Pfizer’s first dose offers strong immune response, finds study

LONDON/BERLIN: One dose of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine offers an immune response similar to that generated by infection and could also offer protection from variants to people who have previously had the virus, a British study said on Friday.

Britain in December opted to extend the gap between doses in its vaccine rollout to up to 12 weeks, with officials saying they were confident in their analysis that initial doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines generated some protection.

The study, led by Sheffield and Oxford Universities with support from the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium, and released as a preprint on Friday, found 99% of people generate strong immune responses after one dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. It backs up real-world data on Britain’s vaccine rollout from a study called SIREN which has found that one shot of either vaccine reduces severe disease.

‘Cases in Germany could rise to 100,000 per day’ Germany’s third wave of the coronavirus could turn into the worst one so far and 100,000 new daily infections is not out of the question, the head of the German Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said on Friday.

The number of new confirmed coronavirus infections in Germany has jumped in recent weeks, driven by variants and first steps to ease some lockdown restrictions. “There are clear signals that this wave will be worse than the first two waves,” Lothar Wieler said, as he urged people to stay at home over Easter. “We have some very difficult weeks ahead of us.”

In Brazil, meanwhile, new Covid-19 cases surpassed 100,000 in one day on Thursday, adding another grim record in country where the pandemic has killed more than 300,000 people, the health ministry said.

Brazil’s more than Covid 300,000 deaths amount to the “biggest genocide” in the Latin American country’s history, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday in a scathing attack on current leader Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.

With the coronavirus spreading out of control in Brazil, the South American giant’s neighbors are feeling the heat as their new Covid-19 infections are also on the rise.

According to the Pan American Health Organization, cases are rising in the Venezuelan states of Bolivar and Amazonas, Pando department in Bolivia and the Loreto region in Peru - all of which border Brazil.

Mexico’s coronavirus death toll on Friday topped 200,000, making it only the third country in the world to hit the grim milestone.