Covid-19 Pandemic
 Here’s the latest news on the global pandemic. EU clinches massive pandemic stimulus deal Trump reverses course on masks after allies splitRussian military touts its Covid vaccine The vaccine Rorschach blot Stocks of vaccine makers are on a wild ride. Trying to predict where they will end up could be hazardous to your financial health. On Monday, the Lancet published early human data showing a vaccine from the University of Oxford and U.K. pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca could spur a multi-pronged immune response to the coronavirus.AstraZeneca shares, at one point up more than 10% in London on excitement over the pending results, faded to close up just 1.45%. Later, the company’s New York-traded shares declined 4% as analysts questioned how the vaccine would stack up. Moderna, whose phase 1 Covid-19 vaccine results were published last week, has been on a similar ride. Its shares soared more than 50% last week, then fell 12.8% Monday on an analyst downgrade. Both the vaccines are showing promise, as is another from Pfizer and BioNTech. But that’s really all you can say right now. In the meantime, any dribble of data has become a Rorschach blot for analysts trying to sort out how the various vaccines will stack up in the long run.  The Jenner Institute, the home of a University of Oxford human trial into a coronavirus vaccine. Photographer: David Levenson/Bloomberg It’s important to remember just how preliminary the results are. The trials everyone is talking about are initial studies in which the primary goals include making sure the vaccines are safe enough to proceed to further testing. During these early trials, researchers have also examined the blood of healthy people who have gotten the shots, and shown the vaccines can elicit antibodies to the coronavirus as well as T-cells. That’s good news as far as it goes. It’s hard to imagine that a vaccine would could work if it didn’t induce an immune response to the coronavirus.But these fancy blood tests can’t tell us how effective the vaccines will be in the end. Because the coronavirus is new, researchers simply don’t know what type and size of immune response is needed to protect people from it. Only large trials in many thousands of healthy volunteers, underway already for the AstraZeneca vaccine and expected to ramp up shortly for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, can prove whether they actually prevent the disease in large numbers of people. “We don’t know what we’re aiming at. We don’t know how strong the immune response needs to be to protect people,” Sarah Gilbert, a vaccinologist who leads the work at Oxford, said in a briefing for reporters. Another unknown is ultimate safety. While no obvious safety problems that would preclude larger-scale testing have emerged, the trial data so far is mostly from healthier people age 55 and under. If rare but serious side effects turn up as testing expands to the elderly or people with pre-existing conditions, this could severely limit their usefulness. All of this means it will be many months more before the world has a good sense of how well these vaccines work and how safe they truly are. Even if vaccines are judged effective in their first big trials, it will take months to get a sense of another crucial parameter: how long the protection lasts. “This is the start of the road,” says Paul Duprex, director for the center for vaccine research at the University of Pittsburgh. Until full results are in and the inoculations are approved by regulators, all the experimental shots should be thought of as mere candidate vaccines. “It is really not a vaccine until it is a product.”—Robert Langreth Latest podcasts The Latin American Country Beating Covid-19 Uruguay may be best known for beaches and beef. But the country has seen just 1,000 or so cases since the pandemic began, and only 33 deaths. may have as much to do with its policies from years past, as its present day virus response. Ken Parks reports the reasons why. Introducing: Blood River The killers of Berta Caceres had every reason to believe they’d get away with murder. More than 100 other environmental activists in Honduras had been killed in the previous five years, yet almost no one had been punished for the crimes. Bloomberg’s Blood River follows a four-year quest to find her killers – a twisting trail that leads into the country’s circles of power. Preview our latest podcast here, before the July 27 premier.  Sponsored Content by Siemens America’s factories, power plants, transportation and hospitals all need technology and our technology is only as powerful as the people deploying and maintaining it. Keeping America moving takes more than technology alone. It takes a human touch. Siemens Ingenuity for life. What you should read Two-Dose Vaccines Raise Pandemic Challenge Twice the jabs complicates a needed worldwide immunization effort. Hong Kong Braces for Worst of Coronavirus The city’s testing capacity and hospital beds are both reaching limits. The Inside Story of the EU Stimulus Merkel, Macron at heart of negotiations on plan they devised. Pandemic Democracy is Home-Delivered Housing campaign redefined what it means to pound the pavement. Economists Say $1 Trillion U.S. Stimulus Needed Nation in danger of careening off a fiscal cliff without a rescue package. Know someone else who would like this newsletter? Have them sign up here. Have any questions, concerns, or news tips on Covid-19 news? Get in touch or help us cover the story. Like this newsletter? Subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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