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Covid News Watch

Feb 28, 2023

10 Myths Told by COVID Experts — and Now Debunked + More

10 Myths Told by COVID Experts — and Now Debunked

New York Post reported:

In the past few weeks, a series of analyses published by highly respected researchers have exposed a truth about public health officials during COVID: Much of the time, they were wrong.

To be clear, public health officials were not wrong for making recommendations based on what was known at the time. That’s understandable. You go with the data you have. No, they were wrong because they refused to change their directives in the face of new evidence. When a study did not support their policies, they dismissed it and censored opposing opinions.

At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weaponized research itself by putting out its own flawed studies in its own non-peer-reviewed medical journal, MMWR.

In the final analysis, public health officials actively propagated misinformation that ruined lives and forever damaged public trust in the medical profession. What’s most amazing about all the misinformation conveyed by CDC and public health officials is that there have been no apologies for holding on to their recommendations for so long after the data became apparent that they were dead wrong.

At a minimum, the CDC should come clean and the FDA should add a warning label to COVID vaccines, clearly stating what is now known. A mea culpa by those who led us astray would be the first step to rebuilding trust.

Still No Consensus on COVID’s Origins, White House Says

Politico reported:

The U.S. government still has not reached a consensus on how the coronavirus pandemic started, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday — despite news reports that the Energy Department has concluded the virus most likely leaked from a lab in China.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the department had reached a “low confidence” conclusion supporting the so-called lab leak theory in a classified finding shared with the White House and members of Congress. Kirby would not confirm or deny the report, saying he is “not going to get ahead” of the U.S. government’s investigation.

Two Republicans leading the House’s COVID probes demanded Monday that the Energy Department, State Department and FBI provide documents related to the issue.

The Energy Department declined Monday to comment on the Journal article, saying through a spokesperson: “The Department of Energy continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed.”

Fauci Blames Attacks on China — Not China — for COVID Origins Impasse

The Daily Wire reported:

Dr. Anthony Fauci is offering a defense of Chinese officials who have repeatedly been accused of denying access to scientists working to determine the origins of COVID. Fauci, who retired from decades of government service late last year, blames Beijing’s critics, not the Chinese Communist Party, for a lack of transparency that he seems certain would show the virus came about via natural transmission, not a lab leak in Wuhan.

“The only way we’ll know is if China opens up and we get American scientists, Canadian scientists, Australian scientists to go there and do the kind of surveillance in the wild,” Fauci told Boston Globe Magazine editor-at-large Neil Swidey.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who is now the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said last month that Fauci’s own emails raise questions on whether Fauci concealed information about COVID originating in a lab. Fauci argues his emails show nothing of the sort.

One area in which Republicans have pledged to investigate Fauci is in regard to federal funding for bat coronavirus research with ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Fauci has vociferously denied the work amounted to gain-of-function research, in which viruses are manipulated to become more dangerous. In the new interview, Fauci said that it is impossible for the research conducted in Wuhan to have created COVID.

China Says It’s Been ‘Open and Transparent’ on COVID Origins

Associated Press reported:

China on Tuesday said it has been “open and transparent” in the search for the origins of COVID-19, after questions about how the pandemic began received new attention.

Most recently, the U.S. Department of Energy assessed with “low confidence” that the pandemic that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 began with the leak of a virus from a lab. The report hasn’t been made public.

China had “shared the most data and research results on virus tracing and made important contributions to global virus tracing research,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning Mao told reporters at a daily briefing.

More COVID Vaccine Injuries Approved for Compensation; Injured Still Waiting for Payouts

The Epoch Times reported:

More than a dozen COVID-19 vaccine injury claims have now been approved by U.S. authorities, but none of the injured have received compensation.

The U.S. government’s Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program has approved claims from 19 people, ruling that they proved their injuries were caused by the vaccines. The approvals are through Feb. 1.

In 17 of the cases, a COVID-19 vaccine caused myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation; pericarditis, a related condition; or both. One of the remaining approvals was for severe allergic shock and one was for a type of skin swelling called angioedema.

