Covid News Watch
Dr. Anthony Fauci Looks Back on Career, COVID and Controversy + More
Dr. Anthony Fauci Looks Back on Career, COVID and Controversy
Dr. Anthony Fauci, preparing to end his high-profile run as chief White House medical adviser, says he is proud of his legacy but laments the vicious political climate surrounding the COVID pandemic.
“I just want people to know that I gave it everything I had and didn’t leave anything on the field. I was all there,” Fauci, 81, said in an interview at his Washington, DC, home that ran Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
“It’s been an amazing journey that all of us have been through and still are in actually,” he added.
Fauci said the timing of the outbreak made things much worse than they might otherwise have been. “It got political very, very quickly because we had the misfortune of an outbreak and a double misfortune of an outbreak in a divided society and the triple misfortune of a divided society in an election year,” he said. “It was a triple whammy.”
Even as Fauci leaves his posts, Republican lawmakers have vowed to investigate the country’s COVID response and ask him to testify if they win back Congress in this year’s midterm elections.
Novavax Has Its Sights Set on the Commercial COVID Vaccine Market
Novavax (NVAX) is awaiting the FDA‘s decision on its COVID-19 vaccine booster, and whether or not the agency will accept the original formula rather than a new variant-specific formula.
However, the company is expecting the FDA to green-light the booster as an option even for those who received other vaccines for their primary or previous booster doses. That’s according to chief commercial officer John Trizzino.
While Novavax already received booster approval in other countries, the U.S. remains a slow market for the company. Trizzino said he expects things to pick up when the U.S. market goes commercial if the public health emergency is declared over sometime next year.
EU Prosecutor’s Office Opens Investigation Into COVID Vaccine Purchases
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into the EU’s coronavirus vaccine purchases, an announcement that will refocus attention on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s role in the matter.
The EPPO is an independent EU body responsible for investigating and prosecuting financial crimes, including fraud, money laundering and corruption. In its announcement on Friday, the EPPO didn’t specify who was being investigated, or which of the EU’s vaccine contracts were under scrutiny.
However, two other watchdog agencies have previously drawn attention to one particular deal involving high-level contacts between Pfizer‘s leadership and von der Leyen. “This exceptional confirmation comes after the extremely high public interest. No further details will be made public at this stage,” said the EPPO in its short announcement.
Belgian Socialist MEP Kathleen van Brempt said that “several aspects” of the Pfizer contract need to be looked into, including “the text messages between the Commission President and the fact that there is no paper trail of the preliminary negotiations in first instance.”
“The [COVID-19] committee will be following this case with great attention,” said van Brempt.
Without a Nasal Vaccine, the U.S. Edge in Fighting COVID Is on the Line
Biden administration officials are raising concerns that the slow pace of developing a nasal vaccine for COVID-19 in the U.S. could pose a security risk as China, Iran and Russia approve their own vaccines taken through the nose or mouth.
Though nasal and oral vaccines are being studied in the U.S., none are close to coming on the market because Congress hasn’t approved more money to support research and development. Big pharmaceutical companies are also not investing in these next-generation vaccines because they don’t see much profit potential.
China already has a COVID vaccine that’s ingested through the mouth. India, Russia and Iran have authorized nasal vaccines. And while none of those have yet been proven to stop COVID transmission, officials say the U.S. could find itself at a global disadvantage, particularly if a deadlier variant emerges.
Even though India, Iran, China and Russia haven’t proved their non-injectable vaccines stop transmission, the potential is there, experts said.
‘Pretty Troublesome’: New COVID Variant BQ.1 Now Makes up 1 in 10 Cases Nationwide, CDC Estimates
In just over a month since a new COVID variant known as BQ.1 was first named, that strain and a descendant called BQ.1.1 have already grown to make up more than 10% of new infections across the country, according to updated estimates published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“When you get variants like that, you look at what their rate of increase is as a relative proportion of the variants, and this has a pretty troublesome doubling time,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, said in an interview with CBS News.
It comes as federal health authorities have been bracing for a widely-expected resurgence of COVID-19 this fall and winter. BQ.1 variants have already outpaced many rival strains in European nations from England to Germany, which have already seen renewed waves begin.
BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 also appear on track to overtake the only other strain that still outnumbers them: BA.4.6, which currently makes up 12.2% of infections. Out of all regions, the New York and New Jersey area has the largest proportion of BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 infections. Around 20% of infections there are already from BQ.1 or BQ.1.1, the CDC estimates.
