Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Miss Manners: Longtime friends lose minds over canceled dinner plans

Carolyn Hax: After holiday meals, guests rush the kitchen to claim the leftovers

Ask Amy: Retired couple misses social activities since the pandemic

Elections 2024 live updates: Biden continues outreach to Black voters; Trump heading to Minnesota

At campus protests, ‘DO NOT TALK TO THE MEDIA’!

CNN gets a presidential debate — and a much-needed win

Tariffs against China hamstring the transition to a clean energy future

The Post’s choices in Northern Virginia’s U.S. House primaries

States see legalized sports betting as a tax windfall — but at what cost?

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Man, 91, shocks tiny firehouse with $500K gift: ‘Nobody knew how much I’d saved’

Retired cop meets abandoned baby he helped 23 years ago: ‘What are the odds?’

Why this company’s biggest fans turned against it

These ISIS news anchors are AI fakes. Their propaganda is real.

Even remote and hybrid work can burn you out. Here’s how to avoid it.

In photos: The scene in Houston after severe storms killed at least 4 people

Rep. AOC's 'people-first' approach

Rep. Delia Ramirez on organizing power and money

Look to the cloud to protect the life documents saved on your computer

Can you spot bad financial advice on TikTok? Take our quiz.

5 myths about Social Security as the program faces a funding crisis

No one is rocking in the ‘free world’

Kenyan president aims to attract green investment during U.S. visit

On Gaza, Biden is right and Netanyahu is wrong

Bryce Harper, Joey Gallo and a bond forged by baseball since they were kids

Walter Johnson’s jersey from 1920 showdown with Babe Ruth is up for auction

A taco will always be a taco — no matter what we call it

The world’s coolest hotels want to tell you a story

6 Airbnb red flags to spot before you make a booking mistake

Some cruise prices are about to get a little more clear

Did Trump’s lawyers catch Michael Cohen in a ‘lie’? Let’s take a look.

Now playing off-Broadway: Trump’s synchronized sycophants

Trump’s courtroom enablers

Trump

Health

Well+Being

Opinions

Higher Education

Education

https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/

Coronavirus pandemic

Healthy living, including food, fitness, longevity and mental health

See more coverage in your recommendations

See alerts for Health and Wellness developments

Health & wellness

Tips on living better delivered every Thursday

Well+Being newsletter

Health alerts

Health & Science alerts

Yves Herman

A closely watched <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> vaccine invented by the German company CureVac was just 47 percent effective in a large trial at its interim analysis, a disappointing result that may highlight the challenge posed by virus variants.

The results of the 40,000-person trial, announced in a news release Wednesday, mark a setback for a promising vaccine based on messenger RNA technology, the same approach at the core of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines authorized late last year for use in the United States.

The trial in 10 countries in Latin America and Europe will continue, and a final result is expected in a few weeks. The CureVac vaccine is of key importance to <a href="https://www.curevac.com/en/2020/11/16/european-commission-announces-that-tomorrow-it-will-authorize-the-agreement-with-curevac-for-the-supply-of-up-to-405-million-doses-of-mrna-based-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-cvncov/#:~:text=November%2016%2C%202020-,European%20Commission%20Announces%20That%20Tomorrow%20It%20Will%20Authorize%20the%20Agreement,COVID%2D19%20Vaccine%20Candidate%2C%20CVnCoV" target=_blank>Europe</a>, which has preordered 225 million doses, with the option to buy 180 million more.

“While we were hoping for a stronger interim outcome, we recognize that demonstrating high efficacy in this unprecedented broad diversity of variants is challenging,” Franz-Werner Haas, CureVac’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Only minimal information was given about the trial results, with details expected in the final analysis and a company call planned Thursday. But the information known so far underscores the complexity of the changing pandemic. Thirteen variants caused cases of covid-19 in the trial, with only a single case caused by the original SARS-CoV-2 virus. More than half of the cases were infections with variants of concern.

“They’re testing their vaccine much later than all the other vaccines we have were tested, and there are a lot more variants out there that could confound the ability of a vaccine to protect,” said Deborah Fuller, a vaccine scientist at the University of Washington.

With other vaccines, it has become clear that while shots continue to protect against the worst outcomes from variants, immunity can wane against milder infections. That could be true for CureVac, but it would be necessary to see the breakdown of cases and their severity, data not yet available.

“It’s up in the air,” Fuller said. “I would not at this point say this is a failed vaccine, but people are going to make those comparisons.”