A Condition Called POTS Rose After COVID, but Patients Can’t Find Care

The Washington Post reported:

A life-changing condition called POTS, which can cause fainting, irregular heartbeats and dizziness, particularly among young women, appears to be on the rise as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the condition isn’t well understood, and many patients are dismissed as having anxiety, delaying diagnosis. Once diagnosed, many patients face waiting lists for as long as two years to get treatment from specialists.

POTS stands for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a disorder of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates involuntary functions like heart rate, blood pressure and digestion.

It’s still unclear how many COVID patients develop POTS. Studies show that anywhere from 2% to 14% of people with COVID develop POTS. One study of long COVID patients found that overall 30% met the criteria for POTS, although it was far more common in women. In that study, 36% of women met the criteria for POTS compared to 7% of men.

B.C. Says Stockpile of Moderna Infant COVID Vaccines Set to Expire, With No New Supply for a Month

CBC News reported:

The national supply of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for babies and young children will expire next week, and another shipment isn’t expected in B.C. until April, the province announced Monday.

Canada’s current stock of the company’s infant mRNA shots, used for children between the ages of six months and four years old, will expire on March 8, according to a statement from the B.C. Ministry of Health. A new supply is expected to begin arriving in the province on April 11.

Pfizer‘s COVID-19 vaccine for infants is still available and can be substituted for the Moderna product, the ministry says. The Pfizer vaccine is given in three doses rather than two.

Feb 27, 2023

COVID Likely Originated From Lab Leak, Energy Department Reportedly Finds + More

COVID Likely Originated From Lab Leak, Energy Department Reportedly Finds — but Biden Aide Says There’s No ‘Definitive Answer’

Forbes reported:

The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic was most likely caused by a laboratory leak, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, though National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said there is “not a definitive answer” on the virus’ genesis.

The Energy Department’s new conclusions are found in an updated classified report from the office of Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence, which was recently provided to the White House and some members of Congress, according to the Journal.

The Energy Department, which oversees many U.S. laboratories, came to its conclusion based on new intelligence, but deemed its level of confidence in its judgment as “low,” people who read the report told the Journal.

The FBI also determined in 2021 with “moderate confidence” the virus came from a lab leak, but the agency came to its conclusion for different reasons than the Energy Department, U.S. officials told the Journal.

Pfizer/BioNTech Apply for Full FDA Approval of Updated COVID Vaccine

Reuters reported:

Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N) and its German partner BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE) said on Friday they filed an application to the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for full approval of their Omicron-adapted COVID-19 vaccine.

The companies are seeking approval for the updated vaccine both as a primary course and a booster dose for individuals 12 years of age and above.

Advisers to the FDA in January had unanimously voted in favor of using the same coronavirus strain for the initial COVID-19 vaccine doses and the boosters to simplify the vaccination regimen in the United States.

Not Enough Data to Support Multiple Annual COVID Boosters, U.S. CDC Advisers Say

Reuters reported:

There is not sufficient evidence to recommend more than one COVID-19 booster shot a year for older people and those with weakened immune systems, an expert advisory group to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday.

The COVID-19 working group of the CDC’s Advisory Committee For Immunization Practices (ACIP) supported an annual booster campaign, likely in the fall, especially for populations considered at high risk, Dr. Sara Oliver, a CDC official who heads the group, said during a meeting of the agency’s outside advisers.

The CDC advisers did not vote on new recommendations for how the COVID-19 shots should be administered on Friday.

Taiwan to Pay Family of Child Who Died After 2 Doses of COVID Vaccine

The Epoch Times reported:

Taiwan’s government will grant 3.5 million New Taiwan Dollars (about $114,000) to the family of a child who died of sudden myocarditis after receiving a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine, an official said on Sunday.

Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) spokesperson Lo Yi-chun said the family was among the 10 applicants eligible for compensation from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, Focus Taiwan reported.

Lo said the girl, who was between the ages of 5 and 11 years, went into a coma three days after getting her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Authorities did not disclose the child’s identity. Lo said in addition to the 3.5 million NTD, the government will also pay the family 300,000 NTD (about $9,800) for funeral costs.

