Covid News Watch
On Drug Prices, Big Pharma Is in Charge — Not Joe Biden + More
On Drug Prices, Big Pharma Is in Charge — Not Joe Biden
President Joe Biden recently flaunted having “beat Pharma this year.” But on a policy that would immediately lower drug prices for millions of Americans, he is losing — and badly.
For decades, Americans have overpaid for expensive prescription drugs available at significantly lower prices — an average 66% discount for brand-name originator drugs — right across the border in Canada. The pharmaceutical industry, or “Pharma,” wants to keep it that way, stymying any effort to give Americans access to drugs at those lower prices.
Congress addressed this issue comprehensively in the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, which authorized the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to approve plans for the safe and cost-effective importation of prescription drugs from Canada. The statute was a bipartisan affair, enacted with a filibuster-proof majority of more than 60 senators.
At first, Biden seemed to agree. He made a campaign promise to allow prescription drug importation from Canada. He then issued an executive order directing his administration to facilitate it by following the statute Congress prescribed. But despite repeated requests by Florida — the first state to submit an importation plan — for approval to begin, nothing has happened.
Why the delay? The most plausible explanation is the most obvious one. The FDA is following orders from Pharma, not Biden.
COVID: Young, Healthy People May Not Need Bivalent Boosters, Vaccine Expert Says
One of the country’s top vaccine experts has stirred debate in recent weeks by suggesting that not everyone should get the latest COVID-19 vaccine boosters and that the CDC is “overselling” the new shot.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA’s committee of outside vaccine experts, told Yahoo Finance there are three main groups of people who will benefit the most from the bivalent booster based on current evidence — those who are older than 75, have chronic diseases or are immunocompromised.
“We’re not going to be able to stop mild illness, we’re not going to be able to stop transmission and to try and do that with frequent boosters … doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Offit said. That’s because boosters only buy a few extra months of protection against mild illness before the antibodies wane, he said, and studies have shown that the vaccines do not necessarily prevent transmission.
He added that epidemiologists and immunologists still need to figure out how long the original three doses protect against severe disease and death. Meanwhile, data is missing to support the fourth dose with the bivalent shots for all adults.
Two Cases Show COVID Virus Mutating Around Standard Treatment Remdesivir
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Patients with weakened immune systems could be inadvertently helping COVID-19 develop resistance to the antiviral drug remdesivir, a new study reports.
After lengthy COVID infections, two kidney transplant patients on immune-suppressing drugs to prevent organ rejection developed a mutated version of SARS-CoV-2 resistant to remdesivir, according to researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Long Island School of Medicine.
“It is possible that the antiviral treatment itself, combined with the patients’ weakened immune systems, may have driven the evolution of this concerning mutation,” said lead author Dr. John Hogan, an assistant professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health.
A weak immune system enables COVID-19 to remain in the body longer, copy itself and continually change in ways that flout existing treatments, the study authors said. Both patients were initially infected with a version of COVID-19 that responded normally to remdesivir, according to the investigators.
‘Breakthrough’ Infections After COVID Vaccine Can Help Prevent Future Illness
U.S. News & World Report reported:
It’s very frustrating to get a COVID-19 vaccine and then wind up catching the virus anyway. But these breakthrough infections actually do you a world of good, providing a powerful boost to your existing vaccine-induced immune protection, a new study reports.
People infected after getting a basic two-dose COVID vaccination experienced an immune response equal in power and effectiveness to receiving a third booster, researchers reported recently in the journal Med.
This boost is particularly potent for older folks, whose waning immune systems tend to produce shorter-lasting responses to the COVID vaccine, said Dr. Marcel Curlin. He’s an associate professor of infectious diseases at Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine (OHSU) in Portland.
