South Africa will give the unapproved Johnson & Johnson vaccine to its front-line health workers beginning next week as a study to see what protection it provides from COVID-19, particularly against the variant dominant there, the health minister said Wednesday.
Zweli Mkhize said South Africa has scrapped plans to use the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine because it “does not prevent mild to moderate disease” of the variant.
The one-shot J&J vaccine is still being tested internationally and has not been approved in any country. https://apnews.com/article/world-news-coronavirus-pandemic-africa-south-africa-coronavirus-vaccine-3f54526ca5bfca84eadfaeaea5ade5d5

Back in the spring of last year, a 45-year-old man went to the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston because of a coronavirus infection. Doctors treated him with steroids and discharged him five days later.
But the infection never went away — for 154 days.
"So this is an extraordinary individual," infectious disease doctor Jonathan Li says.
So extraordinary in fact that this man's case is offering scientists surprising clues about where the new coronavirus variants emerged and why they're causing explosive outbreaks on three continents. https://mexurl.com/iU7Rwa

Promising early results from several studies have encouraged researchers around the world to develop and expand canine programs that may screen people for COVID-19 infection at places like airports, hospitals, or sports venues. While these early experiments appear to demonstrate high levels of accuracy by the sniffer dogs, researchers also caution that peer-review processes and larger-scale studies are still needed. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2021/01/dogs-trained-sniff-out-covid-19/617846/

People who are fully vaccinated no longer need to quarantine after exposure to someone infected with the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday.
The CDC's definition of "fully vaccinated" is narrow in scope. The agency urges caution regardless of vaccination status, especially as new variants continue to spread. https://a1le.xyz/ooxAb9

Larry Flynt, founder of Hustler magazine and self-proclaimed "smut peddler who cares", has died aged 78.
Flynt died at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, his brother Jimmy Flynt confirmed to Washington Post.
His career spanned more than five decades, with Hustler's launch in 1974 propelling him to fame.
However it also attracted controversy, and was the subject of repeated law suits - as well as making Flynt the subject of an assassination attempt. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56019589

Germany's Merkel warns Coronavirus variants could 'destroy' gains against pandemic. Merkel told lawmakers that the agreement between the federal government and state leaders to extend a nationwide lockdown until March 7, with an option to gradually reopen schools, day care centers and hairdressers earlier, was a prudent measure. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/02/11/966823691/germanys-merkel-warns-coronavirus-variants-could-destroy-gains-against-pandemic

What appear to be rivers of gold running through the Amazon rainforest in Madre de Dios state in eastern Peru are in fact prospecting pits, likely left by independent miners, according to NASA's Earth Observatory, which published the photo taken by one of its astronauts. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/11/americas/rivers-gold-peru-amazon-scli-intl-scn/index.html

After officials previously signaled that a foreign trip may not be possible during 2021, UK transport minister, Grant Shapps, says that even a break on home soil may now be out of the question. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/uk-vacations-canceled-2021/index.html

Fact check: Are COVID-19 vaccines causing deaths? Online claims of coronavirus vaccines being lethal are rife following a string of deaths in care homes that vaccinated residents. DW looks into cases around the world and what was behind them. https://p.dw.com/p/3otUw

Nikki Haley’s Time for Choosing - The 2024 hopeful can’t decide who she wants to be—the leader of a post-Trump GOP or a “friend” to the president who tried to sabotage democracy. https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/magazine-nikki-haleys-choice/

The European Union’s drugs regulator started an early review of CureVac NV’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine, potentially accelerating its path to the market as countries around the world push for more supplies. https://a1le.xyz/n5jod2

Germany, fearing new coronavirus variants, imposes border checks with Austria and Czech Republic. Central Europe has become the continent's latest coronavirus hotspot, with Austria struggling to contain an outbreak of the new variant first identified in South Africa and neighboring Czech Republic facing hospital bed shortages on top of a political crisis over lockdowns. https://a1le.xyz/nmdHbG

The Biden administration is considering whether to impose domestic travel restrictions, including on Florida, fearful that coronavirus mutations are threatening to reverse hard-fought progress on the pandemic. https://a1le.xyz/v9f3Fd

AstraZeneca’s troubles have been criticism from the EU about delivery shortages, its lack of approval yet in the U.S., and a preliminary study that raised questions about the vaccine’s ability to combat a COVID-19 variant discovered in South Africa. In its favor, however, is that it is cheaper and can be stored at refrigerator temperatures — not the far colder temperatures required of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. https://a1le.xyz/feXm9i

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Saturday that the Senate’s acquittal of former President Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection was a reminder that democracy was fragile, and every American had a duty to defend the truth. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-impeachment-biden/biden-reflecting-on-senate-acquittal-of-trump-says-democracy-is-fragile-idUSKBN2AE030

The many reported misdeeds of Donald Trump - Donald Trump has won a second impeachment acquittal, but that doesn't mean the former president's legal troubles are over. Multiple ongoing investigations into his conduct - at both the state and federal levels - could scupper his hopes for a political comeback. https://p.dw.com/p/3pL71

The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday it is “absolutely” too soon to lift mask mandates, citing daily COVID-19 case numbers that despite recent declines remain more than double the levels seen last summer. https://reut.rs/3jNy3Kc

Anatomy of a conspiracy: With COVID, China took leading role. The rumors began almost as soon as the disease itself. Claims that a foreign adversary had unleashed a bioweapon emerged at the fringes of Chinese social media the same day China first reported the outbreak of a mysterious virus. https://bajanews.site/sWDh2T

The superspreaders behind top COVID-19 conspiracy theories. As the coronavirus spread across the globe, so too did speculation about its origins. Perhaps the virus escaped from a lab. Maybe it was engineered as a bioweapon.
Legitimate questions about the virus created perfect conditions for conspiracy theories. In the absence of knowledge, guesswork and propaganda flourished. https://bajanews.site/v6ZBdw

Rush Limbaugh, American hate monger, the talk radio host who ripped into liberals and laid waste to political correctness with a merry brand of malice has died. No person leaning on facts will miss him! https://apnews.com/article/rush-limbaugh-dead-51c40582a3e89930cd2568aba21a9eed