BY LAUREN MORELLO AND RENUKA RAYASAM
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With help from Myah Ward and Ryan Heath
NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK — Results from two front-running Covid vaccine candidates — one from a joint Oxford University-AstraZeneca team, the other from China’s CanSino Biologics — were published today in the Lancet. The early results show that the two candidates produced an immune response in people.
Here’s what we learned: The Oxford vaccine produced a promising immune response that lasted for nearly two months in an early study of more than 1,000 healthy adults. Likewise, most participants in a 500-person trial of CanSino’s vaccine, which tested two dose strengths, showed an immune response.
Here’s what we still don’t know: What immunity to the virus looks like. Participants in both trials developed Covid-19 antibodies, and volunteers in Oxford’s trial also produced more of the white blood cells known as T cells. Scientists think both antibodies and T cells could be important protectors against the virus, but they don’t know what level of each we might need to fend off infection. Antibodies, produced by another type of white blood cell called B cells, are proteins that bind to foreign invaders like viruses to keep them from infecting our cells. T cells kill cells once they are infected.
Months into the pandemic, researchers are still learning how the immune system responds to the virus. No other viruses appear to provoke such a wide range of reactions. Up to 40 percent of people who are infected show no symptoms, while others suffer everything from lung failure to neurologic symptoms and die. “It’s an exceptionally different virus than any that appeared to date,” said Eric Topol, executive vice president and professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research facility based in San Diego.
In other ways, this coronavirus is less tricky than other viruses: Compared to viruses like HIV the coronavirus has “much less diversity on the genetic level,” said Dave O’Connor, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Wisconsin. “It’s the same shape in nearly everyone.” O’Connor doesn’t think that we will need a new vaccine every year like the flu because of virus shape changes, but we might need occasional boosters.
We still don’t know whether Covid survivors can become reinfected, or how long their immunity to the virus lasts. But those questions could become irrelevant once a vaccine is discovered, said Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale immunobiologist. A vaccine is often better at producing long-term immunity than surviving an infection is. “A vaccine, unlike a natural infection, can boost the immune response to the level where it becomes protective,” said Iwasaki. “In the end it’s really the efficacy that matters.”
Here’s what to look for next: CanSino’s decision to use a weakened common cold virus as the base of its vaccine could undermine the shot’s effectiveness. The study today revealed that people who had previously been exposed to the cold virus showed weaker immune responses to the coronavirus vaccine — presumably because their immune systems zeroed in on the familiar component of the vaccine, the weakened cold virus, rather than SARS-CoV-2.
Older people, whose immune systems are less vigorous, also showed a weaker response to the vaccine.
Large end-stage trials of both vaccines are underway in tens of thousands of people, and should reveal whether the shots work. Scientists will track rates of infection among people who get the vaccines versus those who don’t. Results are expected in the next several months. Stay abreast of the latest developments with POLITICO’s vaccine tracker.
Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Anthony Fauci is throwing out the first pitch for the Washington Nationals season opener on Thursday. Reach out rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.
A message from Emergent BioSolutions:
Our global team is going full speed to develop potential therapies that may help treat COVID-19. At the same time, we’re collaborating on innovative vaccine candidates that can be made by the millions. Discover what we’re doing right now.
| FIRST IN NIGHTLY |
FOOD FIGHT — The Trump administration is resisting calls to make it easy for tens of millions of students to get free meals at school this year, even as childhood hunger rates have risen to the highest levels in decades. During the spring and summer, as the coronavirus health crisis exploded, the government allowed most families to pick up free meals from whichever school was closest or most convenient without proving they are low-income, Helena Bottemiller Evich and Juan Perez Jr. write. But that effort is on the verge of expiring. School systems are pushing the federal government to continue the free meals program through the fall.
So far, Trump’s Agriculture Department isn’t on board. School leaders are now asking Congress to force the administration’s hand as lawmakers buckle down to work on the next coronavirus aid package.
DON'T MISS - POLITICO'S NEW "FUTURE PULSE" NEWSLETTER: The coronavirus pandemic accelerated long-simmering trends in health care technology and one thing is certain: The health care system that emerges from this crisis will be fundamentally different than the one that entered. From Congress and the White House, to state legislatures and Silicon Valley, Future Pulse spotlights the politics, policies, and technologies driving long-term change on the most personal issue for voters: Our health. SUBSCRIBE NOW.
| TALKING TO THE EXPERTS |
MORTALITY VS. FATALITY — In an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Sunday, President Donald Trump said the U.S. has one of the “lowest mortality rates anywhere in the world,” while Wallace said the U.S. has one the worst. One reason for the confusion: Wallace was talking about mortality rates, while the president was referring to a measurement called the “case fatality rate,” Nightly’s Myah Ward writes.
