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Covid News Watch
College to Charge Unvaccinated Students $1,500 ‘Health & Safety’ Fee + More
College to Charge Unvaccinated Students $1,500 ‘Health & Safety’ Fee
Starting Fall 2021 , Rhodes College will charge unvaccinated students $1,500 per semester to “cover the costs of mandatory testing.”
The school, located in Memphis, Tennessee, announced the policy in a June 8 letter.
Rhodes College will require the COVID-19 vaccine for all students, staff, and faculty on campus after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) formally approves the vaccines. As of this writing, the school strongly encourages vaccination.
Stronger Evidence Shows mRNA Vaccines Could Cause Heart Inflammation
One doctor said heart inflammation can be caused by certain vaccines — the smallpox vaccine was known to cause it. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating whether the mRNA COVID-19 shots do as well.
“They haven’t definitively made a causal link. What they’ve seen now is an association that seems to be getting a little bit stronger evidence,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Stronger evidence that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, could be causing myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle or pericarditis, inflammation of the lining of the heart, especially in males aged 16-24.
Regeneron Antibody Saves Lives in Some Hospitalized COVID Patients, Study Finds
A monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19 developed by Regeneron saved lives among hospitalized patients who had not mounted their own immune response, a finding that could dramatically change the way that doctors will use the therapy, researchers in the United Kingdom announced Wednesday.
The new data mark the first time that a medicine that works by fighting the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been shown to reduce mortality. Other treatments, such as the steroid dexamethasone, have been shown to save lives by tamping down the immune system’s overactive response to the virus.
5th Exec Joins Moderna Billionaire Club as Stock Price Soars — Despite Growing Number of Injury Reports
For the fifth time since the onset of the COVID pandemic in early 2020, the skyrocketing price of Moderna stock has produced a billionaire.
Moderna President Dr. Stephen Hoge is the company’s latest shareholder and executive to join the “three-comma-club” — with an estimated $1.1 billion fortune.
Other club members are CEO Stéphane Bancel, chairman and cofounder of Noubar Afeyan, founding investor Timothy Springer and cofounder Robert Langer, Forbes reported.
Hoge, 45, joined Moderna in 2012 and owns 0.4% of Moderna stock — worth $365 million — in addition to about $685 million in options. Like the other Moderna shareholders, Hoge frequently sells stock — including $65.5 million worth (pre-tax) between March 2020 and April 2021.
Hoge is one of more than 40 new billionaires who made 10-figure fortunes with companies involved in the “battle against COVID.”
Physician: ‘Fanaticism’ — Not Science — Governs CDC’s Aggressive Push to Vaccinate Even Those With Natural Immunity
Although accurate numbers are difficult to come by, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conservatively estimates more than a third of Americans (at least 114.6 million) have been infected with SARS-CoV-2. There is ample reason to believe that in most of these individuals, SARS-CoV-2 infection “induces long-term immunity.”
For example, a December 2020 study by Singapore researchers found neutralizing antibodies (one prong of the immune response) remained present in high concentrations for 17 years or more in individuals who recovered from the original SARS-CoV.
More recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published evidence of durable immune responses to natural infection with SARS-CoV-2.
‘This Week’ With Mary + Polly: Why Benefits of COVID Vaccine for Kids ‘Don’t Outweigh Risks’ + More
This week, Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) president, and Polly Tommey, co-producer of “Vaxxed,” cover the latest COVID headlines including Moderna’s plan to make its COVID vaccine available to children as young as 5 by fall, Pfizer testing its vaccine on kids ages 5 through 11 and an expert who told the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for kids, the benefits of the COVID vaccine “don’t outweigh risks.”
Mary and Polly also discuss an admission by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that teens vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna vaccines have a higher risk of heart inflammation. They also covered the story of a 21-year-old New Jersey student who developed myocarditis after the Moderna shot, and the CDC’s calling of an emergency meeting on rising cases of heart inflammation in people under 30 who got the COVID vaccine.
Vaccine Advisers Not Planning to Back COVID Jabs for Children, Says UK Minister
Vaccination experts are not planning to recommend COVID-19 jabs for children, a cabinet minister has said, while prominent academics have suggested that existing doses should be used to immunise vulnerable people around the world before those in the UK who are relatively safe.
Speaking for the government on Wednesday, Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, said she understood that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) would not recommend the vaccination of under-18s.
Pediatricians Work to Close Gaps in COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage by Vaccinating Adults
When the Biden administration kicked off a “month of action” this June, aimed at vaccinating 70% of the adult population with at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose by July 4, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy acknowledged it wouldn’t be an easy task.