The immune responses found three months after a third vaccine dose wound up being comparable to those found one month after a breakthrough infection, researchers found. These findings help explain why breakthrough infections are growing milder, said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Big COVID Waves May Be Coming, New Omicron Strains Suggest
Nearly 3 years into the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 faces a formidable challenge: finding new ways around the immunity humans have built up through vaccines and countless infections. Worrisome new data show it is up to the challenge. Several new and highly immune-evasive strains of the virus have caught scientists’ attention in recent weeks; one or more may well cause big, new COVID-19 waves this fall and winter.
“We can say with certainty that something is coming. Probably multiple things are coming,” says Cornelius Roemer, who studies viral evolution at the University of Basel.
The strains that look poised to drive the latest comeback are all subvariants of Omicron, which swept the globe over the past year. Several derived from BA.2, a strain that succeeded the initial BA.1 strain of Omicron but then was itself outcompeted in most places by BA.5, which has dominated in recent months. One of these, BA.2.75.2, seems to be spreading quickly in India, Singapore and parts of Europe. Other new immune-evading strains have evolved from BA.5, including BQ.1.1, which has been spotted in multiple countries around the globe.
Despite their different origins, several of the new strains have chanced upon a similar combination of mutations to help scale the wall of immunity — a striking example of convergent evolution. They all have changes at half a dozen key points in the viral genome that influence how well neutralizing antibodies from vaccination or previous infection bind to the virus, says evolutionary biologist Jesse Bloom of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
Jami Josefson: After a Pandemic Boom in Child Obesity, It’s Time for Families to Recommit to Health
Get outside. Eat healthy food. Keep moving. That all sounds easy enough, right? Such pithy directives for a healthy lifestyle are now so common that they’ve become a kind of white noise in our daily lives. But as kids return to school this fall, it’s the perfect time for families to recommit to their physical and mental health.
There’s some urgency in my recommendation. Many families are still grappling with the secondary physical and psychosocial health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic — including an alarming surge in obesity and Type 2 diabetes among children.
As a pediatric endocrinologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital, I’ve seen firsthand an explosion of child obesity among our patients during the pandemic. My colleagues and I have also observed an alarming increase in children with new-onset Type 2 diabetes, which is directly related to the widespread weight gain among our patients.
In a recent study published in the Journal of Diabetes, my colleagues found that diagnoses of Type 2 diabetes at Lurie increased nearly 300% from the pre-pandemic annual mean. Black and Hispanic children represented the majority of diagnoses, which likely reflects the persistent societal inequities in access to healthy food and other resources.
Biden’s Request for Emergency COVID, Monkeypox Funds Missing From Funding Bill
A White House request for emergency funding to support coronavirus and monkeypox response efforts is missing from the recent must-pass spending bill rolled out by Senate Democrats after staunch GOP opposition.
The White House pushed for billions in funding to bolster those efforts as part of a short-term funding bill Congress is aiming to pass this week to avert a government shutdown.
Mounting Evidence Shows Autoimmune Responses Play a Significant Role in Long COVID
Disease experts say it has become increasingly clear that an autoimmune response, in which antibodies attack the body’s own healthy cells and tissue, plays an important role in some long-COVID cases.
The latest evidence for this came in a study published last week in the European Respiratory Journal. It found that people who had long-lasting COVID symptoms were more likely to have markers of autoimmune disease in their blood than people who’d recovered quickly from the coronavirus or had never gotten infected.
The researchers took blood samples from 106 people who’d gotten COVID, at 3, 6 and 12 months after their diagnosis (though by the end, only 57 patients were participating). They compared the samples to those from healthy people and people who’d had other types of respiratory infections at the beginning of the study.
U.S. FDA to Review Fewer Emergency Use Requests for COVID Tests
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it will now review only a small number of emergency use authorization requests for COVID tests that are likely to have a significant benefit to public health, including fulfilling an unmet need.
The agency is revising its COVID-19 test policy in light of the current manufacturing status and the number of cases, it said, adding companies seeking EUA for their COVID tests will have to now apply for the agency’s traditional pre-market review process.
Last week, federal investigators found that the regulator’s decision to accept all EUA requests in the early months of the pandemic resulted in some ‘problematic tests on the market’ and recommended the FDA revise its EUA policies for the tests.
