COVID-19 News: Week Ending Apr. 17, 2021

By the Editors

Here's some of the top COVID-19 news from the week.

The CDC and FDA recommended pausing use of Johnson & Johnson's adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccine after reports emerged of rare but serious venous thrombotic events — in particular, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis with thrombocytopenia. Similar events have occurred after receipt of AstraZeneca's adenovirus-vectored vaccine in Europe. U.S. officials are working to gather more data on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and plan to meet in roughly a week to reassess the risk.

In terms of treatment, the National Institutes of Health now recommends the monoclonal antibody combination casirivimab-imdevimab to treat mild-to-moderate illness in outpatients at increased risk for disease progression. Separately, a phase 3 trial showed that the antibody combination helped prevent symptomatic COVID-19 in household contacts of infected patients.

Elsewhere, two reports from the U.K. suggest that the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 might not cause more severe disease after all.

Catch up on these and all of our COVID-19 stories from the past week at the links below.