“Because we had so much success early on, we are now getting to the part of the campaign which is tougher,” Murthy said. “We’ve got to look further, if you will — convince more people, get to the right information, increase access even further.”
Army Soldier Dies 6 Days After Receiving Pfizer Vaccine
An Army soldier in his 20s has died six days after receiving his first dose of Pfizer‘s coronavirus vaccine, officials said Monday.
The soldier, based in Seoul, was found unconscious in his barracks the previous day and transferred to a nearby hospital but died.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the death was directly related to the vaccine.
An autopsy is planned to look into the exact cause of the death, officials said.
It is the second death of a service member following COVID-19 vaccination.
FDA Authorizes Another Batch of J&J Vaccine
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized another batch of Johnson & Johnson‘s (J&J) coronavirus vaccine manufactured at a troubled Baltimore facility.
The agency said in a short statement on Tuesday that it authorized an additional batch from the Emergent BioSolutions facility, bringing the total number of authorized batches to three.
When Will You Need a COVID Booster Shot? Pfizer Monitors Breakthrough Infections as Experts Say More Data is Needed
We will be looking at real world data to help us understand when we might see a change in vaccine effectiveness,” said David Swerdlow, Pfizer’s clinical epidemiology lead for vaccines, at the Precision Medicine World Conference, Bloomberg Law reported.
Swerdlow said examples of fully immunized people contracting COVID-19—known as breakthrough infections—and other immunological and clinical data would be monitored “closely” for signs indicating “when a booster might be needed.”
Experts and pharmaceutical companies producing vaccines all believe it is likely people will need a third booster dose to bolster flagging immunity at some point in the future, though it is not yet clear when this may be.
Watch: Rand Paul Demands Exclusion of Wuhan Lab Funders From Investigations
Senator Rand Paul urged Wednesday that those involved in funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s coronavirus ‘gain of function’ research cannot be allowed to be a part of investigations again.
Defective COVID Shots Given at Times Square Vaccination Site + More
Defective COVID Shots Given at Times Square Vaccination Site
This is not the “experience” New Yorkers want.
The New York City Health Department sent out an emergency notice informing that 899 patients who received the COVID-19 vaccine at the pop-up COVID vaccination site in the former “NFL Experience” building in Times Square had erroneously been injected with expired Pfizer doses.
The operator of the pop-up site is ATC Vaccination Services.
Surging Moderna Stock Mints The Vaccine Maker’s Fifth Billionaire
For the fifth time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the skyrocketing stock price of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based vaccine maker Moderna has produced a billionaire.
After CEO Stéphane Bancel, chairman and cofounder Noubar Afeyan and founding investors Timothy Springer and Robert Langer, Moderna president Stephen Hoge has become the company’s latest shareholder and executive to join the three-comma-club, with an estimated $1.1 billion fortune.
While Moderna shares have dipped this week on the news that a rival COVID-19 vaccine produced by Novavax demonstrated 90% overall efficacy against the virus, including variants, the company’s stock is still up 29% over the past month. That rise has come as the firm applied for emergency authorization from the FDA for use of its COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents and also increased its forecasted production of vaccine in 2021, from 800 million doses to one billion.
G7 Leaders Call for Investigation Into Coronavirus Origins
Group of Seven (G-7) leaders on Sunday called for a renewed, “transparent” investigation into the origins of the coronavirus and pledged to give 1 billion vaccine doses to countries in need as their weekend of meetings in the United Kingdom came to an end.
President Biden joined the leaders of the U.K., Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan and France in signing a joint communique that addressed the group’s commitments on the pandemic, climate change, ransomware and corruption.
The leaders called for a “timely, transparent, expert-led, and science-based [World Health Organization]-convened Phase 2 COVID-19 Origins study including, as recommended by the experts’ report, in China.”
19-Year-Old College Freshman Dies From Heart Problem One Month After Second Dose of Moderna Vaccine
Simone Scott, a 19-year-old freshman at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., died June 11 of complications from a heart transplant she underwent after developing what her doctors believe was myocarditis following her second dose of the Moderna COVID vaccine.
Scott received her second dose of Moderna on May 1, WLWT 5 reported. When the 2020 Mason High School graduate and senior class vice president paid a surprise visit to her parents for Mother’s Day, May 9, her mother said she noticed Scott wasn’t feeling well.
Exclusive: Dad Says Life ‘Not the Same’ for 21-Year-Old Student Who Developed Myocarditis After Second Moderna Shot
A 21-year-old New Jersey student suffered severe heart inflammation after receiving his second dose of Moderna’s COVID vaccine. Justin Harrington, whose school required him to get the vaccine in order to attend classes in the fall, experienced flu-like symptoms followed by heart pain within eight to 12 hours of receiving the vaccine.