Women Said COVID Shots Affect Periods. A New Study Shows They’re Right. + More
Women Said COVID Shots Affect Periods. A New Study Shows They’re Right.
Not long after the rollout of coronavirus vaccines last year, women around the country began posting on social media about what they believed was a strange side effect: changes to their periods.
Now, new research shows that many of the complaints were valid. A study of nearly 20,000 people around the world shows that getting vaccinated against COVID can change the timing of the menstrual cycle. Overall, vaccinated people experienced, on average, about a one-day delay in getting their periods, compared with those who hadn’t been vaccinated.
The data, published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal, was taken from a popular period tracking app called Natural Cycles and included people from around the world, but most were from North America, Britain and Europe. The researchers used “de-identified” data from the app to compare menstrual cycles among 14,936 participants who were vaccinated and 4,686 who were not.
Researchers don’t know exactly why the vaccines seem to affect menstrual cycles, but Alison Edelman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University, who led the study, said that the immune and reproductive systems are linked and that inflammation or a strong immune response could trigger menstrual fluctuation.
Any change in getting your period can be stressful, triggering worries about an unplanned pregnancy or a health scare, and people have expressed frustration that public health officials didn’t warn them about a possible side effect or do more research before rolling out the vaccines.
Study Tries to See if Child Vaccines and Asthma Are Linked
A number of scientists have wondered if aluminum, a vaccine additive that has been used for decades, had a role in allergies and asthma in children.
A new federally funded study has found a possible link, but experts say the research has important shortcomings and is not a reason to change current vaccine recommendations. The study doesn’t claim aluminum causes the breathing condition, and officials say more work is needed to try to confirm any connection, which hadn’t been seen in earlier research.
The study, released Tuesday, suggests that young children who were vaccinated with most or all of the recommended aluminum-containing vaccines had at least a 36% higher risk of being diagnosed with persistent asthma than kids who got fewer vaccines.
Aluminum has been used in some vaccines since the 1930s, as an ingredient — called an adjuvant — that provokes stronger immune protection.
Fauci Finally Admits He and His Team ‘Botched’ Aspects of U.S. Response to COVID
Dr. Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. That means his job — his one job — is to handle a severe outbreak of an infectious disease.
But Fauci now reportedly admits he and his team “botched” certain aspects of how to handle COVID after it hit the U.S. in March 2020, including his flip-flopping on the efficacy of masks and the lengthy time it took to make rapid tests available nationwide.
Fauci also admitted at the Texas Tribune festival last week that he knew the “draconian” COVID policies he advocated for would lead to “collateral negative consequences” for the “economy” and for “schoolchildren.”
But, of course, Fauci had some blame to spread around, citing the “divisiveness” of “social media” for his flip-flopping.
Just 1.5% of Eligible People Have Gotten Updated COVID Booster
Only 1.5% of those eligible to receive the new COVID booster jab — which was tested on just 8 mice, not humans, before the FDA approved it — have taken the updated shot, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Approximately 4.4 million people have taken the tweaked booster shot from Pfizer and Moderna after they were rolled out three weeks ago around Labor Day weekend. The bivalent shots were designed to target both the original COVID-19 strain and the currently circulating Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, NBC News reports.
“I would expect a much higher proportion of Americans to have gotten the booster by this point,” said Yale Medicine infectious diseases specialist, Dr. Scott Roberts, who said the relatively low uptake was “demoralizing.”
“The fact that this booster came out days before Biden said the pandemic is over is a huge mixed message,” said Roberts, who added that a lack of public awareness surrounding the shots — or the ‘prevailing narrative that the pandemic is ending’ might have hindered the rollout. “Now it’s going to be that much harder to convince those at risk who are on the fence to get a booster.”
Rising COVID Cases in the U.K. May Be a Warning for the U.S.
There are signs that the United Kingdom could be heading into a fall COVID-19 wave, and experts say the United States may not be far behind.
