Federal Watchdog Slams Fauci’s Agency and EcoHealth Over Deal With Wuhan Lab

The Daily Wire reported:

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s federal science agency and EcoHealth Alliance, which took a U.S. grant for bat virus research and paid part of it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, made serious missteps, government investigators said Tuesday.

EcoHealth Alliance did not properly disclose its subgrant recipients — which included the Chinese lab which may have been the origin of COVID — and was two years late in filing a report that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) concluded may have revealed “gain of function,” or experiments which make a virus more dangerous to humans, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspector General said in a 72-page report. Fauci headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which oversaw the grant and is part of NIH.

“Our audit found that NIH’s own evaluation of the Year 5 progress report concluded that the research was of a type that should have been reported immediately to NIH,” it said. The Year 5 report was filed two years late, but the IG said NIH “did not effectively monitor or take timely action” despite knowing about potential risks.

“This oversight failure is particularly concerning because NIH had previously raised concerns with EcoHealth about the nature of the research being performed. Once NIH received and reviewed the late progress report, NIH concluded the research resulted in a virus with enhanced growth,” it said.

U.S. FDA Pulls Authorization for AstraZeneca’s COVID Treatment Evusheld

Reuters reported:

The U.S. health regulator has withdrawn emergency-use authorization for AstraZeneca‘s (AZN.L) COVID-19 antibody cocktail Evusheld as the treatment is not expected to neutralize the currently dominant XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had limited Evusheld’s use earlier this month for the same reason and the agency’s Thursday announcement sent U.S. shares of London-based AstraZeneca down 1.31% to $65.75.

The FDA’s decision resonates with concerns raised by the European health regulator about the effectiveness of monoclonal antibodies such as Evusheld against newer variants.

Moderna Now in the Crosshairs of Sens. Warren, Welch Over Price Tag for COVID Vaccine

Fierce Pharma reported:

In December, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and Peter Welch, D-Vermont, sent a letter to Pfizer admonishing the company for a proposed increase in the price of its COVID-19 vaccine for up to $130.

Six weeks later, they’ve turned their attention to the world’s other leading producer of COVID-19 vaccines, Moderna, which also has said it might charge up to $130 per dose when the U.S. stops providing shots for free and goes to a commercial model.

In a letter to CEO Stéphane Bancel, the senators reminded him that development of the vaccine was facilitated in part by a massive government grant. Warren and Welch also pose nine questions to the CEO, most of them asking about the company’s pricing strategy on the vaccine and whether it conspired with Pfizer in arriving at its price. The letter stops short of accusing the company of “deadly greed,” as Warren and Welch did on Dec. 13 with Pfizer. But it does pose many of the same questions.

With the public admonishment of Moderna, Warren and Welch have joined Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont. Two weeks ago, Sanders called out Moderna, pointing out that it received $1.7 billion in public funds to research and develop the shot. Sanders also pointed out that manufacturing the vaccine costs approximately $2.85 per dose.

California Judge Issues Preliminary Injunction Blocking COVID ‘Misinformation’ Law: Reports

Fox News reported:

A California judge issued a preliminary injunction against a state law that empowers the Medical Board of California to discipline physicians who support opinions about COVID-19 that are not in line with the “consensus,” according to reports.

The law, known as Assembly Bill 2098, was set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023. Under the law, the Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California could discipline physicians who “disseminate” information about COVID that is not in line with the “contemporary scientific consensus.”

But in November, a group of five California physicians filed a lawsuit against California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, saying the law violates their First Amendment rights and constitutional right to due process.

The preliminary injunction temporarily halts the implementation of the law while the case is tried in court.

FDA’s Vaccine Advisers Meet to Consider the Future of COVID Vaccination in the U.S.

CNN Health reported:

A panel of independent experts that advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on its vaccine decisions will hold a full day of meetings on Thursday to consider what the future of COVID-19 vaccination should look like in the United States.

Currently, the U.S. is offering two types of COVID-19 vaccines. The first shots people get — also called the primary series — contain a single set of instructions that teach the immune system to fight off the original version of the virus, which emerged in 2019. The problem is that this index strain is no longer circulating. It was overrun months ago by an ever-evolving parade of new variants.