Moderna Signs Deal on Variant-Adapted COVID Shots for World’s Poorest
Moderna Inc. (MRNA.O) has agreed to provide its new variant-adapted COVID-19 vaccine to the global scheme aiming to deliver shots to the world’s poorest people.
The biotech company and vaccine alliance GAVI will cancel their existing supply deal for vaccines based on the original coronavirus strain. Instead, Moderna will supply up to 100 million doses of its new, variant-adapted vaccines at its lowest available price from 2023.
GAVI leads the COVAX initiative alongside the World Health Organization and other global bodies. The scheme has delivered 1.79 billion doses of the COVID vaccine to 146 countries, including nearly 186 million doses of Moderna’s original shot.
After the Pandemic, Heavy Burdens for a COVID Generation
Ask anyone who has experienced the lingering maladies of the pandemic, and they’ll tell you long COVID is no figment of the imagination. Tiredness, breathlessness, body aches and “brain fog” hang around for millions of people. Some of these symptoms are also common without COVID, and researchers are trying to pin down with precision the lasting damage this virus can do to the human body. They are far from a full understanding.
That’s why a new study in Scotland is important. It was aimed at discovering the frequency, nature, determinants and impact of long COVID on a large scale, to improve on previous partial results in other investigations. The first findings in the Long-COVID in Scotland Study are based on medical records and the experiences of more than 33,000 patients who had laboratory-confirmed COVID and 62,957 who had never been infected. The researchers, Jill P. Pell of the University of Glasgow and colleagues, found about 6% of those infected had “not recovered” and 42% “only partially.”
This reinforces earlier findings that a large segment of people who are infected continue to experience one or more symptoms long after the infection has passed. In a study published in August from the Netherlands, researchers found post-COVID symptoms lingered in about 1 in 8 people.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in a recent large study that 1 in 5 adults from 18 to 64 years old who had COVID, and 1 in 4 ages 65 years and older, had at least one persisting health condition related to their COVID infection. Yet another survey in April put the prevalence at 43%. A new study just published about long COVID in Germany put the prevalence at 28.5%.
Can Long COVID Research Unlock Other Great Medical Mysteries of Our Time?
As the coronavirus grew from a fleeting concern to full-blown panic, Lili Lim started to hear about people for whom the illness lasted weeks or even months. There were news stories of young people that couldn’t shake their fatigue or cognitive malaise, of folks who had to quit their job due to debilitating exhaustion.
Chronic fatigue syndrome and long COVID are both part of a much larger group of illnesses that arise after a viral, or sometimes bacterial, infection. Mononucleosis, HIV, Lyme, Ebola, SARS and many other infections can also have similarly prolonged effects. But experts say attention, funding and research into these post-infectious illnesses has historically been limited, and patients have often had their symptoms minimized or dismissed.
Long COVID has changed that. While millions of people across the world were already living with post-viral illnesses before the pandemic, a 2021 study published by the American Medical Association found that more than half of COVID patients reported symptoms lasting longer than six months.
That means that the pool of potential post-viral illness patients has probably grown many times over during the pandemic. The surge has left scientists scrambling to find answers and unlocking the mysteries of persistent COVID, they say, could translate to further understanding of other post-infectious afflictions as well.
Gates Foundation Pledges $1.2 Billion to Eradicate Polio Globally
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says it will commit $1.2 billion to the effort to end polio worldwide. The money will be used to help implement the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s strategy through 2026. The initiative is trying to end the polio virus in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the last two endemic countries, the foundation said in a statement Sunday.
The money also will be used to stop outbreaks of new variants of the virus. The announcement was made Sunday at the World Health Summit in Berlin.
Despite the billions of dollars that have gone into the effort to eradicate polio since 1988 — the program costs about $1 billion every year — the World Health Organization and partners have missed repeated deadlines to wipe out the disease and have come under sustained criticism for failing to adapt to challenges.
In recent years, for example, there have been more cases of polio linked to the oral vaccine used in eradication efforts than those caused by the wild virus.
Serum Institute to Produce Ebola Vaccine for Use in Uganda Outbreak
The Serum Institute of India plans to manufacture 20,000 to 30,000 doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine by the end of November for use in trials against an outbreak in Uganda, its developers and a company source said.