A recent increase in COVID-19 cases in England doesn’t seem to be driven by a new coronavirus variant, at least for now, although several are gaining strength in the U.S. and across the pond.
“Generally, what happens in the U.K. is reflected about a month later in the U.S. I think this is what I’ve sort of been seeing,” said Dr. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at Kings College London.
Spector runs the Zoe Health Study, and says the study, which has been running since the days of the first lockdown in England in 2020, has accurately captured the start of each wave, and its numbers run about one to two weeks ahead of official government statistics. After seeing a downward trend for the past few weeks, the Zoe study saw a 30% increase in reported COVID-19 cases within the past week.
Five Things About COVID We Still Don’t Understand at Our Peril
Since a new coronavirus launched the global pandemic that has now killed more than 6.5 million people — 16% of them in the United States alone — scientists in record numbers have devoted themselves full time to unraveling its mysteries.
In less than three years, researchers have published more than 200,000 studies about the virus and COVID-19. That is four times the number of scientific papers written on influenza in the past century and more than 10 times the number written on measles.
Still, the virus has kept many of its secrets, from how it mutates so rapidly to why it kills some while leaving others largely unscathed — mysteries that if solved might arm the world’s scientists with new strategies to curb its spread and guard against the next pandemic.
Scientists have found very similar viruses in horseshoe bats living in remote caves in Laos, southern China, and other parts of Southeast Asia. So far, though, no one has succeeded in drawing a line between the viruses in bats and the Huanan Seafood Market, which sold and butchered live animals in Wuhan, China, and where many scientists believe the virus first spilled over into people.
U.S. FDA Clears Additional Lots of Moderna’s COVID Booster Amid Shortage
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday it has authorized an additional five batches of Moderna Inc.’s (MRNA.O) updated COVID booster shots made at a Catalent facility in Indiana after it deemed them safe for use.
Last week, the health regulator allowed the use of ten batches of Moderna’s updated booster shots made at the Bloomington, Indiana facility, owned by a unit of Catalent Inc. (CTLT.N), which is currently not a part of the company’s emergency use authorization.
The FDA had earlier said Moderna had requested authorization for additional batches in light of the current supply issues. It did not provide details on the number of doses cleared in both instances.
Pfizer/BioNTech Seek FDA Nod for New COVID Boosters for Children + More
Pfizer/BioNTech Seek FDA Nod for New COVID Boosters for Children
Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N) and its German partner BioNTech on Monday sought the U.S. Food and Drug Administration‘s authorization for an Omicron-tailored COVID-19 vaccine booster for children aged 5 through 11 years.
The application comes just days after Moderna (MRNA.O) also applied for FDA authorization of its own Omicron-targeting shot in adolescents aged 12 to 17 years and children aged six to 11.
The applications represent a step towards getting children vaccinated by a so-called bivalent vaccine, which targets both the original strain of the virus and the circulating BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron.
Did a Famous Doctor’s COVID Shot Make His Cancer Worse?
Having received two doses of Pfizer the prior spring, Michel Goldman, a Belgian immunologist and one of Europe’s best-known champions of medical research, 67, quickly went to get his third. If he was about to spend months absorbing poison as he tried to beat a deadly cancer, at least he’d have the most protection possible from the pandemic.
Within a few days, though, Michel was somehow feeling even worse. His night sweats got much more intense, and he found himself — quite out of character — taking afternoon naps. Most worryingly, his lymph nodes were even more swollen than before.
Serge, his younger brother, the head of nuclear medicine at the hospital of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where both men are professors, spoke with Michel after having seen the scans. (“I will always remember his face, it was just incredible,” Michel told me.) The pictures showed a brand-new barrage of cancer lesions — so many spots that it looked like someone had set off fireworks inside Michel’s body. More than that, the lesions were now prominent on both sides of the body, with new clusters blooming in Michel’s right armpit in particular, and along the right side of his neck.