In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Justin’s father, Timothy Harrington, said his son felt different after the second shot. “Every time his heart beat it hurt and he felt pressure,” Harrington said. “Then he developed heart pain down both arms.”
COVID Origins Debate Exposes Glaring Lack of Oversight at World’s ‘Biosafety’ Labs
The revived debate over whether COVID-19 could be the result of an accidental release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology may never be adequately resolved. Either way, we risk not seeing the wood for the trees.
While the World Health Organization reported in February such a leak was “extremely unlikely,” it later advised more work was needed to rule it out.
But the real problem is not what might have happened in China — it’s that there is no meaningful international legal oversight in the first place.
Anti-Vax Groups Rack Up Victories Against COVID-19 Push
The partisan divide over the country’s pandemic response has reinvigorated the anti-vaccine movement nationwide, with mostly Republican lawmakers in nearly 40 states backing bills to restrict COVID-19 vaccine mandates or vaccine passports.
Anti-vaccine fervor that was previously concentrated in specific communities — like Orthodox Jews in New Jersey and New York, and Somali immigrants in Minnesota — spread more widely during the pandemic as the U.S. government urged people to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
Italy Halts AstraZeneca Vaccine for Under-60s After Teenager Dies + More
Italy Halts AstraZeneca Vaccine for Under-60s After Teenager Dies
The Italian government said on Friday it was restricting the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to people over the age of 60, after a teenager who had taken the shot died from a blood clot.
Camilla Canepa died on Thursday aged 18 after being given the vaccine on May 25, triggering a storm of controversy in Italy over the Anglo-Swedish brand being given to adults of all ages despite previously-raised medical concerns.
“AstraZeneca will only be used for people over 60,” the country’s special COVID commissioner Francesco Figliuolo told reporters at a news conference.
Novavax Says COVID-19 Vaccine Shows 90.4% Overall Efficacy in U.S./Mexico Phase 3 Trial
The American biotechnology company Novavax announced on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine candidate was found to have an overall efficacy of 90.4% in a Phase 3 trial conducted across the United States and Mexico.
Additional analyses of the trial are ongoing, according to the company, and will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication.
8 Fully Vaccinated Die of COVID in Maine, as States Continue to Report ‘Breakthrough’ Cases
Eight people in Maine have died with COVID after being fully vaccinated, according to the latest numbers from Maine’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which confirmed a total of 457 breakthrough cases in the state.
Initial data suggest breakthrough cases in Maine are more common in older individuals and people with underlying health conditions — the same populations that, among the unvaccinated, are most at risk of hospitalization or death from the virus.
About half of the vaccinated people in Maine who tested positive for COVID had not experienced symptoms when contacted by case investigators, according to the Maine CDC.
Fauci in 2012 Video: Gain-of-Function Experiments ‘a Clear Benefit’ to Society
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — an arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that in recent years has funded gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — has denied that such funding occurred.
Fauci told a House Appropriations subcommittee that $600,000 was given to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which funneled the money to WIV, over a five-year period for the purpose of studying bat coronaviruses and whether they could be transmitted to humans.
However, regarding gain-of-function (GOF) research, which refers to studies that have the potential to enhance the ability of pathogens to cause disease, including enhancing either their pathogenicity or transmissibility, Fauci said, “That categorically was not done.”
Pfizer Begins Low-Dose COVID Vaccine Trials in Young Children
With more than 144 million adults now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Pfizer is moving ahead with low-dose trials in children under 12-years-old and could begin mass vaccinations of kids in the fall. NBC News’ Maura Barrett is in Jefferson, Louisiana, where doctors are testing whether the vaccine is safe for children.
Pfizer Ready to Make COVID Vaccines for New Variants, CEO Says
CBS News via Yahoo!News reported:
Pfizer’s CEO is expressing confidence about the efficacy of his company’s COVID-19 vaccine against the Delta variant, which was first discovered in India and has America’s top scientists sounding the alarm.
“I feel quite comfortable that we cover it,” Pfizer CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla told CBS News’ Jan Crawford. “We will not need a special vaccine for it. The current vaccine should cover it.”
Almost Third of 42 Britons Who Have Died From Delta Variant Had Received Second Vaccine
The Delta variant, also known as the variant first identified in India, is now the dominant COVID variant in the UK. While the COVID vaccine has been shown to be effective against it, new analysis by PHE has revealed 29% of COVID deaths from the strain had received two doses of the jab.