The response to Uganda’s outbreak has been blunted by the absence of a proven vaccine against the Sudan strain of the virus.
Oxford University, which developed a COVID-19 vaccine with AstraZeneca (AZN.L), has an Ebola vaccine that has been shown to induce an immune response to both the Sudan and Zaire strains in Phase 1 trials.
Its developers said they were working with the Serum Institute to manufacture doses that could be deployed in Uganda as part of a clinical trial once the authorities there gave regulatory approval.
Vaccines to Treat Cancer Possible by 2030, Say BioNTech Founders
Vaccines that target cancer could be available before the end of the decade, according to the husband and wife team behind one of the most successful COVID vaccines of the pandemic.
Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, who co-founded BioNTech, the German firm that partnered with Pfizer to manufacture a revolutionary mRNA COVID vaccine, said they had made breakthroughs that fueled their optimism for cancer vaccines in the coming years.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Prof Türeci described how the mRNA technology at the heart of BioNTech’s COVID vaccine could be repurposed so that it primed the immune system to attack cancer cells instead of invading coronaviruses.
Asked when cancer vaccines based on mRNA might be ready to use in patients, Prof Sahin said they could be available “before 2030.”
U.S. Extends COVID Public Health Emergency Even Though Biden Says Pandemic Is Over + More
U.S. Extends COVID Public Health Emergency Even Though Biden Says Pandemic Is Over
The U.S. has extended the COVID public health emergency through Jan. 11, a clear demonstration that the Biden administration still views COVID as a crisis despite President Joe Biden’s recent claim that the pandemic is over.
The public health emergency, first declared in January 2020 by the Trump administration, has been renewed every 90 days since the pandemic began. The powers activated by the emergency declaration have had a vast impact on the U.S. healthcare system and social safety net, allowing hospitals to act more nimbly when infections surge and keeping millions enrolled in public health insurance.
Biden, in a September television interview, claimed the “pandemic is over” though he said COVID will continue to present a health challenge. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August said high levels of immunity in the U.S., combined with the wide availability of vaccines and treatments, has significantly reduced the threat that COVID poses to the nation’s health.
Poor Mental Health in U.S. Teens Exacerbated by Negative Experiences During COVID Pandemic, Survey Finds
Poor mental health among teens in the United States was a concern before the COVID-19 pandemic, and major disruptions to school and social life since early 2020 have only exacerbated the situation.
A new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that most adolescents experienced negative events during the COVID-19 pandemic — and those experiences were linked to a higher prevalence of poor mental health and suicide attempts.
Nearly three-quarters of high school students in the U.S. reported experiencing at least one adverse childhood experience in 2021, such as physical abuse, emotional abuse, food insecurity or loss of a parent’s job during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also included were electronic bullying, dating violence and sexual violence.
Adolescents experiencing one or two adverse events were more than twice as likely to report poor mental health and nearly six times more likely to report a recent suicide attempt compared with those who did not experience any adverse events.
The Next U.S. COVID Wave Is Coming. Why It Will Be ‘Much Weirder Than Before.’
Unless you’re a real-life virologist — or unless you enjoy playing one on Twitter — it has become pretty much impossible to keep up with all of the latest coronavirus variants. First, they were named after Greek letters, like Omicron. Easy enough. Then came a few short, Star Wars-esque alphanumerics, like BA.5. Fine. But in recent weeks, COVID trackers have suddenly been subjected to a dizzying barrage of BA.4.6s and BF.7s and BA.2.75.2s and BQ.1.1s. There’s even an ominous new sublineage called XBB.
For most Americans — the bulk of whom appear to be “over” COVID anyway — that’s far too many numbers and letters to grasp. Easier to just tune it all out, they say. Call me when there’s another wave on the way. Well, now there might be.
Under the surface, something new — and potentially dangerous for the most vulnerable among us — has been happening: Omicron has started to “splinter.”
What scientists are seeing now is a bunch of worrisome Omicron descendants arising simultaneously but independently in different corners of the globe — all with the same set of advantageous mutations that help them dodge our existing immune defenses and drive new waves of infection.
Fall COVID Surge Could Happen in Pacific Northwest
Health officials in Washington and Oregon said Thursday that a fall and winter COVID surge is likely headed to the Pacific Northwest after months of relatively low case levels.
