New Coronavirus News from 10 Nov 2021

Can your child get the flu and COVID-19 vaccines at the same time? Here's what health officials say. [News 12 Bronx, 10 Nov 2021]

Can your child get the flu and COVID-19 vaccines at the same time?

Yes, your child, just like adults, can get the shots in the same visit.

Dr. Sharon Nachman, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and the director of the Office of Clinical Trials at Stony Brook Children's Hospital, suggests that your child receive the shots in different arms.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health experts point to past experience showing that vaccines work as they should and any side effects are similar whether the shots are given separately or in the same visit.

"We have a history of vaccinating our kids with multiple vaccines," says flu specialist Richard Webby of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Staying up to date on all vaccinations will be especially important this year, experts say.

Since people were masked and staying home, last year's flu season barely registered. This year, it's unclear how intense the flu season will be with more places reopening.

"The worry is that if they both circulate at the same time, we're going to have this sort of 'twin-demic,'" Webby says. "The concern with that is that it's going to put extra strain on an already strained health care system."

The CDC recommends an annual flu vaccine for everyone 6 months and older, and says ideally everyone should be vaccinated by the end of October. It takes 10 to 14 days for the flu vaccine to take full effect so if you wait until the flu begins circulating, your body may not have time to build up protection. Vaccine options vary by age but include several types of shots or a nasal spray version.

One caution: COVID-19, colds and flu all share similar symptoms so if you feel ill, the CDC says to postpone a vaccination appointment until you're better to avoid getting others sick.

New Coronavirus News from 9 Nov 2021

[Contribution] How will economy respond to 'Living with COVID-19'? [Korea Times, 9 Nov 2021]

By Lloyd Chan

Despite a surge in Delta-driven COVID-19 cases, Korea's economy continues to recover and should enter 2022 on a firm economic footing. Output returned to pre-coronavirus levels in the first quarter of the year and by the second quarter was 1.4 percent higher. We currently forecast a 4-percent expansion for 2021 to be followed by 3.5-percent growth in 2022. And while peak growth is behind us, the recovery across all major economies will continue to support Korean exports.

But next year we think consumption will be the engine for growth, particularly as coronavirus restrictions are lifted. Indeed, the government is considering how to transition into a new normal of "Living with COVID-19," and the shift to fewer social-distancing measures may come as soon as November, according to reports. While a resurgence of COVID-19 could be a risk, a majority of the population is now fully vaccinated, reducing the chances of serious illness from the virus.

Living with a new normal

The shift to relaxing restrictive measures will catalyse the recovery in domestic consumption.

Once mobility constraints are lifted, we think consumers will refocus their spending on services, with local businesses poised to be the first to gain. Since the start of the year, visible gains have been seen in accommodation and food services, and online sales of travel and transportation services. True, the recovery momentum in retail sales of goods has tapered off somewhat, but this reflects the shift to services as pent-up consumption demand is unleashed.

Recent encouraging trends support our view that consumption will strengthen in 2022. Employment returned to growth in March and continues to rise. And since March, the consumer sentiment survey has also indicated confidence in the domestic economy. Although optimism dipped in July and August amid a resurgence in COVID-19, sentiment improved in September even though restrictions were still in place, suggesting that people are adjusting to a new normal. And if, as is possible, households unwind their large stocks of household savings faster than expected, consumer spending could exceed our forecast.

Risks lurk in background

One potential risk is that the reopening of Korea's economy will trigger a rise in daily COVID-19 cases, a scenario that played out in other highly-vaccinated countries, such as the UK and Israel. But if the experiences of the United Kingdom and Israel are any guide, COVID-19 cases should ebb at some point.

While we think export performance in 2022 will be less impressive than this year as we move past peak growth, our forward-looking indicators of world trade bode well for Korean exports. What's more, the manufacturing purchasing managers' index has remained positive for twelve months, and in September was above 50 (indicating expansion) on the back of output and orders growth.

