New Research Hints At Lower ‘Herd Immunity’ Threshold; EU Approves Rapid COVID-19 Test: Live Updates

Summary:

• US sees deaths, hospitalizations plateau as scientists warn of fall resurgence
• New rapid COVID test approved in EU
• Scientists question herd immunity threshold
• UK PM faces insurrection over lockdown powers
• Novartis CEO says vaccines won’t be enough
• World Bank pushes new vaccine initiative
• India reports roughly 80k new cases in last 24 hours
• Second Russian vaccine completes clinical trial

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Update (0840ET): The latest update from the COVID-19 Tracking Project finds that the number of people hospitalized in the US has plateaued at around 30,000 over the past week, following a decline from nearly 60,000 toward the end of July. Deaths, meanwhile, averaged about 750 over the seven days through Sunday, higher than the roughly 600 deaths a day seen during the first week of July.

Now, as the seasons turn and the global death toll from COVID-19 tops 1 million, signs suggest there will be more deaths and serious illness ahead. Data collected by the Covid Tracking Project shows that the number of people hospitalized in the US has plateaued at about 30,000 in the past week, after a decline from nearly 60,000 that began in late July. They interpreted this as a sign that cases and deaths could soon rise as more restaurants, bars and now schools reopen.

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Although the news was first reported last night, the market seemed to embrace news of Moderna’s latest safety and efficacy data Wednesday morning, as Joe Biden’s ‘win by default’ during Tuesday’s first presidential debate appeared to weigh on stocks. During the debate, the former Veep accused Trump of doing nothing to stop the coronavirus pandemic in the US, and laid blame for the 200k+ deaths in the US at President Trump’s feet.

In response, Trump claimed his decision to bar travelers from China staved off a worse disaster, and argued that every single death is an unacceptable tragedy – though the president made clear that it’s Beijing that should shoulder the blame.

In the UK, PM Boris Johnson is facing an insurrection from Tory MPs who want to limit HMG’s ability to unilaterally impose another national lockdown, or embark on other strict COVID-19 measures. The controversy has reopened the debate about “herd immunity”, which has become a controversial notion – what President Trump calls “going herd” – as Sweden and other countries have denied that it was part of their srategy for battling the virus.

While President Trump would have his followers believe a vaccine might be coming as soon as next month, most other official sources – including Trump’s own vaccine czar – agree that a vaccine won’t be widely available in the US until the early spring, at the earliest. As the debate rages, it’s worth reading this latest opinion piece by Bloomberg’s John Authers.

Authors starts off by pondering how markets have been able to maintain their “relative” calm (well, relative to the chaos seen in March) amid the resurgence in new cases in Europe and the US. He argues that scientits are divided on the issue of the “second wave”, and that “even the most alarming data of the last few weeks don’t establish that one is under way.”

Critically, deaths linked to the virus have remained well below their levels from the spring, even on the worst of days. To be sure, herd immunity is about lowering the spread of cases, not the number of deaths. But as Authers points out, a spate of new research from some of the most respected researchers working at the crossroads of advanced modeling and epidemiology suggests the threshold for “herd immunity” is lower than many believe. And it’s due to a concept called “heterogeneity.”

The theoretical basis for hope lies in heterogeneity. Not all people will be equally susceptible to the virus, and there is now a debate over why some are so much worse affected than others. Whether prior exposure, possibly to other coronaviruses, could help some people to resist Covid-19 is now the subject of intense research. Similarly, not all people will be equally exposed.

Some naturally come into contact with far more people than others do, during the course of their daily lives. These people are more likely to have had it already, and won’t therefore infect anyone else in a second wave. This paper by Patinkin of David Capital explains the argument clearly.

The mathematics are head-spinning. Gabriela Gomes of the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, one of the most respected mathematicians in the field, explains the ideas behind heterogeneity and its lowering of the threshold for herd immunity in this podcast.

Gomes discusses the idea in more detail in a podcast which can be found here.

Moving on Authers shares several other charts, including one showing how – for whatever reason – this latest wave in the UK is less lethal than a second wave.

While that’s certainly one view, analysts at Bank of America are projecting the herd immunity threshold in the US to be much higher, and that, if left to its own devices, the virus could take more than 2 years to finally burn out. Oddly, another piece of research published by BofA a few days earlier estimated the herd immunity threshold might be as low as 12%, compared with the 60% “consensus” estimate among high profile academics including Dr. Fauci.

Looking back at the latest data, global cases have reached 33,646,813, per Johns Hopkins University data, while the worldwide death toll has hit 1,007,839.

Finally, Becton Dickinson and Co.’s rapid COVID test that returns results in 15 minutes has been cleared for use in countries that accept Europe’s CE marking, the diagnostics maker said Wednesday. The test is part of a new class of tests that focus on proteins called antigens that can be found on the surface of the virus.

Here’s the other major news from overnight and Wednesday morning.

Moderna coronavirus vaccine appears to work for older adults, according to researchers (Newswires).

Russia has completed the clinical trials of a second potential COVID-19 vaccine produced by the Vector Institute (Newswires).

As we first reported yesterday, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said its experimental two-antibody cocktail reduced viral levels and improved symptoms in non-hospitalized patients with mild-to-moderate symptoms (Newswires).

World Bank President David Malpass, nominated to the position by President Trump, said he is seeking board approval for $12 billion of vaccine financing and distribution initiative for developing countries (Newswires).

Novartis CEO stated that vaccines alone will not be enough to combat COVID-19, adding that significant supplies of highly effective vaccines will likely not be available until the end of 2021. (Newswires)

Indonesia has reported 4,284 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number of infections to 287,008, data from the country’s COVID-19 task force show. There were also another 139 coronavirus-related deaths, taking the total number of fatalities to 10,740 (Nikkei).

India’s coronavirus case tally surged to 6.23 million after it reported 80,472 new infections for the past 24 hours. Deaths from the virus rose by 1,179, to 97,497.

Mainland China recorded 19 new cases on Wednesday, up from 12 a day earlier, the country’s national health authority says (Nikkei).