What’s the difference? The mortality rate is the number of Covid deaths among all people in a given population over a period of time. CFR measures the number of deaths among people with Covid. “It is a measure of the disease’s severity, how likely it is this might kill me,” said Abraar Karan, a physician at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
“Mortality rate is kind of the standard terminology we use when we’re talking about how many people die from a disease, typically in the setting of chronic diseases,” said Ellie Murray, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health.
“And that’s because if we’re thinking about something like cancer — you have cancer, you don’t have cancer,” she said. “But infectious diseases are a bit weirder than chronic diseases in that you can be infected and never really get the disease.”
The news media and others not familiar with infectious disease often use mortality rate as an umbrella term, and this can be misleading, Murray said. So which measurement should we be using?
The Johns Hopkins data used by Wallace during the interview “is really only useful for comparing between countries,” Murray said, “because it gives you the sense of, standardized to the population sizes of different countries, how big is the outbreak?”
But to see how a country is doing with finding cases and treating sick people, look at the case fatality rate, Murray said. “The more cases you find, the lower that number will go,” she said. “And so you can kind of get that case fatality rate number down by finding more mild cases and doing better treating the cases that you have.”
| PALACE INTRIGUE |
BRIEFINGS ARE BACK — Trump said today he would resume holding coronavirus briefings after a nearly three-month hiatus. A constant presence during the spring, the briefings were curtailed in late April. The last one featured Trump’s unfounded speculation that injecting disinfectants could ward off the virus. Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office this morning that the next coronavirus briefing would likely be held on Tuesday at 5 p.m. Eastern time.
| ON THE HILL |
AT THE TABLE — Trump and top administration officials are continuing to push for a payroll tax cut — but Republican leaders on Capitol Hill haven’t signed off on the proposal as Congress begins work on a new coronavirus relief package, Marianne LeVine, Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan write.
Trump and Republican leaders in Congress are united on reducing unemployment insurance payments as part of their newest stimulus proposal, and they will call for additional direct payments to Americans as part of a $1 trillion package expected to be unveiled this week.
The negotiations kicked off today as lawmakers returned to Washington after a two-week recess that saw massive spikes in coronavirus cases in many states.
Senate Republicans are also pushing for tens of billions of dollars in funding for testing and additional funds for the CDC, in addition to spending boosts for the State Department and Pentagon — money that the White House so far has resisted including in the new package. Trump administration officials have also floated new spending caps for next year’s budget, and they are seeking funding for non-coronavirus projects, such as $250 million for FBI renovations, said GOP lawmakers and aides.
| COVID-2020 |
‘STILL NOT CLOSE’ — The sheriff of Jacksonville, Fla., said he can’t provide security for the Republican National Convention because of a lack of clear plans, adequate funding and enough law enforcement officers, Marc Caputo writes. “As we're talking today, we are still not close to having some kind of plan that we can work with that makes me comfortable that we're going to keep that event and the community safe,” Duval County Sheriff Mike Williams told POLITICO.
Williams, a Republican, wouldn’t definitively say there is no way the event could be held. But he said he had grave doubts about it, especially in an era of heightened protests concerning police use of force. Williams said the event, scheduled for Aug. 24-27, was announced in June, giving his agency little time to plan and prepare.
| FROM THE EDUCATION DESK |
DeSANTIS, TEACHERS HEAD TO COURT — Florida’s largest teachers union sued Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to overturn a sweeping emergency order that requires schools to physically open five days a week, saying the policy bypasses local leaders and defies national public health guidelines, Florida education reporter Andrew Atterbury writes.
The complaint, filed in circuit court in Miami-Dade County, comes as the Republican governor sought to distance himself from the order, which was issued July 6.
DeSantis put the order squarely at Corcoran's feet today and said it was meant to give parents the option of sending their children back to school. “I didn’t give any executive order, that was the Department of Education,” DeSantis told reporters.
A message from Emergent BioSolutions:
| AROUND THE NATION |
GETTING TESTED IN MIAMI — Trade reporter Sabrina Rodriguez emails us:
After six months away from my 90-year-old abuela, I decided it was time to ditch D.C. and drive to Miami — more specifically, my hometown of Hialeah, Fla., the U.S. city known for having the highest population of Cubans and Cuban Americans outside the Communist-run island.
It took a 15-hour drive, not including a couple breaks at sketchy rest stops. Once I made it, I went straight to a friend’s vacant apartment to isolate for a few days before going to get tested. I spent days on the phone and online trying to schedule an appointment through the Miami-Dade County Department of Health with no luck, so I resorted to driving to Miami Beach for an appointment-free, drive-thru testing site.