Research Suggests Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Reprograms Innate Immune Responses
Researchers in The Netherlands and Germany have warned that Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine induces complex reprogramming of innate immune responses that should be considered in the development and use of mRNA-based vaccines.
Jorge Domínguez-Andrés and colleagues say that while the vaccine has been shown to be up to 95% effective in preventing infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and subsequent COVID-19, little is known about the broad effects the vaccine may have on the innate and adaptive immune responses.
Can Schools Mandate COVID Vaccines? + More
Can Schools Mandate COVID-19 Vaccines? What We Know
The Wall Street Journal via MSN reported:
Many education officials, public-health officials and parents believe that vaccinating children against COVID-19 will play a key role in resuming normal life in time for in-person learning in the fall. That stance has led some parents to wonder: Will K-12 students be mandated to receive the vaccine to be allowed on campus this fall?
Children as young as 12 years old are now eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE. Moderna Inc. said Thursday it has asked U.S. health regulators to authorize the use of its COVID-19 shot in adolescents ages 12 to 17, setting up the potential availability of a second vaccine option for adolescents.
CDC to Convene Emergency Meeting on 226 Reports of Heart Inflammation After COVID Vaccine in People Under 30
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Thursday it will convene an emergency meeting of its advisers on June 18 to discuss higher-than-expected reports of heart inflammation following doses of Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines, CBS News reported.
According to the CDC, a total of 475 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis were recorded in patients 30 and younger. The CDC identified 226 reports that might meet the agency’s “working case definition” of myocarditis and pericarditis following the shots, the agency disclosed Thursday during an FDA hearing.
The majority of those affected have recovered, but 41 had ongoing symptoms, 15 are still hospitalized and three are in the intensive care unit.
Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office said during Thursday’s meeting there had been a higher-than-expected number of cases of heart inflammation among young people recently vaccinated with their second doses of mRNA vaccine.
As Drug Makers Set Sights on Vaccinating 5-Year-Olds, Latest VAERS Data Show Number of Injuries, Deaths Continues to Climb
This week’s number of reported adverse events among all age groups following COVID vaccines surpassed 329,000, according to data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The data comes directly from reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.
For Kids, Benefits of COVID Vaccine ‘Don’t Outweigh Risks,’ Experts Tell FDA
An advisory committee to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a virtual meeting Thursday to discuss what data would be needed to vaccinate children under 12 against COVID.
While some advisors said it’s too soon to rush the use of vaccines in the pediatric population because kids are at such low risk from the virus, most argued that it’s important to have authorizations on hand should there be a resurgence of the virus in the fall and winter.
The members of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) were not asked to provide specific advice or to vote during the meeting.
Sen. Grassley: ‘We the People Have an Absolute Right to Know Everything the U.S. Government Knows About the Origin of the Virus’
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci on the Senate floor for mishandling taxpayer money used to fund “risky and deadly virus research” at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology as shown in the video below.
Grassley said the focus has rightly shifted to understanding the origins of the virus.
He said:
“We the people have an absolute right to know everything the U.S. government knows about the origin of the virus.”
Biden Administration Tells Federal Agencies They Should Not Require Employees to Be Vaccinated to Work On-Site
The Biden administration has told federal agencies that they generally should not require their employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus to work on-site in federal buildings or to disclose whether they are vaccinated.
Employees who disclose they are unvaccinated or refuse to answer a voluntary question about vaccination status should be subject to safety requirements such as mask-wearing and social distancing, new guidance says.
“The Administration strongly encourages all Americans, including Federal employees and contractors, to be vaccinated,” says a Tuesday posting by an interagency task force overseeing pandemic-related policies for the federal workplace. However, “at present, COVID-19 vaccination should generally not be a pre-condition” for federal employees or contractors to work in person, it states, while not specifying possible exceptions.
Lab Risks Face Scrutiny Amid COVID Origins Controversy
The controversy over the origin of the COVID-19 virus is renewing focus on how the risks and benefits of pathogen-altering experiments are weighed and managed.
Why it matters: Better governance of biorisks would limit the threat of a human-made pandemic — and could help identify the origin of future outbreaks more quickly and with a lot less controversy.
The U.S. Needs a COVID-19 Vaccine for Children Because ‘We’re Not Past The Pandemic,’ Says FDA Adviser
Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration agree that it’s important to have a COVID-19 vaccine for children, though there’s some disagreement over how potential vaccines are researched and authorized, FDA adviser Dr. Paul Offit said Thursday.
The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee met Thursday to discuss what kind of information the FDA needs to consider ahead of authorizing a vaccine for children 12 and under.
“I’m confident that there was unanimity among the advisers that it’s important to have a vaccine for children,” Offit told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.