• The US CDC publishes reporting on the incidence of COVID-19 related hospitalization and death across 13 states during two periods: 4 April – 19 June, when the prevalence of the Delta variant was <50%, and 10 June -17 July, when it reached at least 50%. After Delta became predominant, unvaccinated people were five times more likely to become infected, and ten times more likely to be hospitalized with, or die from, COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people. Notably, vaccines were highly effective at preventing COVID-19-related hospitalization and death, but their effectiveness against infection decreased from 90 percent to less than 80 percent. Source
• Sinovac launches a 14,000- person, phase III trial of CoronaVac in people ages six months to 17 years; the study, which began in South Africa, will be conducted in Chile, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines and other countries. Source
• The New York Times reports that US Republican governors are threatening legal action against President Biden’s vaccine mandate, describing it as a big-government attack on states’ rights, private business and personal choice. Source
• Sinovac is reportedly considering a new vaccine production site in South Africa, in partnership with Numolux Group. Hilton Klein, Numolux’s CEO, says the agreement will “ …cover the entire spectrum of vaccinations beyond just the COVID-19 response.” Source
• BioNTech’s co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Ozlem Tureci announced that results from a study of the coronavirus vaccine it co-developed with Pfizer in children ages 5 to 11 will be presented to global regulatory authorities in the coming weeks, and that the company was gearing up to produce the lower dose studied in this age group. Source
• The US CDC issues a report on prevalence and severity of COVID-19-related hospitalizations among children and adolescents ages 0-17 years during the period between 1 March 2020 – 14 August 2021. When the Delta variant became predominant hospitalizations among unvaccinated adolescents (aged 12–17 years) and children ages 0-4 years were 10.1 times higher than those among fully vaccinated adolescents. Source
• Novavax issues a press release to announce that its partner, Takeda, will distribute 150 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine candidate, NVX-CoV2373, in 2022. Source