I braced for a massive wait after hearing about friends who sat in their car for more than three hours waiting for a test. But I was done within 50 minutes — 25 minutes of which were spent in my car before a member of the Florida National Guard knocked on my window and asked if I wanted to park to take a walk-up test, where there were only six people in line.
That same member of the National Guard (who frankly was not very well versed in social distancing, and kept trying to hand out bottles of water with his bare hands) said the drive-thru line had stretched out about a mile, with a three-hour wait, earlier in the day.
Waiting for my results was another story. After six days, my results came via text message. I almost had completed a 14-day quarantine — a day of driving, five days of trying to schedule a test, six days of waiting for my results — by the time I found out I tested negative. Now, I’m finally reunited with my abuela and my mother.
| ASK THE AUDIENCE |
Nightly asks you: Have you gotten tested for Covid-19? Do you want to get tested but are unable to? Tell us your testing experience. Send us your story with our form and we’ll include some of the responses in Friday’s Nightly.
HAPPENING WEDNESDAY – COVID-19 AND CALIFORNIA’S HOUSING CRISIS : Tens of thousands of Californians bounce from one place to another, living in overcrowded housing in impoverished neighborhoods, in cars, or on the streets. How has Covid-19 exacerbated this already critical issue? Join POLITICO reporters Joanne Kenen and Victoria Colliver and a lineup of expert guests for a virtual conversation on what role social determinants of health, like housing, will have in post-Covid-19 recovery efforts in California. REGISTER HERE.
| THE GLOBAL FIGHT |
STILL VACANT — Summer holidays along the Aegean Sea have always been popular in Europe, but Greece’s large tourism economy hasn’t seen much of a comeback, Nektaria Stamouli writes. The Greek government opened the country’s borders in mid-June, under pressure from the tourism sector, which makes up 20 percent of the country’s economy. While Greece’s Covid numbers don’t look bad — 194 deaths and about 4,000 infections — the move has forced mandatory mask-wearing in spaces like supermarkets starting this week, without anything like the economic boost tourism operators hoped for. Hotels are reporting occupancy rates at 30 percent or lower.
Parisians watch the opening night of a floating cinema in Paris. Thirty-eight electric boats were installed along the Seine river in compliance with social distancing rules, with 150 deckchairs on the banks of the canal, to screen films. | Getty Images
| NIGHTLY NUMBER |
$35 million
The amount of money outside vendors have received for work on the new data system, HHS Protect, that the health department is using to restore public access to coronavirus data. Officials say they have implemented safeguards to prevent tampering, such as keeping a record of all changes that were made.
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| PARTING WORDS |
ADIOS TO OLÉ? In bullfighting, the dying animal is put out of its suffering with a quick dagger blow by the puntillero. Now, after years of decline, the whole industry may be about to receive its own death blow — at the hands of the coronavirus.
The pandemic struck Spain in March, just as the bullfighting season was about to get underway. A strict lockdown was introduced for the next three months, meaning the cancellation of all events, including major ones such as Seville’s Feria de Abril and San Isidro in Madrid. Although in recent weeks the country has returned to a normality of sorts, with businesses, theaters and cinemas reopening and top-tier football resuming, bullfighting is still in limbo.
“This is a disaster of unprecedented dimensions, we’ve not seen a situation like this one in the history of bullfighting,” said Antonio Lorca, who covers the sport for El País newspaper. “There’s even a risk it will disappear altogether.” Technically, bullfights are now allowed again, although regional governments must impose safety restrictions, such as limiting the number of people allowed to attend and ensuring there is social distancing between them. This and the uncertainty that reigned throughout the spring has meant that the vast majority of the summer’s events have been canceled.
A message from Emergent BioSolutions:
We go after public health threats. In the fight against COVID-19, we are going full speed to develop potential new therapies and vaccine candidates.
We go for critical innovations. We are developing two potential hyperimmune treatments for severe hospitalized COVID-19 patients and individuals at risk. Based on proven technology, the research and testing are underway.
We go in partnership with others. We are working with industry innovators to bring COVID-19 vaccine candidates to market. We have the capacity to manufacture vaccines in the tens to hundreds of millions, and we are propelling development forward.
We go. And go. From fighting anthrax to helping prevent smallpox and developing vaccine candidates, we go all in. Because public health threats will never stop. And neither will we.
See how we go all in.
We go for critical innovations. We are developing two potential hyperimmune treatments for severe hospitalized COVID-19 patients and individuals at risk. Based on proven technology, the research and testing are underway.
We go in partnership with others. We are working with industry innovators to bring COVID-19 vaccine candidates to market. We have the capacity to manufacture vaccines in the tens to hundreds of millions, and we are propelling development forward.
We go. And go. From fighting anthrax to helping prevent smallpox and developing vaccine candidates, we go all in. Because public health threats will never stop. And neither will we.
See how we go all in.
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