Vaccine injury compensation will also be awarded in three cases involving the Moderna vaccine, five cases involving the AstraZeneca vaccine, and one case involving the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine.

Nasal COVID Vaccine Shows Promise in Early Clinical Trial

NBC News reported:

An experimental nasal vaccine provided strong protection against COVID infection, according to preliminary results from a Phase 1 clinical trial.

The vaccine, developed by a startup called Blue Lake Biotechnology Inc., was found to reduce the risk of symptomatic COVID infections by 86% for three months in people who received it as a booster dose. Existing booster shots in the United States reduce symptomatic infections by 43% in people 18 to 49 over one to two months, according to a study published in November by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The results from the clinical trial offer an early but tantalizing glimpse at how a next-generation COVID vaccine could be more effective at stopping the coronavirus in its tracks. Scientists have said nasal vaccines could provide better protection against COVID compared to those that are injected into the arm.

The FDA Has Cleared the First Home Flu and COVID Test — but Its Maker Just Declared Bankruptcy

STAT News reported:

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for the first at-home test that can detect flu and COVID-19 — but for the test’s maker, Lucira, the long-anticipated authorization may have taken too long. The company filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 22, directly blaming the “protracted” FDA authorization process for the over-the-counter combination test for its financial troubles.

“This is a major milestone for Lucira Health and for at-home diagnostics, and I can’t thank our employees and partners enough for seeing this through, and of course, for the FDA’s recognition,” said Lucira CEO Erik Engelson in a statement to STAT, making no mention of the company’s bankruptcy. At the time of publication, Lucira had not answered questions about how the bankruptcy affects their ability to manufacture and sell the newly authorized test kit, which can detect influenza A and B.

The agency’s EUA program allowed an easier route for combination SARS-CoV-2 and flu tests to be authorized than for flu-only tests. A Lucira spokesperson said in a statement that a standalone flu diagnostic is “always a possibility on the Lucira testing platform,” but that the company thought it was important to develop a combination test because of the similarities between COVID and flu.

CDC Estimates XBB.1.5 Responsible for 85% of New Coronavirus Infections

U.S. News & World Report reported:

The vast majority of new COVID-19 infections are caused by one Omicron subvariant that appears to be on its way to complete domination over the U.S.

The highly transmissible Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 caused 85% of coronavirus cases this week, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s the only major strain that is increasing, setting it up to potentially drive virtually all infections in the coming weeks.

XBB.1.5 is up from 79% of infections last week and 72% the week before. It has been a rapid rise for the subvariant, which made up just 4% of cases three months ago.

CDC officials on Friday presented updated data on the booster to a meeting of the agency’s vaccine experts, finding that the shots have a higher efficacy among children than adults.

U.S. Agency to Reverse COVID Policy for Frequently Abused Prescription Drugs

The Guardian reported:

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has proposed rules that would again require patients to visit doctors in person to obtain prescriptions for certain medications that are frequently abused.

The announcement seeks to reverse policy changes made during the COVID-19 pandemic which allowed doctors to prescribe controlled drugs such as Adderall and OxyContin through virtual telehealth appointments.

On Friday, the DEA said that patients would be required to physically visit a doctor at least once in order to get a prescription for drugs that have been categorized as schedule II substances by the government. Those substances, which the government says have a “high potential for abuse”, include Adderall, OxyContin, Vicodin and Ritalin.

The proposed rules are on track to affect thousands of Americans who have relied on telehealth services throughout the pandemic in order to more easily access their medications. But they do not affect telehealth appointments which do not require doctors to prescribe controlled medications.

Feb 22, 2023

We Need a COVID Commission + More

We Need a COVID Commission

Newsweek reported:

When an airplane crashes, the Federal Aviation Administration conducts a detailed and thorough investigation. The purpose is not to find a scapegoat, but to ensure the same problem never resurfaces again. Our collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic constituted history’s biggest public health mistake. We did not properly protect older high-risk Americans, while many ineffective COVID restrictions have generated long-term collateral public health damage that is now upon us. Both have yielded excess deaths. Public health crashed.

