Month: February 2021

Johnson & Johnson expects to fall far short of its commitment to deliver 10 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine by the end of February, with under 4 million to be ready to ship after a hoped-for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.  The disclosure of the shortfall by Johnson & Johnson is the first public measure of exactly how far the drug company has fallen behind its production goals. Johnson & Johnson promised to deliver another 25 million by the end of March. "We will have 20 million doses of the vaccine to be made available by the end of March and we're prepared to ship, immediately upon emergency use authorization, nearly 4 million doses of our vaccine," Dr. Richard Nettles, Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen's vice president ...

Early risers -- people who have a morning chronotype -- tend to work better early in the morning, while evening types are the reverse. This inner clock is thought to be largely genetic, but work schedules, family life and exposure to daylight also play a role. Chronotype is your time-of-day preference for sleep and other activities, and reflects differences in an individual's underlying circadian rhythm. This internal process plays a role in sleep patterns, metabolism and body temperature and influences hormones. The researchers asked 5,881 individuals born in 1966 in northern Finland about their working life and health and questioned them about their sleep patterns to determine what their natural chronotype was in 2012 when they were 46 years old. The study participants were monitor...

A new Israeli study released Tuesday indicates that 95 percent of recovered COVID-19 patients do not suffer any irreversible respiratory or cardiac damage, helping to answer one of the key questions about the disease that has infected more than 100 million people worldwide. The study of 166 recovered COVID-19 patients, conducted by Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, found that 94 percent still reported symptoms three months on, notably shortness of breath, though most symptoms disappeared within six months. “We can cautiously report that based on our study, the majority of symptoms passed within a period of three to six months,” said Professor Gabriel Izbicki, director of the Pulmonary Institute at Shaare Zedek. Get The Times of...

There’s no denying that getting your hands on a COVID vaccine isn't always easy, with appointments being snapped up in mere seconds after they become available. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants you to know that there's one thing that shouldn't stop you from getting your vaccine: money. If someone asks you to pay for your vaccine upfront, something's amiss. "If anyone asks you to pay for access to vaccine, you can bet it’s a scam," the CDC says on its website. Read on to find out more, and for another vaccine update, check out The CDC Says Don't Do This With the Second Dose of Your COVID Vaccine. During a Feb. 22 partner call with the CDC, Clifford McDonald, MD, of the CDC COVID-19 ...

1,114 new COVID-19 cases, 30 additional deaths reported in Massachusetts Number of estimated active cases drops below 35,000 Updated: 5:05 PM EST Feb 23, 2021 The Massachusetts Department of Public Health reported an additional 1,114 confirmed COVID-19 cases Tuesday, bringing the statewide total to 541,098 since the start of the pandemic.State health officials also added 30 confirmed COVID-19-related deaths to the state's total, which is now 15,564. As of Tuesday, a total of 1,729,550 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to the state, of which 1,476,276 -- or 85.4% -- have been administered. So far, 414,941 people have received both doses...