The recent strength of semiconductor exports, which account for about one-fifth of Korean outbound shipments, and sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment suggest that the electronics sector has potential to grow even more. The persisting global shortage of chips and increased digital transformation across the world will generally be a positive for chip exports.

Central bank will stay the course

Barring a sharp deterioration in health conditions derailing growth as the country pivots to living with COVID-19, the durability of the economic recovery should sway the Bank of Korea (BOK) to stay the course on rate normalization and maintain its focus on curbing the risk of growing financial imbalances.

We estimate that household debt as a share of disposable income will rise to 178 percent in the third quarter, from 175 percent in the second quarter. House price growth has also accelerated, while the consumer price index inflation has surpassed the central bank's 2 percent inflation target. Improving domestic demand and elevated energy prices look set to keep inflation above 2 percent through the first half of 2022.

Given elevated household debt levels, we think policymakers will proceed with rate normalization carefully to avoid causing a disorderly adjustment to the household sector.

Accordingly, we expect one 25 basis point rate hike at the BOK's last monetary meeting of this year on Nov. 25. After that, we believe monetary policy normalization will remain gradual and we maintain our expectation for only one 25 basis point rate hike in 2022 to lift the policy rate back to the pre-pandemic level of 1.25 percent.

Overall, we expect consumption to continue to rotate into services as the country pivots toward living with COVID-19. Consumers are optimistic about domestic growth prospects, and the gains in employment and a faster unwinding of accumulated household savings will support stronger spending.

The writer is an economist at Oxford Economics.

Institut Pasteur Korea CEO Talks COVID-19 Crisis, Drug And Vaccine Development [Scrip, 9 Nov 2021]

by Jung Won Shin

Executive Summary In this video fireside chat from the recent BIO-Europe Digital 2021 conference, the CEO of Institut Pasteur Korea outlines the research institute's role in managing the COVID-19 situation in the country, progress with the COVID-19 pipeline, issues related to the development of drugs and vaccines for the pandemic in South Korea, and her goals for the institute over the next few years.

Since she became CEO of Institut Pasteur Korea (IPK) in January, Youngmee Jee, a world-renowned expert in infectious disease research, has been leading the research institute's efforts help manage the global COVID-19 crisis through the discovery of repositioned therapeutic drug candidates.

In a video fireside chat at EBD Group's recent BIO-Europe Digital Meeting 2021, the CEO talked to Scrip's Seoul-based senior reporter Jung Won Shin about how the COVID-19 programs are progressing, upcoming milestones, the Korean government’s support to the private sector for coronavirus therapeutics and vaccines, and other related issues, along with her goals for IPK in the coming years.

Using its platform screening technology for SARS-CoV-2, IPK has already been able to identify four existing drug candidates with potential – nafamostat, camostat, ciclesonide and niclosamide - that are now undergoing or have partially completed clinical trials in Korea and other countries including Senegal, Mexico, Russia, Australia and India, the CEO said. Jee's hope is for favorable results enabling authorization for COVID-19 patients both locally and globally.

IPK is also working to discover new broad-spectrum antivirals for human coronaviruses by screening a diverse set of libraries, and is is collaborating with major hospitals to analyze immunological profiles of serum samples from vaccinated individuals. “This will provide important clues for characteristics of immunological responses and duration of protection for different vaccines and possibly data needed for booster shots,” Jee said.

Despite the Korean government’s continued support for the development of effective and safe vaccines and therapeutic development by domestic firms, most developers are finding the high cost of Phase III trials a real barrier for further progress. The government therefore needs to consider a further increase in funding for such late-stage studies and also to monitor trials at the national level, at least for the government-funded candidates, she added.

One necessary step would be to form data and safety monitoring boards to enable the sharing of technical findings among experts, Jee suggested.

Looking ahead, the CEO hopes that IPK's research outcomes can ultimately be used for public health, that it will become a prominent global partner for infectious disease research, especially in therapeutics, and that the institute will serve as a research leader and hub for Institut Pasteur's development in the Asia Pacific region.