Michel felt a gnawing worry that his COVID booster shot had somehow made him sicker. His brother was harboring a similar concern. The asymmetrical cluster of cancerous nodes around Michel’s left armpit on the initial scan had already seemed “a bit disturbing,” as his brother said; especially given that Michel’s first two doses of vaccine had been delivered on that side. Now he’d had a booster shot in the other arm, and the cancer’s asymmetry was flipped.
‘You’re Not Alone’: Suicide Attempts Among Teen Girls Increased 50% During Pandemic, CDC Finds
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 24 in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 2019, the number of teenage girls who have been suicidal has increased 50%, according to the CDC.
Samantha Quigneaux, a family therapist at Newport Healthcare, said it’s getting worse because of “the pressure of the return to normalcy.”
“We’re trying to get back to normal when we’ve all lost out on some skills,” Quigneaux said. She says parents should look for changes in behavior, such as isolating from friends, substance use, self-harm or eating disorders. It’s “absolutely” OK to talk with your child about suicide, she said.
Exclusive: Bill Gates Reveals the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Aims to Run for Just 25 More Years
Bill Gates is putting a timeline on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which he co-chairs with his ex-wife, fellow billionaire Melinda French Gates. Speaking at the 2022 Forbes 400 Philanthropy Summit, the Microsoft founder-turned-philanthropist announced the foundation plans to wrap up in 25 years.
“The goal for the foundation is to run for another 25 years,” Gates said in the keynote conversation with Forbes’ Chief Content Officer Randall Lane. The aim over the next quarter-century? “Try and bring infectious disease, or all of the diseases that make the world inequitable, to bring those largely to an end, either through eradication or getting them down to very low levels.”
Gates, who predicted a pandemic back in 2015 and became famous around the world for his views on COVID-19, said he still doesn’t have a solution for misinformation and conspiracy theories. He’s even had people approach him on the street to yell at him, accusing him of tracking people with microchips.
Is COVID ‘Under Control’ in the U.S.? Experts Say Yes
President Joe Biden caused a stir in a “60 Minutes” interview on Sept. 18 when he declared that the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
There remains some debate among public health experts about whether the pandemic is “over” — or whether it realistically can ever be. There is no official arbiter for making that decision, and the word “over” suggests a finality that is not well suited for describing a pathogen that will exist in some form indefinitely.
However, we found broad agreement among infectious-disease specialists that the pandemic by now is “under control.”
Is the Pandemic Over? Pre-COVID Activities Americans Are (and Are Not) Resuming.
Two-and-a-half years into the coronavirus’s deadly spread, after nearly all government-imposed restrictions have been lifted, as many businesses urge or require workers to come back to their offices, President Biden declared last week that “the pandemic is over.” Yet even as the passion to get back to normal overrides years of caution, many Americans remain conflicted and confounded about what activities are safe.
Americans are coming out of the pandemic in the same kind of dynamic disarray that marked its beginning, with a crazyquilt of contradictory decisions about how to spend their discretionary time and money: Americans are flying again, but they’re not too keen on getting back aboard buses, subways and other public transit. Concert tickets are being snapped up, but theater tickets, not so much. In-person visits to medical doctors have returned to pre-pandemic levels, but mental health counseling remains overwhelmingly virtual.
As they choose which activities to resume, people’s priorities have varied, resulting in an economic and social hodgepodge — a country still in flux and a comeback that remains spotty.
Pfizer CEO Tests Positive for COVID for a Second Time
Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N) Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said on Saturday he had tested positive for COVID-19.
Bourla, 60, back in August had contacted COVID and had started a course of the company’s oral COVID-19 antiviral treatment, Paxlovid.
Bourla has received four doses of the COVID vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech (22UAy.DE).
The chief executive said he has not yet taken the new bivalent booster. “I’ve not had the new bivalent booster yet, as I was following CDC guidelines to wait three months since my previous COVID case which was back in mid-August,” Bourla added.
Fight to End Virus Pandemic Takes Place on UN’s Sidelines
In four days of fiery speeches over war, climate change and the threat of nuclear weapons, one issue felt like an afterthought during this year’s U.N. General Assembly: the coronavirus pandemic.