So last year, in consultation with its vaccine advisers, the FDA decided that it was time to update the vaccines. These new bivalent shots contain two sets of instructions; one set reminds the immune system about the original version of the coronavirus, and the second set teaches the immune system to recognize and fight off Omicron’s BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which emerged in the U.S. last year.

So the FDA’s advisers are expected to vote Thursday on whether the U.S. should be offering just one type of COVID-19 shot for both the primary and booster doses. The committee is also expected to consider how many strains of the virus should be in the shot and how and when those strains should be chosen.

The Downsides of Financial Incentives to Diagnose COVID

Newsweek reported:

What likely began as a good-faith effort by Congress to comfort grieving families has turned into a runaway train of data obfuscation.

When Congress passed the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act in December 2020, it authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to reimburse up to $2 billion in funeral expenses for deaths related to COVID-19 incurred through December 31, 2020.

Then, in March 2021, Congress extended this financial incentive, allowing FEMA to pull from $50 billion in general disaster relief funding through September 30, 2025, as part of the American Rescue Plan Act. So long as there is a National Emergency, families are empowered to seek financial reimbursement for the loss of their loved ones where COVID is present.

When a patient dies, the incentive to diagnose COVID grows stronger. Suppose the doctor or medical examiner fills out the death certificate and notes that COVID could plausibly have contributed to the patient’s death. In that case, the deceased patient’s family stands to gain up to $10,000 for funeral expenses from FEMA. Often all that is needed is for the patient’s physician to note a positive COVID test on the death certificate, even if COVID had little to do with the patient’s death.

Roche Launches New Test to Detect Fast-Spreading Omicron Sub-Variant

Reuters reported:

Roche (ROG.S) has launched a new PCR test to detect a fast-spreading sub-variant of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the Swiss drugmaker said on Thursday.

The new test specifically targets the XBB.1.5 Omicron variant and will help researchers closely track the virus’s lineage and provide insights into the epidemiology and impact it has on public health, the company added.

The XBB.1.5 variant is prevalent in the United States and is quickly spreading to other countries, Roche said.

‘Bionic Nose’ May Help People Experiencing Smell Loss, Researchers Say

The Washington Post reported:

A bionic device being developed by two researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine could help millions of people struggling with a loss of smell, they say.

One to 2% of Americans have a problem with smell that tends to increase with age. Partial or complete loss of smell, or anosmia, can result from many conditions, including brain injuries and diseases such as COVID-19. Nearly 15 million adults worldwide may have long-term smell problems because of COVID, according to research published in July.

It will, however, take five to 10 years for a fully developed prototype to be ready for implantation and testing in patients, said Richard Costanzo, director of research for the VCU Smell and Taste Disorders Center in Richmond. Costanzo said his idea for the device came long before the pandemic, born out of a desire to help people with a permanent loss of smell.

I Finally Got COVID. Here’s Why I Threw My Paxlovid Pills in the Garbage

San Francisco Chronicle reported:

It’s been a month since I threw my Paxlovid pills in the garbage. I only took the three-pill, twice-daily dosage for one day instead of the prescribed five. But no matter how many cough drops I sucked on or sticks of gum I chewed, I could not shake the rancid, metallic-tasting dumpster fire that has seemingly taken up permanent residence in my mouth.

What I am experiencing is common enough that it has a name: “Metal mouth” or “Paxlovid mouth.” In medical literature, this altered sense of taste is called dysgeusia. But, however it’s referred to, I wish I understood the risk of developing this nasty side-effect before I started taking the drug.

As so many of us who have taken the drug know, Paxlovid mouth can last far longer than five days. In fact, the data showed that from the earliest published results. The European Medical Agency, the European Union’s governing body in charge of the evaluation and supervision of pharmaceutical products, noted in December 2021 that potential side effects from Paxlovid, including dysgeusia, can last up to 34 days after the initial dosage.

Why doesn’t public messaging around the drug match the data?

People Urged to Get COVID Booster After Government Announces Universal Vaccine Program Will End

Manchester Evening News reported:

Officials have issued a reminder that there is still time for any member of the public to get their COVID jab before the universal vaccination program closes for the year.