King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin said during a news briefing that virus trends in Europe show a concerning picture of what the U.S. could soon see, The Seattle Times reported.
“We’re already seeing increasing COVID-19 activity and hospitalizations in many European countries, even before any of the new variants have become dominant,” Duchin said. “This means that the waning immunity, the increasing gathering and the return to pre-COVID activity are leading to a surge in COVID in Europe. This should be a clear warning for us because, in the past, major surges in Europe have been a good predictor of what we can expect to see in the U.S. in about four to six weeks.”
Scientists Find Gene Variant Tied to Better COVID Shot Response
Scientists have identified an immunity gene variant in people with strong responses to COVID-19 vaccines who were less likely to get breakthrough infections, a finding that could improve future shot design.
Individuals carrying the specific gene version generated more antibodies against the coronavirus after receiving vaccines from AstraZeneca Plc or the alliance of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, according to the study published Thursday in the Nature Medicine journal. The same people were less likely than those with different versions of the same gene to get infected with COVID months later, the research found.
Around 3.3 Million Americans Received Updated COVID Boosters Last Week — CDC
Nearly 3.3 million people in the United States received updated COVID-19 booster shots over the past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday.
The CDC said 14.8 million Americans had received the shot as of Oct. 12, in the first six weeks of the booster being available, just 6.9% of the people aged 12 or older who are eligible for the vaccine.
The shots are being administered at a slower pace than last year when the United States initially authorized COVID boosters just for older and immunocompromised people. Over 20 million people had received their third shot in the first six weeks of that vaccination campaign.
On Wednesday, U.S. health regulators authorized the use of Omicron-tailored COVID-19 booster shots from Moderna Inc. (MRNA.O) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N) in children as young as 5 years, a move that is expected to expand the government’s fall vaccination campaign
Uptick in COVID-Related Blood Clots: Is It Real? — What Experts Say About Concerning Social Media Posts From the U.K.
Since the beginning of the year when Omicron took hold in the U.S., physicians across the country have reported seeing fewer instances of blood clotting linked to COVID-19.
However, recent social media postings from members of the medical community in the U.K. — which have served as a harbinger for what’s to come in the U.S. throughout the pandemic — have raised the possibility of a reversal of this trend.
Last week, Graham Lloyd-Jones, MBBS, MRCP, a radiologist with the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust in the U.K., wrote the following on Twitter, sparking an extended thread from other healthcare professionals: “To all #radiologists. Have you seen the typical #COVID pulmonary vasculopathy on CXR/CT in the last week? We’ve not seen this since Omicron became dominant in Feb. ’22. I’m concerned we have a new variant which causes the same clotting in the lungs as Delta/pre-Delta.”
Responses to the post were mixed, with some saying that they had once again seen serious lung involvement with recent COVID cases and others saying they hadn’t yet observed what Lloyd-Jones had alluded to. Even more responded with general concern and questions.
The Masks We’ll Wear in the Next Pandemic
For some pandemic-prevention experts, the takeaway here is that pharmaceutical interventions alone simply won’t cut it. Though shots and drugs may be essential to softening a virus’s blow once it arrives, they are by nature reactive rather than preventive. To guard against future pandemics, what we should focus on, some experts say, is attacking viruses where they’re most vulnerable before pharmaceutical interventions are even necessary.
Specifically, they argue, we should be focusing on the air we breathe. “We’ve dealt with a lot of variants, we’ve dealt with a lot of strains, we’ve dealt with other respiratory pathogens in the past,” Abraar Karan, an infectious-disease physician and global health expert at Stanford, told me. “The one thing that’s stayed consistent is the route of transmission.” The most fearsome pandemics are airborne.
Numerous overlapping efforts are underway to stave off future outbreaks by improving air quality. Many scientists have long advocated for overhauling the way we ventilate indoor spaces, which has the potential to transform our air in much the same way that the advent of sewer systems transformed our water. Some researchers are similarly enthusiastic about the promise of germicidal lighting.
Retrofitting a nation’s worth of buildings with superior ventilation systems or germicidal lighting is likely a long-term mission, though, requiring large-scale institutional buy-in and probably a considerable amount of government funding. Meanwhile, a more niche subgroup has zeroed in on what is, at least in theory, a somewhat simpler undertaking: designing the perfect mask.
