Regeneron trial: Cocktail offers good protection
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals announced Monday that a Phase 3 trial of its antibody cocktail offered strong protection against COVID-19 for people living with someone infected with the coronavirus. The treatment lessens the likelihood of infection and improves outcomes for those who do become infected, Regeneron said in a statement. The treatment also appears to be potent against emerging variants, the company said.
Regeneron’s cocktail, a combination of two drugs, was given to former President Donald Trump when he became ill with the virus. The company said it will share data with the FDA and request emergency use authorization expansion to include COVID-19 prevention for appropriate populations.
The data suggests the treatment “can complement widespread vaccination strategies, particularly for those at high risk of infection,” said Myron Cohen, M.D., who leads the monoclonal antibody efforts for the NIH-sponsored COVID Prevention Network.
Vaccinations hit daily high at 4.6M doses
The U.S. set a one-day record on Saturday by administering 4.6 million vaccine doses, White House senior COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt said Monday. More than 45% of adult Americans have had at least one dose, and 28% are fully vaccinated, he said.
More than 237.7 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the U.S. and 189.6 million have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. has more than 31.2 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 562,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: 136.2 million cases and 2.9 million deaths.
CDC: More shots to Michigan isn’t solution
The federal government is not inclined to ship extra vaccine supplies to Michigan to combat the state’s severe surge in cases, the CDC director said Monday.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky noted that it takes two to six weeks from the time vaccines are jabbed until the impact could be realized.
“When you have an acute situation, an extraordinary amount of cases like we have in Michigan, the answer is not necessarily to give vaccine, the answer is to really close things down,” Walensky said at a White House briefing. “If we tried to vaccinate our way out of what is happening in Michigan we would be disappointed that it took so long for the vaccine to work, to actually have the impact.”
Slavitt, the White House adviser, said shifting vaccine supplies “to play Whac-a-Mole isn’t the strategy that public health leaders and scientists have laid out.”
In-person classes most likely at these colleges
Colleges looking to enroll more students or those in Republican-controlled states were the most likely to reopen for in-person learning during the fall 2020 semester, according to a study by the College Crisis Initiative, a group at Davidson College in North Carolina that has been tracking how colleges responded to the pandemic.
The researchers found that colleges that accept fewer applicants and whose students are more academically prepared were more likely to be online during the pandemic. And those that accepted more students and were in Republican-controlled states were more likely to be in-person compared to colleges in blue states.
What didn’t seem to influence a college’s plan to open in-person? Coronavirus cases. The researchers wrote they didn’t find an association between a state’s coronavirus infection rate per 100,000 residents and college’s plans to offer online or in-person courses.
Florida reports small increase in deaths
For the first time in almost seven months, Florida reported only a single-digit increase in new reported deaths linked to the pandemic. The state health department said Sunday that seven more Floridians and two additional non-residents have died from COVID-19. Over the past two weeks, daily reported COVID-19 deaths across the state have ranged from 22 to 98, and the week-to-week reported deaths have been on a slow decline since January. Just five new coronavirus deaths in Florida were reported Sept. 28.
The state continues to lead the U.S. in numbers of variants of the coronavirus: more than 3,600 cases.
Other top headlines
h Illinois opened up vaccine eligibility to those 16 and older Monday. On Thursday, Washington state and California will join the more than 40 states providing vaccine access to all adults.
h For the first time in months, shops, hairdressers and pub “gardens” reopened Monday in England.
h Travel is on the rise. The U.S. averaged more than 1.5 million travelers on Thursday and Friday and nearly 1.4 million on Saturday, according to data from the Transportation Security Administration.