Masks were often pulled below chins — or not worn at all — and any mention of COVID-19 by world leaders typically came at the tail-end of a long list of grievances. But on the sidelines of the annual meeting, the pandemic was still very much part of the conversation.
On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gathered with World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell and others to discuss equitable access to COVID vaccines, tests and treatments.
Key to closing those gaps, according to Guterres, is countering misinformation about vaccines and overcoming hesitancy while also increasing testing to snuff out the potential for more variants. The world also needs early warning systems for pandemics and must ensure a well-paid and well-supplied workforce in the healthcare sector.
Drug Treatment Center Admissions Fell 23% During COVID
Admissions to drug treatment facilities fell by more than 23% during the pandemic as substance use disorders and overdose deaths rose, a new analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows.
What they found: Almost every state saw fewer patients seek treatment during 2020 than in previous years.
Native Americans accounted for the largest drop in admissions, and they also had the largest increase in overdose deaths during the pandemic.
The authors noted more work is needed to examine the reasons for the differences, including pandemic-driven shelter-in-place policies and bans on elective procedures.
Valneva in Talks With Potential Partner on Second-Gen COVID Vaccines
French drugmaker Valneva (VLS.PA) said on Monday it is in talks with a potential partner on producing an updated version of its COVID-19 vaccine that targets new variants of the disease, sending its shares up.
The French company has struggled to bring its COVID-19 vaccine to market to compete with rival products from drugmakers such as AstraZeneca, Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer. Its shares have lost almost 80% since peaking at the end of 2021.
Valneva has won regulatory approval in the European Union and some other countries for its first-generation vaccine but said it has suspended manufacturing in light of low order levels.
Moderna Asks FDA to Authorize Omicron COVID Boosters for Children as Young as 6 Years Old + More
Moderna Asks FDA to Authorize Omicron COVID Boosters for Children as Young as 6 Years Old
Moderna has asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize its Omicron booster shots for children, the company announced on Friday.
Moderna filed two separate FDA authorization requests, one for adolescents ages 12 to 17 and another for kids ages 6 to 11. The Boston biotech company said it will also ask the FDA to clear the shots for the youngest children, 6 months through 5 years old, later this year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a document published Tuesday, said it expects children to become eligible for the Omicron boosters by mid-October pending authorization by the FDA. The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee has meetings scheduled for October 19 and 20.
Pfizer told the CDC advisory committee earlier this month that it expects to ask the FDA to authorize Omicron boosters for children ages 5 to 11 in early October.
Fauci Says the Chinese Government Is ‘Probably’ Hiding Something About the Origins of COVID, but He’s Not Sure It’s a Lab Leak
Dr. Anthony Fauci says he’s dedicated to “keeping a completely open mind” about how the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan, China in 2019, but he still wishes he had more information to go on from the Chinese government.
Scientists and conspiracy theorists alike have been eager to find clear answers to the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus for years now. Still, no satisfactory nail-in-the-coffin evidence is pointing to one single, bulletproof explanation for where this pandemic began.
“You wanna keep an open mind that it could have been anything that happened,” Fauci said Wednesday during a conversation with Atlantic editor Ross Andersen. “But the evidence that they have been working on for years strongly favors a natural occurrence.”
“The fact is, as a society when something occurs that looks like — even if it’s naturally coming out of China — they will be secretive about it,” Fauci said of the Chinese government. “Because of this feeling that they’re gonna get blamed for something.”
Coronavirus Detected in Bats Shows Resistance to Vaccines
The World Health Organization’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in May that because of reduced testing and sequencing “we are blinding ourselves to the evolution of the virus.”
Similarly, because coronaviruses are found in other mammals, it is important to be aware of what is circulating among animal populations. A team of researchers at Washington State University and Tulane University School of Medicine is aiming to do just that.