It is now imperative to form a commission to conduct a thorough and open-minded COVID inquiry. To help such a commission, we have produced an 80-page blueprint with essential questions that such a commission should ask. We wrote this document with six colleagues with expertise in infectious disease, epidemiology, immunology, health policy and public health. We call ourselves the Norfolk Group.

While few public health scientists dared to speak out against COVID restrictions promoted by Dr. Anthony Fauci, many of the scientists who did speak out are politically on the Left, including several members of our Norfolk Group. We must skip the politics and simply figure out what went wrong, so that it never happens again.

There is one question about the pandemic that we did not ask in the 80-page document, and which we hope we will never have to ask: “Why did the government not form a COVID Commission to evaluate our pandemic response?”

There Are at Least 500 Coronaviruses. We Must Develop Next-Gen Vaccines Now, Experts Say.

USA TODAY reported:

The virus that causes COVID-19 is highly contagious but not as lethal as others in its coronavirus family. The initial SARS virus killed roughly 1 in 10 of those infected; a relative called Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, still kills 1 in 3.

But we may not always be so lucky. With animals, including bats, colonized by hundreds of coronaviruses, another one might come along with the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 and the death rate of MERS. Hoping to prevent that, scientists on Tuesday unveiled a “road map” for developing a new vaccine that would be broadly protective against all coronaviruses.

If given ahead of time, such a vaccine could ideally avoid a future pandemic from this kind of virus, said Michael Osterholm, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, which is helping lead the effort.

The Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute and the Gates Foundation are partners in the initiative with Osterholm’s center, which has helped develop similar road maps for influenza, Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and Zika viruses.

Exclusive: Senator Accuses FAA of Ignoring Potential Vaccine Dangers to Pilots

The Epoch Times reported:

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is expressing dismay over how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) responded to his questions about the agency’s handling of pilot health issues.

In his Jan. 27 letter to the FAA, Johnson provided specific information about five named pilots with suspected COVID-19 vaccine ill effects; one of the pilots died 17 days after being vaccinated. Numerous other accounts of pilots with suspected vaccine injuries are included in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, as The Epoch Times reported previously.

Johnson wanted to know what steps the FAA has taken or planned to take to investigate whether the five named pilots and others had suffered adverse effects after COVID-19 shots.

Susan Northrup, the FAA’s federal air surgeon, wrote that her agency isn’t in charge of that. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the responsible agency for tracking and follow up of suspected vaccine adverse events,” she wrote.

‘There May Still Be Surprises’: Jeremy Farrar Warns of Pandemic Perils Ahead

The Guardian reported:

Masks are a rarity now on streets and trains. We don’t leave empty seats in theatres or limit how many people browse in our shops. It seems like it’s all over — but Prof Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome, once a key member of the government’s scientific advisory body Sage and an enormously influential figure in global health, says the COVID pandemic could still have unpleasant surprises in store.

Farrar is not a doom-monger. But from where he is sitting, with long experience of epidemics from flu to SARS to Ebola, we are still in a risky place. We need to be ready for what this — or quite possibly another — bug could do to us.

We need new vaccines that actually stop infection, he says. “We are not in a good enough position to be sure this is not coming back until we can get transmission-blocking vaccines. And I don’t know if they’re possible, but I think the ambition should be there by the end of this decade or as soon as possible.”

And, he warns, “this COVID pandemic doesn’t stop any other virus emerging.” What comes next may not be a twist in the coronavirus tail. “The current pandemic of avian H5N1 is a really concerning issue,” says Farrar.

U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses Tyson Foods’ Petition in COVID Death Cases

Des Moines Register reported:

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Tyson Foods’ arguments about why federal judges should oversee lawsuits tied to the COVID-19 deaths of workers at its plants, including its nearly 2,800-worker pork processing plant in Waterloo.

The court on Tuesday denied Tyson’s petition to review the decision of lower court judges, who ruled in multiple cases that Tyson employees can sue the company in state-level courts.

The meatpacking giant argued that those cases should go before federal courts instead of local judges and juries because President Donald Trump’s administration ordered food processing plants to stay open in the first months of the pandemic.

