The global case tally for the coronavirus-borne illness COVID-19 was headed toward 102 million on Friday, as health experts were digesting the latest vaccine updates from Novavax Inc. and Johnson & Johnson amid hopes they will soon win emergency authorization and bolster supplies.
It was a similar story from J&J JNJ, -3.56% when it released early data from a Phase 3 trial of its COVID vaccine candidate early Friday, saying it appears 66% effective in preventing moderate -to-severe disease 28 days after vaccination, but less effective — just 57% — in dealing with the South Africa strain.
“Reported deaths rose 7 percent this week, with states reporting a total of 22,797 lives lost to COVID-19,” the COVID Tracking Project wrote in its weekly blog. “Deaths lag behind cases—both because it takes time to die of the virus and because the reporting process for deaths is very slow. Even with cases falling across the US, we may have another week or more of very high death numbers to come.”
• Separately, Europe stepped up its fight to secure COVID-19 vaccines on Friday, after Brussels warned that it would use all legal means to block exports of shots if it doesn’t receive the vaccine doses promised by drug companies such as AstraZeneca AZN, -2.77% AZN, -2.07% and Pfizer, MarketWatch’s Lina Saigol reported.
Latest tallies The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide climbed above 101.6 million on Friday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, and the death toll rose to 2.19 million. About 56 million people have recovered from COVID-19.
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