In a paper published in PLoS Pathogens, they detail two coronaviruses detected in a population of horseshoe bats in Russia. The lineages of the viruses are separate from the original SARS-CoV-1 from 2003 and SARS-CoV-2, which is responsible for the current pandemic. However, the researchers think that it is useful to study coronaviruses in wild animals to understand viral evolution and the potential for crossover into humans.
The team tested the viruses against SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies and serum from individuals vaccinated for SARS-CoV-2 that contained antibodies. One of the two bat coronaviruses was resistant to both monoclonal antibodies and vaccine-induced antibodies. They had a similar result when they tested it against antibodies from someone who recovered from an infection of an Omicron variant.
4.4 Million Americans Roll up Sleeves for Omicron-Targeted Boosters
U.S. health officials say 4.4 million Americans have rolled up their sleeves for the updated COVID-19 booster shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted the count Thursday as public health experts bemoaned President Joe Biden’s recent remark that “the pandemic is over.”
Health experts said it is too early to predict whether demand would match up with the 171 million doses of the new boosters the U.S. ordered for the fall.
A temporary shortage of Moderna vaccine caused some pharmacies to cancel appointments while encouraging people to reschedule for a Pfizer vaccine. The issue was expected to resolve as government regulators wrapped up an inspection and cleared batches of vaccine doses for distribution.
U.S. Cutting Global Donations of Pfizer COVID Shots as Demand Slows
The United States is significantly cutting back the number of Pfizer (PFE.N)/BioNTech (22UAy.DE) COVID-19 vaccine doses it will buy for a donation to poorer nations this year, Pfizer said on Thursday, citing diminished demand for the shots in those countries.
Pfizer said it agreed to reduce the number of doses it will deliver by year-end to 600 million, down from the billion-dose commitment the U.S. government made a year ago.
The United States will have an option to buy up to an additional 400 million shots for the program after this year.
The drugmaker said it would have sufficient supply to deliver the full billion doses under the U.S. commitment, but “we are seeing reduced demand in some low- and lower-middle-income countries due to barriers in administration and vaccine hesitancy.”
CDC Director Weighs in on Whether Pandemic Is Over, Says Bivalent COVID Shot Is ‘Critically Important’
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky became the latest American to receive the new bivalent COVID-19 booster shot on Thursday, telling ABC News that, thus far, “millions” of Americans have now gotten an updated vaccine.
Walensky, after receiving her shot of Moderna’s bivalent booster at a CVS location in Brookline, Massachusetts, urged others to join her in getting the vaccine, stressing that it is critical to get vaccinated ahead of the fall and winter, in order to prevent severe disease.
In recent months, vaccination and booster uptake have slowed significantly, with fewer Americans willing to get their shots. As of Sept. 14, approximately 109.2 million Americans have received their first booster — representing less than 50% of those who have been fully vaccinated.
Walensky was reluctant to directly agree with the president’s assertion that “the pandemic is over,” but with hospitalization and case rates falling, and vaccines and treatments available, “we’re in a different place,” she said.
First Signs of New COVID Wave Seen in Colder Countries
COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are creeping up in Northern Europe where the colder and wetter weather is first being felt across the bloc.
Latest data from Belgium, the U.K. and Denmark point to a gradual uptick in the number of cases and hospitalizations. Belgium’s health authority said its modeling points to a new COVID-19 wave hitting in mid-October. Its data published on Friday suggests the first ripples of this wave have already arrived.
Denmark’s infectious disease institute reported the first data indicating a reversal in infection rates, which after a long period of decline are now stabilizing or rising slightly across the regions.
And in the U.K., the number of new cases in the week up to Sept.17 was 13% higher than the previous week, while hospitalizations were up 17% in the week up to Sept.19.