Healthy adults under the age of 50 who are yet to receive a booster jab have just two-and-a-half weeks to take up the offer before they are no longer considered eligible. After this deadline, experts have advised for the universal offer to shift “towards a more targeted offer during vaccination campaigns.”

The new targeted program will focus vaccination offers for: care home residents and workers; frontline health and social care workers; adults over 50; people who are clinically at risk; carers and people who live in a house where someone is immunosuppressed.

It comes as the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) said the initial booster offer for healthy adults aged 16 to 49 should close as the autumn booster program comes to an end. In England, the program is due to end on Feb. 12.

FDA’s Annual COVID Booster Shot Proposal Sparks Questions, Concerns

U.S. News & World Report reported:

The Food and Drug Administration wants to shift to a simplified COVID-19 booster plan, but responses to the idea are proving that the issue is a complicated one.

In documents published this week, the FDA proposed a booster shot strategy similar to the flu vaccine schedule, with an updated shot matched to circulating strains offered annually in the fall for most Americans. Its committee of outside vaccine experts is set to discuss the topic during a meeting on Thursday.

But some experts are asking whether available data support such a plan.“The big question is: How often do we need repeat vaccination? And I don’t think we have a definitive answer,” Joachim Hombach of the World Health Organization said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

Carlos del Rio of the Emory University School of Medicine said he understands the desire to have a policy in place but added that the virus continues to throw curveballs and complicate plans. “My plea is that we continue doing research, we follow the science and we make decisions based on science and not what is most convenient to most,” del Rio said.

These Republicans Will Serve on Panels to Probe COVID, ‘Weaponization’ of Government

The Hill reported:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has released the names of the Republicans who will serve on a pair of subcommittees as part of the GOP’s promise to launch investigations into the Biden administration.

McCarthy in a tweet Tuesday announced the GOP membership of two select subcommittees on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government” and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

McCarthy said in a letter to his Republican colleagues that the subcommittee will expose the “weaponization of government against our citizenry, writ large.”

The subcommittee will be led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who was a close supporter of McCarthy during his Speaker bid and who serves as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. McCarthy said earlier this month that Jordan would chair the subcommittee. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) will serve as the chairman of the COVID-19 committee.

Elevated Rate of Facial Paralysis Identified After Pfizer COVID Booster in Elderly: FDA

The Epoch Times reported:

An elevated rate of Bell’s palsy was identified among elderly people after vaccination with a Pfizer booster shot, U.S. regulators said in a new study.

The “small but statistically significant elevation” in Bell’s palsy was detected after vaccination with Pfizer’s old booster, which is no longer available in the United States, researchers with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a preprint study.

The elevated rate resulted in an adjusted incidence rate ratio of 1.13 and remained consistent when researchers adjusted for different factors, such as prior COVID-19 infection.

Bill Gates Says No Country ‘Gets an A’ for Its COVID Pandemic Response — Including the U.S.

CNBC reported:

Bill Gates says some of the world’s governments have handled the spread of COVID-19 better than others, but the billionaire won’t give any country a perfect mark. “I wouldn’t say any country got it totally right,” Gates said in a recent interview at the Lowy Institute, a think tank in Sydney, Australia, adding: “Nobody … gets an ‘A’ on this one.”

The Microsoft co-founder and healthcare philanthropist has both praised and criticized multiple world governments’ responses to the pandemic since the coronavirus’s initial spread in late 2019.

As early as March 2020, Gates argued that the U.S. “did not act fast enough” to take extreme quarantining measures, like shutting down businesses and issuing stay-at-home orders. He also said the country’s rollout of effective and accessible COVID tests was too slow.

Gates, who published a book last year called “How to Prevent the Next Pandemic,” said he expects federal governments across the world to make those responses much easier before the next global viral outbreak. Poor COVID responses inspired government spending on future pandemic preparedness in multiple countries, he observed.

Latino Teens Are Deputized as Health Educators to Sway the Unvaccinated

Kaiser Health News reported:

Community health groups in California and across the country are training teens, many of them Hispanic or Latino, and deputizing them to serve as health educators at school, on social media, and in communities where COVID vaccine fears persist.

