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More vaccine doses could be on the way in the U.S. after Johnson & Johnson and Novavax both released positive phase three trial data this week. CNBC's Meg Tirell has more on that below. The vaccines could not come at a more crucial time as deaths continue to accelerate. CNBC's Will Feuer has more.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: On Feb. 9, Our Healthy Returns Spotlight event will feature conversations with Walgreens' Pharmacy and Healthcare SVP talking about the role of retail pharmacies inoculating Americans, former hacker and Okta cybersecurity leader Marc Rogers addressing growing threats that come with the vaccine rollout, J&J's Alex Gorsky for the exclusive on its single dose vaccine and more. Request an invitation.
| | The long-awaited J&J single-dose vaccine results arrived… and they're complicated | J&J's vaccine showed 72% efficacy in the U.S. in preventing moderate to severe Covid-19 after just a single shot, what would be considered a "spectacular result" if the public hadn't already seen two vaccines with 94-95% efficacy from Pfizer and Moderna, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday. But supporters of the vaccine said it's not straightforward to directly compare those figures: J&J's trial was run during a time of a lot more infection, along with potential influence from variants. The company didn't know if variants played a role in the U.S. efficacy, but they certainly did in the company's South African arm of the trial. Efficacy there, where the troublesome B.1.351 variant is circulating, was just 57%. Novavax reported a similar decline in efficacy from a trial of its vaccine in South Africa Thursday afternoon as well, but strong results in the UK. The good news: J&J's single shot protected with 85% efficacy against severe disease, and as vaccine scientist Dr. Paul Offit put it this week: "What I want to know is, will these vaccines keep me out of the hospital?" For J&J, it appears it should.
-Meg Tirrell | | | | Trying to get the vaccine to the homebound | While the government put nursing home workers and residents at the front of the line for getting the Covid vaccine, there are more than two million Americans who are homebound living in their own homes. This week, Walgreens CEO Stefano Pessina told me they'll work on that issue once they get more supply to vaccinate the general public. But right now, home health care firms are scrambling to help their workers get the shot, as well as trying to figure out how to inoculate their most vulnerable patients who can't take part in mass vaccination clinics.
-Bertha Coombs | | | | South Carolina finds first U.S. Covid cases with variant from South Africa | Health officials in South Carolina detected the nation's first few Covid-19 cases with a new, highly transmissible variant first identified in South Africa, known as B.1.351, that has recently given scientists cause for concern. The strain was found in two adults with no travel histories or connection with one another, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said in a statement on Thursday. That means all three main variants of concern — those first found in the U.K., South Africa and Brazil — have now been identified in the U.S., but the B.1.351 variant could be "a bit more problematic," White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week. That's because early data from studies that have yet to be peer reviewed, as well as some clinical trials, suggest the vaccines may be less effective against it, though health experts say they should still work overall.
-Noah Higgins-Dunn | | | | January marks deadliest month of pandemic in U.S. | The U.S. started 2021 with the deadliest month of the coronavirus pandemic to date. More than 80,000 people in the U.S. died of Covid-19 in January, topping the previous record number of fatalities set in December, when over 77,400 people in the U.S. died of the disease. There's hope the death toll will slow down in coming weeks. The number of daily new cases reported in the U.S., which epidemiologists use as a leading indicator of whether the outbreak is growing or receding, has been dropping steadily in recent days as a surge driven by interstate travel and holiday celebrations appears to be subsiding. But the potential spread in the U.S. of new, more contagious strains of the virus, combined with a slower-than-expected rollout of the vaccines, threatens to reverse progress made on combating the outbreak.
-Will Feuer | | | | Walgreens taps Starbucks' Roz Brewer as CEO | Walgreens Chairman and CEO Stefano Pessina told me Roz Brewer's strong background in digital commerce is a big reason why the board chose her to lead the drugstore giant, along with her reputation for leadership. Brewer has a real understanding of the American consumer, and a strong track record of pushing for social equity. Both are important at a time when the drugstore chains are poised to play an even bigger role in the Covid vaccine rollout, amid signs that communities of color are being inoculated at disproportionately lower rates.
-Bertha Coombs | |
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