Health News Roundup: California set to top New York as state with most COVID deaths; U.S. to start sending COVID-19 vaccines directly to community health centers and more

WHO welcomes U.S. move to join effort to boost COVID vaccines, testing, treatments The World Health Organization's head on Tuesday welcomed the United States' move to join a WHO-backed programme to accelerate tools to fight COVID-19, as U.S. President Joseph Biden reverses the Trump Administration's course.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

J&J applies for COVID-19 vaccine emergency authorisation from South Africa

South Africa's joint lead investigator for the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine trial said on Tuesday that a government regulator was processing an application for the vaccine to be granted emergency use authorisation. Addressing a webinar on vaccines, the official, Glenda Gray, said discussions were underway with regulatory authorities to roll out the single-dose vaccine to health workers, after the government on Sunday halted distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine over efficacy concerns.

Two new variants of coronavirus found in England under investigation

Two new COVID-19 variants, one of which has been classified as a "concern", have been identified in England with some similarities to the South African and Brazilian variants, a government advisory scientific committee said on Tuesday. One of the new variants, first identified in Bristol, has been designated a "Variant of Concern", by the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group.

French new COVID-19 cases steady on average and hospitalisations down

France reported 18,870 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, up from Monday's 4,317 figure but down versus last Tuesday's total of 23,337 as the case count trend remained steady and hospital numbers went down again after a two-day increase. The seven-day moving average of new infections, which evens out daily reporting irregularities, stands at 19,348, staying in the 19,200-20,700 range it has been in since Jan 20.

WHO welcomes U.S. move to join effort to boost COVID vaccines, testing, treatments

The World Health Organization's head on Tuesday welcomed the United States' move to join a WHO-backed programme to accelerate tools to fight COVID-19, as U.S. President Joseph Biden reverses the Trump Administration's course. The programme, formally called Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, is raising money to develop vaccines, diagnostics and treatments to tackle the pandemic, but still faces a roughly $27 billion funding gap, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Does the world need new COVID vaccines? 'Jury is out', Oxford's Pollard says

It is not yet clear whether the world needs a new set of vaccines to fight different variants of the novel coronavirus but scientists are working on new ones so there is no reason for alarm, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group said on Tuesday. South Africa has paused a planned rollout of AstraZeneca's vaccines after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild infection among young people from the dominant variant there, stoking fears of a much longer battle with the pathogen.

U.S. to start sending COVID-19 vaccines directly to community health centers

The U.S. government will begin shipping COVID-19 vaccines directly to community health centers next week in an effort to speed vaccinations and ensure doses are reaching vulnerable people, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday. The government will send doses to 250 centers nationwide selected based on their proximity to vulnerable groups, such as homeless people and those with limited proficiency in English, they said. Typically, vaccine doses would go to state governments for distribution to health centers.

J&J CEO says people may need annual COVID-19 vaccine shots for next several years - CNBC

Johnson & Johnson Chief Executive Officer Alex Gorsky told CNBC on Tuesday that people may need to get vaccinated against COVID-19 annually over the next several years, like seasonal flu shots. "Unfortunately, as (the virus) spreads it can also mutate," he said in an interview https://cnb.cx/3p3KouT.

COVID may have taken 'convoluted path' to Wuhan, WHO team leader says

The head of a World Health Organization-led team probing the origins of COVID-19 said bats remain a likely source and that transmission of the virus via frozen food is a possibility that warrants further investigation, but he ruled out a lab leak. Peter Ben Embarek, who led the team of independent experts in its nearly month-long visit to the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak first emerged at a seafood market in late 2019, said the team's work had uncovered new information but had not dramatically changed their picture of the outbreak.

California set to top New York as state with most COVID deaths

California was set to surpass New York as the U.S. state with the most coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, a grim reminder of the pandemic's toll even as the vaccine rollout and a dramatic drop in new cases offer hope that life will eventually return to normal. Fatalities from COVID-19 reached 44,495 on Tuesday in California, the most populous U.S. state. In New York, which was particularly hard hit in the pandemic's early days, the total death toll stood at 44,693 on Tuesday.

Common asthma drug cuts COVID-19 hospitalization risk, recovery time - Oxford study

A commonly used asthma treatment appears to reduce the need for hospitalizations as well as recovery time for COVID-19 patients if given within seven days of symptoms appearing, researchers at the University of Oxford said on Tuesday. The findings were made following a mid-stage study of the steroid budesonide, sold as Pulmicort by AstraZeneca Plc and also used for treating smoker's lung.