According to a 2021 survey commissioned by Voto Latino and conducted by Change Research, 51% of unvaccinated Latinos said they didn’t trust the safety of the vaccines. The number jumped to 67% for those whose primary language at home is Spanish. The most common reasons for declining the shot included not trusting that the vaccine will be effective and not trusting the vaccine manufacturers.

And vaccine hesitancy is not prevalent only among the unvaccinated. Although nearly 88% of Hispanics and Latinos have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, few report staying up to date on their shots, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimated fewer than 13% of Hispanics and Latinos have received a bivalent booster, an updated shot that public health officials recommend to protect against newer variants of the virus.

J&J Expects Inflation, China COVID Hit to Carry Into 2023

Reuters reported:

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) on Tuesday said it sees the impact of high inflation carrying into 2023 and expects China’s major COVID-19 outbreak to dent sales at its medical devices unit in the first half of the year.

Inflation has hurt demand for consumer health products and driven up costs for the healthcare conglomerate.

J&J forecast 2023 sales of $96.9 billion to $97.9 billion, putting the midpoint of the range below Wall Street estimates, while fourth-quarter profit came in ahead of expectations due to cost management and strong demand for some prescription medicines despite lower-than-expected medical device sales.

CDC Informs Staff of Reorganization After Pandemic Criticisms

The Hill reported:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) informed its staff on Tuesday of several changes the agency will be making to its internal structure, with some offices merging their responsibilities and new offices being created.

This agency reorganization comes months after CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said her agency “did not reliably meet expectations” during the COVID-19 pandemic and would be undergoing an overhaul as a result.

Throughout the pandemic, the CDC was criticized for issuing guidance that was confusing at times as well as for being too slow to share scientific data. These criticisms were later bolstered by a review conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Several new offices will also be created, including the Office of Health Equity and the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology. Regarding the latter, the CDC staffer said it was part of the agency’s aim to “build the data infrastructure necessary to connect all levels of public health with the critical data needed for action.”

CDC Figuring Out ‘Logistical and Legal’ Aspects of Testing Airplane Wastewater for Coronavirus Variants, Source Says

CNN Health reported:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is ironing out the “logistical and legal” aspects of testing wastewater from airplanes for coronavirus variants as it continues to explore such an infectious disease monitoring program.

The agency is still “figuring out how to operationalize this program,” a person close to CDC discussions said, adding that there are “logistical and legal” hurdles that need to be sorted out before the program “would be operational.”

Monitoring sewage for traces of coronavirus variants is a “validated” scientific process — no longer in its pilot phase — and airplanes are a logical next step, said Matt McKnight, general manager at Boston-based synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks. Its Concentric by Ginkgo biosecurity and public health unit has been chosen to partner in the CDC’s traveler-based genomic surveillance program to detect COVID-19 and flu variants among international travelers.

Long COVID Is Keeping People Out of Work for Months, Study Finds

CBC News reported:

Although COVID-19 infections have declined from a year ago, the elusive condition known as long COVID is having a pronounced effect on U.S. workers. New research shows that many employees report being too sick to return to work or require ongoing medical treatment.

Nearly a third of workers’ compensation claimants in the state have long COVID, with more men than women suffering from the condition, according to a report from the New York State Insurance Fund (NYSIF), the largest workers’ compensation insurer in New York State.

Of New York residents who have filed for workers’ comp because of long COVID, roughly 70% said they experienced symptoms that kept them out of work for at least six months or needed continued medical care.

People with long COVID often suffer a range of physical and neurological symptoms, including muscle pain and difficulty concentrating, that can persist for months and even years after the start of a COVID-19 infection. The symptoms may vary in severity and are in some cases physically and mentally debilitating.

Elon Musk Says the Second Dose of mRNA Booster Jab Crushed Him as Vaccine Debate Grows Worldwide

International Business Times reported:

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Saturday joined the growing debate on the serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccines, saying he had “major side effects from my second booster shot.” In a tweet, he said that he “felt like I was dying for several days.”

“Hopefully, no permanent damage, but I dunno,” the billionaire said, adding that “first mRNA booster was ok, but the second one crushed me.”