Bavarian Nordic Wins Monkeypox Vaccine Order From Switzerland
Bavarian Nordic (BAVA.CO) said on Friday the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health and the Swiss Armed Forces had jointly ordered 100,000 doses of its MVA-BN smallpox and monkeypox vaccine.
The Danish company said in a statement it would seek regulatory approval of the vaccine in the country as part of the deal, and deliveries would start imminently.
Flu off to an Early Start as CDC Warns About Potentially Severe Season
Reports of flu and other respiratory illnesses are higher than what would normally be seen in the U.S. at this time of year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
“We’ve noted that flu activity is starting to increase across much of the country,” especially in the Southeast and south-central U.S., the CDC’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, told NBC News.
Walensky’s warning comes ahead of a CDC report on flu spread expected Friday. It is anticipated that the agency will say that flu and similar viral illnesses are notably high in Arkansas, California, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.
New Data Is out on COVID Vaccine Injury Claims. What’s to Make of It? + More
New Data Is out on COVID Vaccine Injury Claims. What’s to Make of It?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, facing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking a vast trove of data about the safety and side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines, made a pledge in August.
The agency in court papers said that on or before Sept. 30, it would post on its website a “public use” set of data from about 10 million people who signed up for its “v-safe” program — a smartphone-based system that periodically sends people text messages and web surveys to monitor potential side effects from the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines.
But the CDC missed its deadline. A spokesperson cited a delay in “the technical and administrative processes” necessary to post on the agency’s website, but said it hopes to have the information up by late November or early December.
In the meantime, the CDC handed over the v-safe data (minus personal identifying information) to the plaintiff in the FOIA case, the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN, a Texas-based nonprofit that says it opposes “medical coercion” in favor of individual healthcare choices.
ICAN crunched the numbers on its own and came up with some statistics that its lawyer says appear to be “alarming.” According to ICAN, 7.7% of the v-safe users — 782,913 people — reported seeking medical attention via a telehealth appointment, urgent care clinic, emergency room intervention or hospitalization following a COVID-19 vaccine.
COVID Treatment Paxlovid Can Interact With Common Heart Medications, Doctors Warn
COVID-19 patients with a history of cardiovascular disease are at an increased risk of developing severe illness and could benefit most from the COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid — but there’s a catch.
Paxlovid can have dangerous interactions with some of the most common medications for cardiovascular disease, including certain statins and heart failure therapies, a new paper warns.
The review paper, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, lists dozens of cardiovascular medications and whether they are safe to give along with Paxlovid or whether they could have interactions.
The review paper says that interactions between Paxlovid and certain blood thinners can cause an increased risk of bleeding. Interactions between Paxlovid and some cholesterol medications such as statins can be toxic to the liver, and interactions between Paxlovid and certain blood pressure medications could cause low blood pressure, flushing and swelling.
‘No F***Ing Evidence’: Russell Brand Blasts Biden, Pfizer After Exec Admits COVID Vaccine Was Never Tested to Stop Transmission
Podcaster Russell Brand blasted President Joe Biden and Pfizer after a top executive with the company admitted they “never tested transmission efficacy” of their COVID vaccine in the trials.
During Rumble’s “Stay Free with Russell Brand” podcast Wednesday, the host opened the show by pointing out that Janine Small, Pfizer’s president of international developed markets, testified before the European Union Parliament and admitted the company “never even trialed the vaccine” to test its efficacy to stop the spread of COVID “before it entered the market.”
“Isn’t that the most extraordinary thing,” Brand said. “After for a couple of years, hearing that if you’re an unvaccinated person you are irresponsible. I believe Joe Biden for example said this is a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated.’”
Brand then questioned if others were seeing the story on places like CNN and the BBC, and said one has to wonder why this isn’t news. Brand later dove deeper into to the story, playing a clip of the Pfizer executive laughing as she admitted it wasn’t tested because they had to “move at the speed of science.”
A New COVID Surge Could Hit the U.S. Soon Following European Wave
Europe is already entering a new wave of COVID-19, according to a joint statement released on Wednesday from the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Control.
“We’ve seen with other waves or bumps that they often start in Europe and then come to the U.S.,” said Dr. Jennifer Lighter, pediatric infectious disease specialist at NYU Langone, adding that this usually happens within two to three weeks.
The Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants still make up the majority of these cases, said Lighter, though other variants are cropping up around the world, such as BA2.75, which is more transmissible and less responsive to antivirals and vaccines. “We’re not really seeing the variant BA2.75 take hold yet,” said Lighter.
‘Zero Scent’: Could Negative Reviews of Smelly Candles Hint at a COVID Surge?
Yankee Candle calls itself “America’s favorite brand of premium scented candles”, and offers over 600 fragrances, like “Spiced pumpkin” and “Warm apple pie” designed to fill your living room with homey holiday vibes.
Days before Thanksgiving 2020, a Twitter user pointed out a sharp rise in negative reviews complaining the famously pungent candles had no smell. Could it be a hidden sign of the COVID wave, the user wondered? In total, the candles have well over 100,000 reviews on Amazon — a potentially rich trove of epidemiological data.
That off-the-cuff tweet led to a flood of jokes, but has since been validated by scholarly research: there is indeed a correlation between COVID cases and the number of reviews complaining that Yankee Candles don’t have a smell. In early 2022, the rise of negative reviews mirrored official case counts.
Pfizer: Early Trial Data Suggests Updated COVID Booster Protects Against Omicron
U.S. News & World Report reported:
The updated COVID-19 booster shots from Pfizer showed a “substantial increase” in Omicron-neutralizing antibodies, according to early trial data from the company.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech reported on Thursday that the shots elicit more antibodies that fight the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 than the original coronavirus shot one week after the shots were administered. The shot was well tolerated with positive safety data similar to that of the original vaccine, according to Pfizer.
The updated shots from Pfizer and Moderna were granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in August before human trial data was available. The agency on Wednesday expanded the authorization to children as young as 5 years old.
The Biden administration has been pushing the updated shots ahead of an expected fall and winter COVID-19 surge. But fewer than 5% of the eligible population had gotten the booster by the end of last week, signaling that uptake of the vaccine could be an uphill battle.
Novavax Says COVID Booster Dose Shows Benefit Against Omicron Variants
Novavax Inc. (NVAX.O) said on Wednesday data from studies in adults and adolescents showed that the booster dose of its COVID vaccine produced robust antibodies against several Omicron variants, including BA.1, BA.2 and BA.5.
The data was from two studies — a late-stage study evaluating the booster in adults and adolescents who had received Novavax primary vaccination and another study testing it in those aged 18 to 49 who had received primary series of Novavax vaccine or other authorized or approved vaccines.
The company said ongoing trials are studying the efficacy of the vaccine against variants including BA.4 and BA.5.
Nearly Half of Long COVID Sufferers Still Haven’t Recovered Months Later
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Nearly one of every 20 people who had COVID still hasn’t recovered completely from their initial infection six to 18 months later, a new study shows, while another 42% say they have only recovered partially from their bout with the virus.
The study was launched in May 2021 to understand the long-term impact of COVID-19 infection by comparing it with the health and well-being of people who had not been infected.
Exactly what symptoms people with long COVID were experiencing were varied, but the condition had an impact on all aspects of daily life and reduced people’s overall quality of life. The most commonly reported symptoms were breathlessness, chest pain, palpitations and brain fog.
In Drawn-out Recovery, NYC Inches out From COVID’s Shadow
As kids returned to school last month, people watching New York City pull itself out of COVID-19′s shadow wondered whether workers who fled Manhattan’s office towers during the pandemic would finally return in a rush, too.
More workers did return to their offices, at least part time, as the summer ended, limited data suggests. But the onset of autumn has also made it clearer than ever that the recovery will be drawn out, and that some aspects of the city’s economic ecosystem could be changed for good.
“The pandemic (is) almost done, nobody uses a mask now, and you can go to the subway and the bus without masks, and people still don’t come,” said Emad Ahmed, 58, who for more than two decades has worked in lower Manhattan, running his food cart on a plaza near Wall Street and the World Trade Center. It’s “absolutely not like before.”
A survey of Manhattan companies put out by the Partnership for New York City last month found that on an average day, just under half of Manhattan office workers were in their offices as of the beginning of September. But when it comes to being back in the office full time, only 9% of workers were, with the largest group, 37%, in for three days a week. Sixteen percent of workers were still completely remote.
Indonesia Launches Its First Home-Grown COVID Vaccines
Indonesia’s leader launched the country’s first home-grown COVID-19 shot Thursday to help reduce the world’s fourth most populous nation’s dependency on imported vaccines.
