Search results for "covid-19"

France: 400 investigations into fake COVID-19 health passes

France has opened 400 investigations into networks providing fake COVID-19 health passes, the interior minister said Sunday, as virus-related hospitalizations rise sharply across the country. The case of a woman with the virus who died in a Paris regional hospital after showing a false vaccine certificate has drawn attention in French media in recent days. […]

European drug regulator backs mixing COVID-19 vaccines

The European Union drug regulator gave its backing Tuesday to mixing different types of vaccines in initial vaccination and booster campaigns to battle the coronavirus. The European Medicines Agency said in a statement that using different types of vaccines together, known as heterologous vaccination, can provide protection against COVID-19. The announcement comes as much of […]

UK becomes first country to approve oral pill treating COVID-19

The UK’s medical regulator approved on Thursday the first oral pill treating COVID-19 developed by U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies Merck, Sharp and Dohme, and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, with the government ordering 480,000 courses due for delivery in November. The pill, called Molnupiravir, will be administered to those recently diagnosed with the virus twice a day. The pill […]

Pfizer says COVID-19 pill cut hospital, death risk by 90%

Pfizer Inc. said Friday that its experimental antiviral pill for COVID-19 cut rates of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% in high-risk adults, as the drugmaker joins the race to bring the first easy-to-use medication against the coronavirus to the U.S. market. Currently all COVID-19 treatments used in the U.S. require an IV or injection. […]

Indonesia first to green light Novavax COVID-19 vaccine

Biotechnology company Novavax said Monday that Indonesia has given the world’s first emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine, which uses a different technology than current shots. The vaccine doesn’t require the extremely cold storage temperatures that some other vaccines need, which could allow it to play an important role in boosting supplies in poorer […]

Pfizer says COVID-19 vaccine more than 90% effective in kids

Kid-size doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine appear safe and nearly 91% effective at preventing symptomatic infections in 5- to 11-year-olds, according to study details released Friday as the U.S. considers opening vaccinations to that age group. The shots could begin in early November — with the first children in line fully protected by Christmas — […]

FDA panel endorses booster shot for J&J COVID-19 vaccine

U.S. health advisers endorsed a booster of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine Friday, citing concern that Americans who got the single-dose shot aren’t as protected as those given two-dose brands. J&J told the Food and Drug Administration that an extra dose adds important protection as early as two months after initial vaccination — but that […]

YouTube removes over 1 million COVID-19 misinformation videos

YouTube announced on Wednesday that it has removed over 1 million COVID-19 misinformation videos. The video-based platform has being removing content related to false cures and claims of coronavirus being a fraud since February 2020, YouTube’s chief product officer Neal Mohan wrote in a blogpost. Based on the data, the company removed around 10 million […]

COVID-19 misinformation rate rises amid strong U.S. Delta wave

The U.S. ranked the second highest country worldwide with 54,615 CoV-2 Delta variant cases on Monday, according to Statista, amid a similar wave of virus misinformation that spiked noticeably between June and July.  Rates of COVID-19 misinformation and its vaccines increased significantly from June to July, according to U.S.-based AI intelligence cloud that tracks relevant phrases on social media and news outlets, Zignal Labs.  Among the most common falsehoods according to the AI media firm, 437 percent claimed that vaccines don’t work, 156 percent […]