Musk’s admission about the side effects of COVID vaccines came as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla evaded difficult questions about the effectiveness of the company’s vaccine during the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davis. Bourla refused to answer any questions and instead repeatedly responded with phrases such as “Thank you very much” and “Have a wonderful day.”

Musk also revealed that his cousin, who is young and in peak health, “had a serious case of myocarditis” and “had to go to the hospital” after the COVID vaccine jab.

The debate over the side effects of COVID vaccines is gaining ground worldwide, including in India. In India, the government earlier this week reaffirmed the after-effects of different COVID-19 vaccines, but refuted a report based on an IANS RTI plea pertaining to the potential ramifications of these jabs as “ill-informed” and providing “erroneous” information.

WSJ Shreds Vaccine Makers, Biden Admin Over ‘Deceptive’ Booster Campaign

ZeroHedge reported:

Wall Street Journal editorial board member Allysia Finley has taken a flamethrower to vaccine makers over their “deceptive” campaign for bivalent COVID boosters, and slams several federal agencies for taking “the unprecedented step of ordering vaccine makers to produce them and recommending them without data supporting their safety or efficacy.”

The narrative behind the campaign was simple; mRNA COVID shots could simply be ‘tweaked’ to target new variants — in this case, the jabs were claimed to confer protection against BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants, along with the original Wuhan strain.

As Finley writes, three scientific problems have arisen. The virus is mutating much faster than vaccines can be updated. Vaccines have ‘hard wired’ our immune systems to respond to the original Wuhan strain, “so we churn out fewer antibodies that neutralize variants targeted by updated vaccines.” Antibody protection wanes after just a few months.

Here’s the money shot: “The vaccine makers designed their studies to get the results they wanted. Public-health authorities didn’t raise an eyebrow, but why would they? They have a vested interest in promoting the bivalents.”

Finley further notes that vaccine makers could have performed small, randomized trials last summer and early fall on the bivalents — with results available by the end of September. But the Biden administration didn’t want to wait (and now we know why).

U.S. FDA Proposes Shift to Annual COVID Vaccine Shots

Reuters reported:

The U.S. health regulator on Monday proposed one dose of the latest updated COVID-19 shot annually for healthy adults, similar to the influenza immunization campaign, as it aims to simplify the country’s COVID-vaccine strategy.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also asked its panel of external advisers to consider the usage of two COVID vaccine shots a year for some young children, older adults and persons with compromised immunity. The regulator proposed the need for routine selection of variants for updating the vaccine, similar to the way strains for flu vaccines are changed annually, in briefing documents ahead of a meeting of its panel on Thursday.

The Biden administration has also been planning for a campaign of vaccine boosters every fall season.

If the panel votes in favor of the proposal, Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N) and Moderna Inc.’s (MRNA.O) bivalent vaccines, which target both the Omicron and the original variants, would be used for all COVID vaccine doses, and not just as boosters.

What We Know About How COVID Vaccines May Affect Menstrual Cycles

The Hill reported:

Since early in the pandemic, women have reported experiencing changes in their menstruation after they got COVID-19 or were vaccinated against it.

A study of almost 4,000 women in the U.S. found that menstrual cycle lengths were extended by about 0.7 days after the first dose and 0.9 days after a second dose. Though the cycles were longer overall, however, researchers did not find a change in how many days women’s periods lasted.

An even larger study of nearly 20,000 women in the U.K. found a similar effect on overall cycle length, but also noted that it was extended for longer in people who got both doses of a vaccine within the same menstrual cycle. For these individuals, their cycle length increased by an average of 3.7 days.

A paper published on Jan. 7 in the Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy reinforced that finding with new data. The authors calculated the difference between predicted and actual menstrual cycle lengths in women in Japan before and after COVID-19 vaccination. Before women were vaccinated, the average difference was about 1.9 days. After two doses of a vaccine, it could be as high as 2.5 days. The change was more pronounced in people who received two vaccine doses within the same cycle, with that group seeing an average difference of 3.9 days.

JPM23: Pfizer, Moderna and More Look to Combine COVID and Flu Vaccine Markets

Fierce Pharma reported:

When Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna swooped in to save the day with pandemic mRNA vaccines, few people — if any — were thinking about the long-term structure of the COVID-19 vaccine market. Now, as vaccination rates decline and government contracts dry up, that future is becoming clearer.