President Joko Widodo announced the vaccine brand, IndoVac, as a new milestone of Indonesia’s pharmaceutical industry that will manufacture primary series vaccines, booster vaccines and vaccines for children, which have been in development since November 2021.
“From now on, we can produce our own COVID-19 vaccine,” Widodo said in an unveiling ceremony in West Java’s Bandung city. “And so we have independence in vaccine matters.”
WHO Calls for More International Aid to Prevent Ebola From Spreading Beyond Uganda
The World Health Organization is working with Uganda to prevent a deadly Ebola outbreak in the East African nation from spreading to neighboring nations, the global health agency’s chief said on Wednesday.
Health authorities in Uganda have identified 74 confirmed and probable cases of Ebola across five districts, according to the WHO. At least 39 people have died from the disease and 14 others have recovered from the disease. More than 660 people who were possibly exposed to the virus are under active follow-up.
The CDC issued an alert last week telling local health departments and physicians to be on the lookout for patients who have symptoms. Healthcare professionals should obtain detailed travel histories from patients suspected of having the disease, particularly those who have been in the affected areas of Uganda. The U.K. Health Security Agency has issued a similar alert in Britain.
CDC Recommends COVID Omicron Booster Shots for Kids as Young as 5 + More
CDC Recommends COVID Omicron Booster Shots for Kids as Young as 5 Years Old
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday recommended the new Omicron boosters for kids as young as age 5, allowing pharmacists to soon start administering the shots.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on the shots just hours after the Food and Drug Administration authorized them. Walensky made the swift decision without a meeting of the CDC’s independent panel of vaccine experts.
Children ages 5 to 11 are eligible for Pfizer’s Omicron shots and kids ages 6 through 17 are eligible for Moderna’s shots two months after receiving their primary series or previous booster with the first-generation vaccines.
Pharmacies can start administering the shots as soon they have doses. Pfizer said it will ship to up 6 million booster doses for kids within the next week, according to a company statement.
Former French Presidential Candidate Says COVID Vaccine ‘Almost Killed Me’
A former French presidential candidate claimed that he underwent several operations and nearly died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
Jean Lassalle told NTD Television, a sister media of The Epoch Times, that he underwent four operations since January 2022 and blamed the COVID-19 vaccine, saying it nearly killed him after it “distorted his heart.” Lassalle represented the fourth constituency of the Pyrenees-Atlantiques department in the National Assembly for several decades before he ran for president.
When asked why he took the COVID-19 shot, he said that he was a member of Parliament and “didn’t want to give the feeling that I wasn’t doing my job” before alleging that French President Emmanuel Macron “was not vaccinated.” He did not elaborate.
Can’t Make This Up — Moderna CEO Announces Development of New mRNA ‘Injection’ to Repair Heart Muscle After a Heart Attack
Ever since the experimental COVID-19 vaccine’ was introduced, a staggering and horrifying phenomenon has been sweeping the Western world. We have seen it happen to athletes, performers, musicians, news anchors, soldiers, high schoolers, healthcare workers, random people, politicians and so on. People have been dropping to the ground like flies because of heart-related issues that are, in virtually every case, caused by an adverse reaction to the mRNA jab.
It’s undeniable; the rise in these life-threatening incidents has a clear and proven culprit (as numerous studies have shown a clear link between the mRNA spike protein and the litany of complications that are arising). not only that, but people are dying at an unprecedented rate. The evidence has become so overwhelming that, as of this week, Florida’s Surgeon General has even come out and recommended that people refrain from taking the vaccine because it causes a massive 84% spike in cardiac-related death in males aged 18-39.
This week, the vaccine maker Moderna officially announced it has developed a ‘cure’ for the tyrannical medical-industrial complex’s latest manufactured health crisis.
In the wake of all of the cardiac-related death and sickness caused by the first iterations of the experimental mRNA vaccine, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel revealed the company’s new treatment for heart attacks — another mRNA injection! This time, however, instead of going into your arm, it will be shot directly into the heart muscle… For maximum damage effect, of course.
Merck Opts to Develop, Sell Cancer Vaccine With Moderna
Merck & Co Inc. (MRK.N) opted to jointly develop and potentially sell a personalized mRNA vaccine with Moderna Inc. (MRNA.O) for a $250 million upfront payment on Wednesday, sending the vaccine maker’s shares up over 8%.