WHO Warns Ability to Identify New COVID Variants Is Diminishing as Testing Declines
The World Health Organization on Thursday warned that it is struggling to identify and track new COVID variants as governments roll back testing and surveillance, threatening the progress made in the fight against the virus.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, said the virus is still circulating at an “incredibly intense level” around the world. The WHO is “deeply concerned” that it is evolving at a time when there is no longer robust testing in place to help rapidly identify new variants, Van Kerkhove said.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday warned there’s the “ever-present risk of more dangerous variants emerging” as the virus continues to spread and change. Tedros said “the pandemic is not over but the end is in sight,” contradicting President Joe Biden’s assertion earlier this week that the pandemic had ended.
The WHO is currently tracking about 200 Omicron sublineages, Van Kerkhove said. The global health body is keeping a close eye on Omicron BA.2.75, BF.7 and BA.4.6 among other subvariants, she said. Those variants have started to gain a foothold in countries such as the U.S. where Omicron BA.5, the fastest spreading variant yet, has been dominant for months.
COVID Infection Linked to More Type 1 Diabetes in Kids and Teens
COVID-19 in children and teens appeared to raise the risk of developing diabetes in two studies that didn’t settle the debate about whether the coronavirus can trigger the chronic condition.
Scientists from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health used national health registries to examine new diagnoses of type 1 diabetes over two years after the start of the pandemic. They found that youngsters who had tested positive for the coronavirus were about 60% more likely to develop type 1 diabetes.
The researchers looked at the risk within 30 days after a COVID infection was confirmed by PCR test. Another study from Scotland presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes conference that also included young adults found a heightened risk within a month after the viral illness — but after that, the scientists said, they found no association.
The researchers in both studies stressed that their findings don’t mean there is necessarily a cause and effect relation between the coronavirus and diabetes. They highlighted other possible culprits, including delays seeking care during the pandemic, the spread of other viruses and lifestyle changes related to lockdowns.
2 Companies Were Fined $325,000 After the EPA Said They Falsely Marketed a Pesticide as a Weapon Against COVID
Two New Jersey companies have been fined $325,000 for selling a pesticide they marketed as a weapon against COVID-19, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.
The EPA said that Zoono USA and Zoono Holdings had used “false and misleading claims” about the effectiveness of Zoono Microbe Shield, a registered pesticide, and its suitability for use as a sanitizer or disinfectant against viruses, “including against the virus that causes COVID-19.”
The sprays were sold on websites including Amazon and bought by both individuals and institutions, including community centers, per the EPA. United Airlines even used the spray as a coating for its plane cabins, in conjunction with other cleaning measures including electrostatic disinfection. Zoono says it has also supplied Australia’s flag carrier Qantas Airlines.
Monkeypox Virus ‘Behaving Differently’
This year has seen an unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox sweeping across the globe, and the disease appears to be “behaving differently” from before, experts told Newsweek.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 63,100 confirmed monkeypox cases had been recorded around the world in 2022 at the time of writing — the vast majority of those (over 62,500) in locations that haven’t historically reported the disease. While the fatality rate of the current outbreak appears to be low, 10 deaths have been recorded so far in these locations, on top of another 10 in endemic regions.
The authors of a study, published in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens, documenting the characteristics and spread of the latest outbreak spoke to Newsweek about how the disease appears to be behaving in unusual ways.
In this outbreak: “Monkeypox is behaving differently,” the authors told Newsweek. “Many patients are presenting with a rash without the first phase,” they said. “Some lesions are confined to one single body region, like the pelvic area.”
People With Skin Conditions Face Stigma. Monkeypox Has Made It Worse.
A cashier with psoriasis received daily complaints from customers at work. A traveler with eczema was escorted off a flight and questioned by airline employees. A commuter with small, benign tumors on her body was unknowingly filmed and scrutinized on social media.
All of them were singled out because people mistakenly believed they had monkeypox.
People with chronic skin conditions say they’ve grown accustomed to stares and questions about their appearance, but the harassment and stigma have gotten worse during the worldwide outbreak of monkeypox.
Psychologists say the pandemic has heightened medical anxiety, in general, which may explain the added scrutiny of people with skin conditions. A recent national survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center showed nearly 1 in 5 Americans were concerned about contracting monkeypox but understood little about it.