Notably, the top players are aiming to combine their coronavirus vaccines with annual flu shots and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) immunizations. In addition, execs at several vaccine companies said they expect the COVID-19 shot market to gradually shift to something like the flu vaccine business.

Aside from using the flu market as a model, CEO Stéphane Bancel told Bloomberg that Moderna could introduce a combination flu and COVID product as soon as next year. The company could introduce a triple combination shot with the RSV component by 2025 at the earliest, he added.

Moderna isn’t the only company eyeing combination vaccines. GSK, which recently won a European nod for its Sanofi-partnered booster, is also angling for space in the combination market. While analysts were skeptical about recent phase 1 data from GSK and CureVac’s modified COVID and flu shots, the company sees “real interest” in a COVID-flu combination shot, GSK’s chief commercial officer Luke Miels told Fierce Pharma during an interview at JPM.

Speaking of the current options, Pfizer has combo goals as well. The company’s BioNTech-partnered COVID-flu mRNA shot could launch in 2024 or later, according to a company presentation at JPM.

Does COVID Reinfection Bring More Health Risks — or Make You ‘Super Immune’?

The Guardian reported:

A recent study states that COVID-19 reinfections could pose additional risks to people’s long-term health — as compared to only getting COVID once — however, some infectious disease experts in the U.S. disagree that there is evidence showing repeat infections are more dangerous.

“Reinfection is consequential in the sense that if you get COVID again, even if you have had it before and even if you have been vaccinated, that still could put you in the hospital, that still in some cases, can result in death,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, an author of the study who works as a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University and as chief of research at the Veteran Affairs St. Louis Healthcare system.

But Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease epidemiologist and editor-at-large at Kaiser Health News, is among those who said that immunity from a first infection means that a subsequent infection poses a lower risk of such outcomes.

“There is nothing about a reinfection that is more dangerous than an original infection, and if anything, a reinfection is going to be a lower risk because you have some immunity baseline at the time of reinfection,” said Gounder.

‘This Will Happen Before 2030’: How the Science Behind COVID Vaccines Might Help to Fight Cancer

The Guardian reported:

In December 2022, the U.S. biotech firm Moderna, a company that emerged from relative obscurity to become a household name during the pandemic, published the results of a clinical trial that sent ripples through the world of cancer research.

Conducted in partnership with the pharma company MSD, it demonstrated that a messenger RNA (mRNA) cancer vaccine, used in combination with immunotherapy, could offer significant benefits to patients with advanced melanoma who had received surgery to remove their tumors. After a year’s worth of treatment, the phase IIb trial found that the combination reduced the risk of cancer recurrence or death by 44%.

While mRNA has become synonymous with the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech, cancer has long been the ultimate goal of the technology. Now, the NHS has launched a groundbreaking partnership with BioNTech to try and fast-track the development of mRNA cancer vaccines over the next seven years.

As part of the partnership, eligible cancer patients in the U.K. will get early access to clinical trials from autumn 2023 onwards. The hope is that by 2030, these innovative new treatments can be made clinically available to around 10,000 cancer patients.

CDC: XBB.1.5 Grows in U.S. as COVID Cases, Hospitalizations Decline

U.S. News & World Report reported:

The highly contagious Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is spreading in the U.S. while COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the decline, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

XBB.1.5 was responsible for 49% of new coronavirus infections this week, according to CDC estimates. That’s up from 37% of cases last week when the strain surpassed BQ.1.1 to become the top strain circulating in the U.S.

XBB.1.5, which has been called the most transmissible subvariant yet, is the only strain that is increasing in prevalence in the U.S., setting it up to dominate the variant scene in the coming weeks.

COVID, Flu, RSV Declining in Hospitals as ‘Tripledemic’ Threat Fades

The Washington Post reported:

Doctors braced for a dire winter — a looming disaster some dubbed a “tripledemic” — with flu season revving up, coronavirus roaring back and the holidays providing fuel for viruses to spread.

But no such surge materialized. The RSV wave has receded in Connecticut and across the country. Flu cases have rapidly dwindled. COVID hospitalizations rose briefly after Christmas, only to fall again.