It remained unclear Wednesday whether the variants accounted for the results not meeting expectations. Results released earlier this week from a trial of the experimental vaccine made by Novavax found that vaccine was highly effective — even when variants were flourishing.

In the Novavax trial, tests run to determine the genetic fingerprint of infections showed that most were caused by the alpha variant first identified in the United Kingdom, which spreads more readily but has not posed much of a challenge to other vaccines. A full breakdown of which variants were found in the CureVac trial will not be available until the final analysis, but a portion were caused by variants that are still being studied. A fifth of the cases, for example, were caused by the lambda variant first identified in Peru.

The company also indicated that the vaccine performed differently by age group, warning that the data did not support conclusions on whether it worked in people older than 60.

The CureVac vaccine uses messenger RNA technology found in other highly successful vaccines, but has some key differences. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines use a chemically modified version of messenger RNA, but CureVac does not. It also is stable at refrigerator temperatures and can be more easily shipped and stored.

Emerging data from real-world use of other vaccines suggests that even when they are challenged by some variants, they remain strongly protective against the most important outcomes of hospitalization or death.

Data from the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Qatar found that vaccine was 90 percent effective at preventing people from getting sick overall, but that the protection fell to about 75 percent against the beta variant first identified in South Africa. Protection against hospitalizations remained high, even against that variant.

A recent study by public health officials in the United Kingdom found that the <a href="https://khub.net/web/phe-national/public-library/-/document_library/v2WsRK3ZlEig/view_file/479607329?_com_liferay_document_library_web_portlet_DLPortlet_INSTANCE_v2WsRK3ZlEig_redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fkhub.net%3A443%2Fweb%2Fphe-national%2Fpublic-library%2F-%2Fdocument_library%2Fv2WsRK3ZlEig%2Fview%2F479607266" target=_blank>Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca</a> vaccines were both more than 90 percent effective in preventing hospitalization against the delta variant, which emerged in India, but were less effective at blocking any case of illness with symptoms.

One of the benefits of the messenger RNA vaccines, which are getting their first large-scale use during the pandemic, is that they can be rebooted quickly to match a new strain of the virus if needed. The emergence and increasing dominance in the last six months of variants have shown that such flexibility may be necessary to end the pandemic.

CureVac, like other vaccine makers, is already reformulating second-generation vaccines in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline, with the goal of making a vaccine that protects against multiple variants available by next year.

If the CureVac vaccine is ultimately shown to be successful enough to be authorized, it could run directly into the next challenge: manufacturing.

CureVac, a company founded more than two decades ago, has been racing to scale up production of its first medical product at a time that supply chains for workhorse laboratory ingredients, such as large plastic bags used to line bioreactors, are strained by unprecedented global demand and competition.

The German firm has partnerships with the big pharmaceutical companies <a href="https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis-signs-initial-agreement-curevac-manufacture-covid-19-vaccine-candidate">Novartis</a> and <a href="https://media.bayer.com/baynews/baynews.nsf/id/Bayer-to-manufacture-mRNA-vaccine-in-Germany">Bayer</a> to help make its vaccine. The rapid scale-up of manufacturing to meet the demands of the pandemic has been a challenge, even for veteran pharmaceutical companies.

CureVac has said it plans to manufacture 300 million doses this year, although final testing and quality checks could delay release of some of those doses until 2022, Haas, the CEO, said in an interview before the release of the data. The company has said it plans to manufacture more than 1 billion doses next year.

Finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting, as part of a team

Amherst College, BA in Physics and English

MIT, MS in Science Writing

Carolyn Johnson is a science reporter. She previously covered the business of health and the affordability of health care to consumers. 

Carolyn Y. Johnson

washpost

CureVac coronavirus vaccine proved just 47 percent effective amid spread of variants, preliminary analysis shows

the-washington-post

Reuters

FILE PHOTO: Woman walks past a board in a testing center for the CureVac vaccine during a study in Brussels

U.S. cases and deaths by state

World map

New CDC guidance

When am I still contagious?

The people who never get covid

Coronavirus

prism://prism.query/site,/health&limit=20

The Washington Post health section provides coverage and analysis of health, healthcare, nutrition and fitness news.

prism://prism.query/tag,magnet-coronavirus&limit=20

News and updates about the coronavirus pandemic: Cases in the US, death toll, what you need to know about the virus, how to prepare, how to get tested.