U.K. Grants Full Marketing Authorization to COVID Vaccine Janssen

EuroWeekly News reported:

The U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has granted the one-dose Janssen COVID-19 vaccine full marketing authorization (MA).

On Wednesday, February 22, the U.K.’s MHRA converted the COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen to a full GB Marketing Authorization (MA).

The update made to the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) and Patient Information Leaflet (PIL) was to reflect the COVID-19 Janssen vaccine being converted to a full marketing authorization as of February 20, 2023, the U.K. government announced. The original Conditional Marketing Authorization (CMA) granted by the MHRA was approved via the European Commission (EC) Decision Reliance Route.

COVID’s ‘Legacy of Weirdness’: Layoffs Spread, but Some Employers Can’t Hire Fast Enough

CNBC reported:

Job cuts are rising at some of the biggest U.S. companies, but others are still scrambling to hire workers, the result of wild swings in consumer priorities since the COVID pandemic began three years ago.

Tech giants Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, along with companies ranging from Disney to Zoom, have announced job cuts over the past few weeks. In total, U.S.-based employers cut nearly 103,000 jobs in January, the most since September 2020, according to a report released earlier this month from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Meanwhile, employers added 517,000 jobs last month, nearly three times the number analysts expected. This points to a labor market that’s still tight, particularly in service sectors that were hit hard earlier in the pandemic, such as restaurants and hotels.

All of it is part of the COVID pandemic’s “legacy of weirdness,” said David Kelly, global chief strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

California Says It Can No Longer Afford Aid for COVID Testing, Vaccinations for Migrants

Kaiser Health News reported:

All day and sometimes into the night, buses and vans pull up to three state-funded medical screening centers near California’s southern border with Mexico. Federal immigration officers unload migrants predominantly from Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Peru, most of whom await asylum hearings in the United States.

Once inside, coordinators say, migrants are given face masks to guard against the spread of infectious diseases, along with water and food. Medical providers test them for the coronavirus, offer them vaccines, and isolate those who test positive for the virus. Asylum-seekers are treated for injuries they may have suffered during their journey and checked for chronic health issues, such as diabetes or high blood pressure.

But now, as the liberal-leaning state confronts a projected $22.5 billion deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state can no longer afford to contribute to the centers, which also receive federal and local grants. The Democratic governor in January proposed phasing out state aid for some medical services in the next few months, and eventually scaling back the migrant assistance program unless President Joe Biden and Congress step in with help.

Feb 16, 2023

Moderna Won’t Raise Price on COVID Vaccine After Pressure + More

Moderna Won’t Raise Price on COVID Vaccine After Pressure

New York Daily News reported:

Moderna said Wednesday it wouldn’t raise the price of its COVID-19 vaccine after a public outcry.

The about-face comes after the company was harshly criticized for planning to raise the cost of a vaccine dose about 400% — to the $110-to-$130 range. The company said the decision was made because they were shifting away from government contracts despite the vaccine’s development being publicly subsidized. The government pays about $26 per dose.

Instead it will remain free — even for the uninsured — after federal funding for vaccines starts to deplete when the public health emergency ends in May.

The announcement came after leftwing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called on Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel to testify about the price hike and the pharmaceutical industry in general during a Senate hearing scheduled for next month.

WHO Says It Won’t Abandon COVID Origin Pursuit

U.S. News & World Report reported:

The World Health Organization on Wednesday pledged to continue its pursuit of the origin of COVID-19 amid a report that it abandoned part of its investigation, but the group acknowledged that it needs more cooperation from China.

The report from Nature said that WHO “quietly shelved the second phase of its much-anticipated scientific investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing ongoing challenges over attempts to conduct crucial studies in China.”

Maria Van Kerkhove of WHO said during a press briefing on Wednesday, “I think we need to be perfectly clear that WHO has not abandoned studying the origins of COVID-19. We have not, and we will not.” She said that there “was no quiet shelving of any plans,” adding that plans were “updated” instead.

“Initially, phase two was a plan to be a continuation of that January 2021 mission to Wuhan, which was in a sense seen as phase one, but we updated our plans,” Van Kerkhove said, referring to the city in China where the virus was first reported. She said that “in a sense” phase two became the permanent establishment of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, which she said “was, in effect, our best effort to move this work forward.”