The United States is better equipped now than earlier in the pandemic to weather coronavirus surges because most people have some degree of immunity, and early treatment keeps the most vulnerable people from becoming seriously ill.

“As awful as Omicron was, it left in its wake a tremendous amount of immunity,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University School of Public Health.

The Checkup With Dr. Wen: We Need an Honest Accounting of COVID’s Toll

The Washington Post reported:

My column last week on how we are overcounting COVID hospitalizations and deaths drew outrage from both sides. Right-wing commentators claimed that the admission came “two and a half years late.” Some on the left insisted that, based on excess mortality data, COVID-19 deaths are being undercounted.

I agree with both sets of critics in one crucial respect: We must have honest accounting and transparent reporting. That requires acknowledging that data changed over time and that deaths due to the pandemic are not necessarily the same as deaths due to COVID.

This is why we need more rigorous research like what Shira Doron from Tufts Medical Center is spearheading. Hospitals and health departments should use a uniform set of criteria to classify COVID hospitalizations and deaths. The accounting should also be retrospective so that we can put to bed the criticism that severe illness was overcounted all along.

Such analysis is more precise than the often-cited excess mortality data, which measures the number of deaths that surpass the expected number in a given period. It’s tempting to compare the current level of deaths to pre-pandemic mortality and attribute all additional deaths to COVID. But this confuses correlation with causation.

HHS Policy for Monitoring Gain-of-Function Virus Research Unclear, GAO Says

The Hill reported:

A congressional watchdog agency has determined that the oversight carried out by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for research involving highly transmissible viruses such as the coronavirus lacks clarity when it comes to the requirements for such studies and is recommending that the department develop new standards for assessing risk.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted a study of its own looking into federal monitoring of gain-of-function research. This inquiry was prompted by a provision included in the CARES Act that tasked the agency with looking into ongoing efforts to prepare for, respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The GAO said in its report that the oversight carried out under the 2017 framework “does not fully meet key elements of effective oversight.” The framework fell short in terms of transparency and performing reviews, according to the watchdog.

The GAO’s report identified vague language that failed to clearly identify expectations. For instance, even though the framework requires agencies to submit proposals on studies that are “reasonably anticipated to create, transfer or use enhanced potential pandemic pathogens,” it does not explain what “reasonably anticipated” means.

‘Utterly Unprepared’: Larry Summers Says Another COVID-Scale Problem Is a Top Economic Risk

CNBC reported:

Economist Larry Summers would place better than 50-50 odds on the world being shaken by another COVID-scale event within the next 15 years.

The Harvard professor and former U.S. treasury secretary shared what he believes are the world’s biggest near-term risks during a CNBC-moderated panel on the last day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

They included the possibility of the COVID-19 virus mutating again, which he noted that no other panelist had brought up when discussing the global economic outlook.

“I would note that the odds in my view are better than 50-50 that there will be a COVID-scale problem within the next 15 years and that the world is utterly unprepared for that eventuality,” he said.

Unredacted NIH E-Mails Show Efforts to Rule Out a Lab Origin of COVID

The Nation reported:

As COVID-19 was spreading fear and spurring lockdowns across the United States in March 2020, the scientific journal Nature Medicine published a paper titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.” Written by five renowned academic scientists, it played an important early role in shaping the debate about a fiercely controversial topic: the origin of the virus that has killed millions since it emerged in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Did it spill from animals to humans in nature, on a farm or in a market? Or did it leak from a lab like the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading center of coronavirus research in China?

Drawing on “comparative analysis of genomic data,” the paper’s authors wrote that “our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated construct.” Toward the end of the paper, they added, “We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible” in explaining the origin of the virus. Instead, the scientists strongly favored a natural origin, arguing that the virus likely spilled from bats into humans, possibly by way of an intermediate animal host.

One of the paper’s authors, Robert Garry, and several of the paper’s other coauthors were initially suspicious that SARS-CoV-2 may have emerged from a lab. They communicated their suspicions to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Francis Collins, then the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and others in late January and early February 2020, and what ensued was a period of intense and confidential deliberation about the origin of the virus.

