April 19 (Reuters) - Here's what you need to know about the
coronavirus right now:
South African variant may 'break through' Pfizer vaccine
protection, Israeli study says
The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa can break
through the protection provided by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech's
COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in
Israel released on the medRxiv pre-print site on April 9, which
has not been peer-reviewed found. reunite as Aus-NZ 'travel bubble' begins
Hundreds of passengers from Australia began arriving in New
Zealand airports on Monday after authorities reopened borders, a
pandemic milestone that allows quarantine-free travel between
the countries for the first time in over a year.
Television footage showed emotional scenes at the airports
with families reuniting and scores of passengers thronging the
international departure terminals at Australian airports.
Passengers flying to New Zealand capital of Wellington were
greeted from the air with a 'Welcome Whanau'- the Maori term for
extended family - painted in huge white letters near the runway.
Kong bans flights from India, Pakistan and the
Philippines for 2 weeks
Hong Kong will suspend flights from India, Pakistan and the
Philippines from April 20 for two weeks after the N501Y mutant
COVID-19 strain was detected in the Asian financial hub for the
first time, authorities said in a statement late on Sunday.
The three countries would be classified as "extremely high
risk" after there had been multiple imported cases carrying the
strain into Hong Kong in the past 14 days, the government said.
UK challenge trial studies if people can catch
coronavirus again
British scientists on Monday launched a trial which will
deliberately expose participants who have already had COVID-19
to the coronavirus again to examine immune responses and see if
people get reinfected.
The first stage of the trial will seek to establish the
lowest dose of the coronavirus needed in order for it to start
replicating in about 50% of participants, while producing few to
no symptoms. A second phase, starting in the summer, will infect
different volunteers with that standard dose. trials mixing of COVID-19 vaccines
Chinese researchers are testing mixing two COVID-19 vaccines
developed by CanSino Biologics and a unit of Chongqing Zhifei
Biological Products respectively, according to clinical trial
registration data.
Earlier this month, the director of the Chinese Center for
Disease Control and Prevention said the country was "formally
considering" giving people COVID-19 vaccines developed with
different technologies as a way of further boosting vaccine
efficacy.