U.S. Backs Moderna, Says Government Should Face COVID Vaccine Lawsuit

Reuters reported:

The U.S. government should face a patent lawsuit over COVID-19 vaccines, not vaccine maker Moderna Inc. (MRNA.O), the Department of Justice told a Delaware federal court on Tuesday.

The Justice Department’s court filing said the United States should be liable for any infringement of Arbutus Biopharma Corp. (ABUS.O) and Genevant Sciences GmbH’s patents that took place under Moderna’s contract to provide shots for the government’s nationwide vaccination effort. Moderna made the same argument last year in an unsuccessful bid to win an early dismissal of the lawsuit.

Warminster Township, Pennsylvania-based Arbutus and Genevant — a joint venture between Arbutus and Roivant Sciences Ltd (ROIV.O) — sued Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna last year for royalties on its multi-billion-dollar COVID vaccines.

Both Moderna and Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N) have been the target of multiple patent lawsuits over their COVID vaccines, including a lawsuit brought by Moderna against Pfizer in August.

U.S. NIH Starts Trial for Shionogi’s COVID Pill

Reuters reported:

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Wednesday that it had started a clinical trial to evaluate Japan’s Shionogi & Co Ltd’s (4507.T) experimental oral antiviral drug to treat COVID-19.

The drug, S-217622 or ensitrelvir, will be tested in adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19. It is already approved for emergency use in Japan.

The trial will enroll about 1,500 people from different sites across the world, the government health organization said in a statement.

White House Mulls Post-COVID Emergency Backstop for Uninsured

Politico reported:

The Biden administration is zeroing in on a plan to keep COVID vaccines, treatments and tests free for the uninsured into 2024, even as it plots a quicker wind-down of its broader pandemic response, four people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO.

Biden officials expect the so-called commercialization process to start in the second half of this year. But under its tentative plan, the administration would stockpile a limited supply of shots, treatments and tests that could be distributed freely to the uninsured well after the U.S. transitions out of its current crisis era.

Biden health officials are preparing to unravel a sprawling set of pandemic policies over the next several months, as the administration ends the public health emergency on May 11 and moves toward managing the virus as a long-term disease.

New Bill Would Prohibit Federal Funding for Healthcare Facilities That Deny Care to Unvaccinated Patients

The Epoch Times reported:

A new bill in Congress would ban federal funding for institutions that deny care to patients for not having a COVID-19 vaccine, after multiple patients in the United States seeking transplants have been rejected over their vaccination status.

The 2-page bill states that “no funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by Federal law … shall be made available to a facility that refuses to provide treatment to an individual based on the COVID-19 vaccination status of such individual.” The legislation is called the COVID-19 Vaccination Non-Discrimination Act.

“No American should be denied access to critical care based on a personal medical decision, yet tragically, many hospitals and other medical facilities continue to discriminate against those unvaccinated for COVID-19,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a doctor who cosponsored the legislation, said in a statement.

Multiple patients in the United States have been denied transplants during the pandemic because of their refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccine. James Jooyandeh, a U.S. Army veteran, was denied a lung transplant because he declined to get vaccinated. Other patients have been removed from waiting lists due to their vaccination status.

The Haunting Brain Science of Long COVID

STAT News reported:

Matt Fitzgerald used to bike up and down 3,500 feet through the Santa Ana Mountains on three-hour rides just for fun. Now, nine months after being infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, he can’t muster walking on flat surfaces for 20 minutes without days of exhaustion.

Another patient of mine, Barbara Nivens, was forced into early retirement as a result of long COVID. Four months after recovering from a mild case of COVID-19, “My memory began to fade,” she told me. “I struggled cognitively as a manager and then HR came after me.” But what exactly is going on inside the brains of these people from a biological and pathological perspective?

Science validates their injuries. A picture is emerging from animal models showing how ongoing inflammation of glial cells disrupts the electrical conduction highways in the brain’s white matter that link to and support the neurons in gray matter. It’s as if the bridges (white matter) linking different territories of the brain have been blown up and the land itself (nerves in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus) become scorched, leaving people with long COVID plagued by thinking and memory deficits.

