We're Not Hunting Hard Enough For Variants

Prognosis: Misconception

Bloomberg

Health & Fitness, Science

4.1 • 838 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The U.S. is struggling to monitor Covid-19 variants, a key part of watching for the emergence of dangerous mutations that might spread quickly, evade vaccines or kill more infected people. The country ranks 32nd in the world for the number of tests it’s done to detect mutations per 1,000 Covid cases. Kristen V. Brown reports that other countries, like the U.K., have established robust, nationwide surveillance programs to identify new Covid genomes and track the spread of existing ones.

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0:00.0	What could you do if your data was working for you and not against you? With Bloomberg delivering
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0:24.0	Our data is made for more, so you can show the world what you're made of. Visit Bloomberg.com slash enterprise data to learn more.
0:32.6	Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day 319 since coronavirus was declared a global
0:41.0	pandemic. Today's main story, despite plenty of resources, the U.S. is way behind the UK
0:49.3	and other countries when it comes to identifying dangerous new variants of the coronavirus.
0:57.1	And that has serious implications for fighting the pandemic.
1:03.3	But first, here's what happened in virus news today.
1:17.0	Thank you. News today. Sanofi made an unusual deal to produce millions of doses of the Pfizer and Bio-NTech coronavirus vaccine.
1:25.8	The French drug maker said in a statement today, it will give Bio-Ntech access to a production
1:31.3	facility in Frankfurt, which will start to deliver doses this summer.
1:36.4	The deal will produce more than 125 million doses for the European Union.
1:43.7	Sanofi's own effort to develop a COVID vaccine has stumbled.
1:48.3	The deal with Bio-Ntech allows Europe to make up for some of the loss.
1:53.3	The pact also raised hopes that more pharma giants would throw their manufacturing and
1:58.9	distribution weight behind the few coronavirus shots that have proved effective.
2:05.1	A standoff between the EU and drug maker AstraZeneca over vaccine delivery delays turned from bitter to chaotic on Wednesday.
2:15.8	With the two sides disagreeing over whether a call to discuss drug delivery would take place.
2:22.8	Later, both confirmed that talks will, in fact, resume as planned.
2:28.5	It was just the latest in a series of clashes between the EU and the drug maker.
2:34.8	Finally, the Biden administration said it intends to increase orders for the two approved
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