines - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday it is monitoring a new coronavirus variant known as “Mu,” which was first identified in Colombia in January of 2021. Mu, known scientifically as B.1.621, has been classified as a “variant of interest,” the global health body stated in its weekly pandemic bulletin.

Pfizer Booster Shot Lowered Coronavirus Infection Risk in Study - A third shot of the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE Covid vaccine provides added protection against the coronavirus during a delta outbreak, according to early data from Israel, where boosters began rolling out incrementally in mid-July. People who received the supplemental dose had a 48% to 68% lower risk of infection a week to 13 days later, compared to those who got the standard two-dose regimen, a preliminary analysis of data from Maccabi Healthcare Services found. The protection increased with time, with a 70% to 84% reduced risk of testing positive two weeks to 20 days after getting a third shot.

What the data reveals about children and Covid-19 in the US - As students and staff return to school, the highly transmissible Delta variant of Covid-19 has caused cases, hospitalizations and death rates to soar across the country. Children under 12 are particularly vulnerable to infection as they are not yet eligible for vaccination, including the FDA-approved Pfizer vaccine. Contrary to research early in the pandemic, children are just as likely to become infected as adults. According to the CDC, Covid-19 infection rates for adolescents aged 5 to 17 were as high as in adults 18 to 49, and higher than rates in adults over 50.

Australia aims to 'live with virus' instead of eliminating it - Australian authorities on Wednesday extended the COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne for another three weeks, as they shift their focus to rapid vaccination drives and move away from a suppression strategy to bring cases down to zero. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews flagged a staggered easing of the tough restrictions once 70% of the state's adult residents receive at least one dose, a milestone he hopes to reach at least by Sept. 23, based on current vaccination rates.