An MRI study from George Washington University of people who’d had mild COVID-19 symptoms several months earlier found much less gray matter in their brains than they should have had. This ominous finding complements a large controlled study conducted as part of the U.K. Biobank showing that, as compared to people who had never tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, a loss of actual brain tissue was seen in the olfactory cortex and limbic system — think impaired smell, emotions and memory formation — among people with long COVID.

Governments Target Medical Debt With COVID Relief Funds

Associated Press reported:

Millions of Americans mired in medical debt face difficult financial decisions every day — pay the debt or pay for rent, utilities and groceries. Some may even skip necessary healthcare for fear of sinking deeper into debt.

To address the problem, an increasing number of municipal, county and state governments are devising plans to spend federal coronavirus pandemic relief funds to eliminate residents’ medical debt and ease those debt burdens.

Unlike credit card or loan debt, medical debt is not a choice, advocates said. “Medical debt is something that people can’t help and it’s not their fault,” Burnley said. “No one chooses to get hurt or to get sick.”

The cities and states are teaming up with RIP Medical Debt, a New York-based nonprofit that since 2014 has used donations to buy huge bundles of debt from hospitals and other healthcare providers at pennies on the dollar and pay it off. A single donated dollar erases an average of $100 of debt.

European Medicines Agency Expects Annual COVID Vaccination Campaigns, Similar to Flu Shot

Fox News reported:

The European Medicines Agency expects COVID vaccination campaigns to be conducted once a year, similar to the approach with flu inoculation, it said on Wednesday.

In Europe, there is a marked decline in new COVID cases, hospitalisations and deaths — the lowest levels observed in the European Union in the past twelve months, he said, citing data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

The EMA is currently in discussions with the World Health Organization and other regulatory agencies about the criteria and process that will lead to the potential update of the vaccines in view of future vaccination campaigns, he added.

My Initial Impressions of a New COVID Treatment: Pegylated Interferon Lambda — a Major Study Offered Encouraging Results, but Some Barriers to Treatment Exist

MedPage Today reported:

Earlier this week, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that patients who received one injection of pegylated interferon lambda did better than those who received placebo. Interferons like this one work by helping cells keep viruses from invading and taking up shop.

The new study compared outcomes in mostly vaccinated participants across several periods, including Omicron. Interferon recipients had lower rates of the study’s “primary outcome” of interest; Participants were deemed as having experienced the primary outcome if either a COVID-related hospitalization or an emergency department (ED) stay longer than 6 hours occurred.

The skeptic in me notes that a few findings were less impressive than the headline. For example, when researchers measured all-cause death or COVID-related hospitalization (factoring out longer ED stays), about half of that signal of benefit vanished (i.e., there was a 25% reduction in those outcomes as opposed to a 51% reduction in the primary outcome).

As the New York Times reported, the FDA is unlikely to authorize this drug for use in the U.S. The reasons for this are actually kind of silly. First, the study was done in Brazil and Canada — and the FDA likes U.S. data. It seems to me that in a pandemic, science is science, regardless of its locale. What matters is the quality of the endeavor, not the country code where it took place.

Antibiotics Are Being Inappropriately Prescribed for COVID, Increasing the Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance — Research

The Conversation reported:

Antibiotics are drugs designed to treat infections caused by bacteria (for example, skin infections). They don’t work on infections caused by other microbes such as viruses (including COVID and flu) or fungi (for example, thrush).

Beyond treating bacterial infections, antibiotics also have other important uses, like preventing infection during major surgery.

When antibiotics are misused or overused, more opportunities arise for bacteria to develop and improve these protective tools. This contributes to a problem called antibiotic or antimicrobial resistance, where bacteria evolve over time so that antibiotics no longer work against them. This makes infections more difficult to treat as doctors have fewer antibiotics to choose from, in turn increasing the risk of serious illness and death.

But how has the COVID pandemic affected antibiotic use, and the problem of antibiotic resistance? A recent study which analyzed pharmaceutical sales data from 71 countries suggests that as COVID cases went up, so did antibiotics sales.