Moderna’s experimental vaccine is being tested in combination with Merck’s blockbuster cancer immunotherapy, Keytruda, in a mid-stage trial to treat patients with melanoma. Data on the vaccine, mRNA-4157, is expected in the fourth quarter of this year.
With the size of the COVID-19 vaccine market expected to contract in subsequent years from the levels seen in 2021, Moderna has been pinning its hopes on its non-COVID vaccines which include influenza and respiratory syncytial virus shots.
The cancer vaccine is tailored for each patient to generate T-cells, a key part of the body’s immune response, based on the specific mutational signature of a tumor. In 2016, Merck and Moderna entered a strategic partnership to develop a personalized vaccine for the treatment of various types of cancer.
‘Scandalous’: Pfizer Exec Tells EU Lawmaker COVID Jab Was Never Tested to Show It Blocked Transmission
A top Pfizer executive’s admission Monday to European lawmakers that the pharmaceutical giant never tested its COVID vaccine to determine if it stopped transmission is raising new questions about the global effort to compel people to get the jabs.
Janine Small, Pfizer’s president of international developed markets, made the stunning admission while testifying before the European Union Parliament. She was asked by European Union Member of Parliament Rob Roos if the company tested its mRNA vaccine on stopping transmission before rolling it out.
Small, who was sent to testify when Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla declined, said the company didn’t have time to see if its vaccine would stop the spread of COVID. She said no such tests were conducted because the world was facing a health crisis, and insisted that the vaccine, which Pfizer believes protects people from getting COVID, or at least makes it less deadly if they do, had to be made quickly available.
Roos, who represents the Netherlands, later shared a clip of Small’s response on Twitter and said it showed that the global campaign to force vaccination to protect others was built on a lie.
What Is XBB? The New ‘Immune-Evasive’ COVID Strain That Combines Omicron Variants Is Driving Cases in Two Countries
New variants of the rapidly mutating coronavirus are still popping up around the world, and a new iteration of COVID on the rise in Asia may be the most immune-evasive yet.
The XBB strain is causing a small surge in cases in countries like Bangladesh and Singapore. The latter has recorded a daily average of about 5,500 cases over the past week, compared to a daily average of 2,000 cases a month ago.
Experts are paying close attention to the XBB strain, which combines two different Omicron strains. Eric Topol, the founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, tweeted that XBB is one “of the most important variants [to] watch right now.”
White House: Get New Booster by Halloween for Safer Holidays
The White House on Tuesday said eligible Americans should get the updated COVID-19 boosters by Halloween to have maximum protection against the coronavirus by Thanksgiving and the holidays, as it warned of a “challenging” virus season ahead.
So far the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says only about 11.5 million Americans have received the updated shots, which are meant to provide a boost of protection against both the original strain of COVID-19 and the BA.5 variant that is dominant around the world.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 coordinator, criticized Congress, which has refused the White House’s $22 billion budget request for virus response, saying that has kept the U.S. from building a stockpile of tests to use in the event of a new winter surge.
Europe Likely Entering Another COVID Wave, Says WHO and ECDC
Another wave of COVID-19 infections may have begun in Europe as cases begin to tick up across the region, the World Health Organization and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Wednesday.
“Although we are not where we were one year ago, it is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is still not over,” WHO’s Europe director, Hans Kluge, and ECDC’s director, Andrea Ammon, said in a joint statement.
WHO’s region-wise data showed that only Europe recorded a rise in COVID-19 cases in the week ended Oct. 2, clocking an increase of 8% from the prior week.
Public health experts have warned that vaccine fatigue and confusion over available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake in the region
Vaccine Trials on Sudan Ebola Strain to Start in Weeks — WHO Chief
World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday a clinical trial of vaccines that could potentially combat the Sudan strain of Ebola driving an outbreak in Uganda could start within weeks.
The East African country declared an outbreak of Ebola on Sept. 20 and said infections were being caused by the Sudan strain. Uganda’s health ministry has confirmed a total of 54 Ebola cases and 19 deaths.
In a virtual address to a meeting of African regional health officials in Uganda’s capital Kampala, Tedros said several vaccines are currently being developed that could deal with the Sudan strain.
Tedros did not give details of the vaccines due for trial including their names or which firms developed them.