Unredacted records obtained by The Nation and The Intercept offer detailed insights into those confidential deliberations. The documents show that in the early days of the pandemic, Fauci and Collins took part in a series of e-mail exchanges and telephone calls in which several leading virologists expressed concern that SARS-CoV-2 looked potentially “engineered.”

Top Pharma CEO Says COVID Likely to Become Endemic, Urges Investment in Pandemic Preparedness

CNBC reported:

The chief executive of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis on Thursday warned the coronavirus pandemic will likely settle into an endemic phase and renewed calls for policymakers to sufficiently finance pandemic preparedness.

“If you look over the last two years, we have populations that have built up immunity, you have a virus that’s continuing to make shifts, but I think what we’re going to settle into is more of an endemic environment with respect to coronaviruses and the COVID virus specifically,” Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Narasimhan, who has previously warned that future pandemics are bound to happen, made clear that world leaders must learn from the coronavirus crisis to be in a better place for future pandemics. “I think what is really important now is we turn our attention to pandemic preparedness for the future,” Narasimhan said.

What to Know About XBB, the New COVID Variant

U.S. News & World Report reported:

The new coronavirus continues to dodge, duck, dip and dive, mutating again and again to find its way past people’s immune defenses. The latest COVID variant to gain a foothold in America is called XBB.1.5, which has rapidly started to crowd out other competing variants.

XBB.1.5 is the first recombinant COVID variant expected to become dominant in the United States, according to the viral surveillance company Helix. This variant is called “recombinant” because it was created by two Omicron subvariants merging through evolution.

The new strain also took two evolutionary steps instead of just one, gaining a mutation for immune evasion as well as an unsuppressed ability to bind to and infect human cells, Helix said in its report.

The XBB.1 variants are dramatically better at evading the neutralizing antibodies in humans that protect against initial infection, according to a new study published on Jan. 18 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Biden’s Push for COVID Boosters in Nursing Homes Had Modest Impact. What Happened?

USA TODAY reported:

Heading into the winter months when COVID-19 cases spike, the Biden administration knew they had a problem. Less than half of nursing home residents across the country, who are at higher risk of serious illness and death from COVID, were up to date on their vaccines.

While offering assistance to get more seniors in senior facilities boosted, the federal government reminded nursing homes they’re required to offer all vaccines, including boosters, to residents and staff and educate them on their benefits. Failure to do so could lead nursing homes to face greater oversight and enforcement actions, the Biden administration said.

Meanwhile, state regulators reported only 378 instances of homes not meeting this requirement during 2022, according to a USA TODAY tabulation of violation reports. Enforcement occurs at the state level, with inspections happening about once a year on a rolling basis for the nation’s more than 15,000 nursing homes.

For most of the year, inspectors issued an average of 36 citations per month for not providing required vaccine education. Just 23 were issued in November and only 7 in December when the White House was pushing this initiative.

WA Medical Board: Idaho Doctor Peddled False COVID Claims

Associated Press reported:

The Washington State Medical Commission has accused a medical doctor in Idaho of violating standards related to COVID-19 and patient care.

The commission said Wednesday it had issued a statement of disciplinary charges against Dr. Ryan Cole of Idaho, who has a license in Washington state as a physician and surgeon. Cole lives in Idaho, has a medical license there and is currently one of Ada County’s appointed members of the Central District Board of Health, KTVB-TV reported.

Cole made false and misleading statements related to the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines, treatments and masks, according to the Washington Medical Commission’s statement of charges.

Republicans Introduce ‘Pandemic Is Over’ Act After Biden’s ‘Unacceptable’ Extension of COVID Emergency

Fox News reported:

More than a dozen House Republicans introduced legislation declaring that the COVID-19 pandemic is over. The Pandemic Is Over Act, from Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., simply states that the public health emergency declared by the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2020 in response to COVID “shall terminate on the date of enactment of this Act.”

Guthrie proposed the bill less than a week after HHS extended the COVID emergency until mid-April. HHS has now maintained the emergency declaration for three years and said last week that a public health emergency exists as a result of the “continued consequences” of COVID.

That decision came more than three months after President Joe Biden declared in an interview that “the pandemic is over.” He also added, however, that America still has a “problem with COVID” and that the administration is “doing a lot of work on it.”