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5 Mistakes Fauci Made on COVID That Spelled Disaster + More
5 Mistakes Dr. Anthony Fauci Made on COVID That Spelled Disaster
The man almost single-handedly responsible for the failed COVID policies of the past two-plus years has announced that he will be retiring soon. For many of us, that day cannot come soon enough.
During the first year of the pandemic, Anthony Fauci, MD, was a study in confusion. He expressed wildly conflicting opinions about how lethal and contagious the coronavirus was depending on who he was talking to.
In public he warned us that we were facing a viral apocalypse, touting a pandemic model from the Imperial College in London that predicted millions upon millions of U.S. deaths.
It turned out that the model was algorithmic garbage, but that didn’t stop America’s most famous virologist from recommending — in mid-March 2020 — that the economy of the entire country be shut down indefinitely, 40 million people be put out of work, tens of millions of children be denied an education and millions of “nonessential” small businesses be shuttered, many never to reopen.
Birx Admits She Knew COVID Vaccines Were Never ‘Going to Protect Against Infection’
A year ago, President Biden told the world during a now infamous CNN town hall that “you’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”
As The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports, one of the former U.S. officials who led the COVID-19 response during the Trump administration said on July 22 that COVID-19 vaccines were not expected to protect against infection.
“I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection. And I think we overplayed the vaccines. And it made people then worry that it’s not going to protect against severe disease and hospitalization,” Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator under former President Donald Trump, said during an appearance on Fox News.
The Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines were granted emergency use authorization in late 2020 to prevent symptomatic COVID-19 and were promoted by many health officials, including Birx. She made no mention of concerns the vaccines might not protect against infection.
WHO Declares Monkeypox a Global Health Emergency as Infections Soar
The World Health Organization on Saturday declared the international monkeypox outbreak a global emergency, a decision that underscores concerns about rapidly spreading infections sparked by the virus.
The move to label the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the highest level of alert the WHO can issue, is expected to marshal new funding to fight the outbreak and pressure governments into action. More than 16,500 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 74 countries.
The decision means the world is now confronting two viral diseases that have crossed the extraordinary threshold of being declared health emergencies: COVID-19 and monkeypox. The WHO labeled the coronavirus pandemic a global crisis early in 2020.
WHO officials said the global risk of monkeypox is moderate, but that it is high in Europe, where most of the infections have been recorded in an outbreak that ignited in the spring.
Fauci Now Claims to Have ‘Open Mind’ About COVID Lab-Leak Theory
In January, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed that Dr. Anthony Fauci not only initiated efforts to cover up evidence pointing to a Chinese lab as the origin of COVID-19 but that he actively shaped a highly influential academic paper that excluded the possibility of a lab leak.
Fauci’s involvement with the paper wasn’t acknowledged by the authors, as it should have been under prevailing academic standards. Neither was it acknowledged by Fauci himself, who denied having communicated with the authors when asked directly while testifying before Congress — which we now know is a bald-faced lie.
Fast forward six months and the World Health Organization (WHO) finally admitted that the lab-leak theory — while maintaining that it’s not the most likely scenario — is a possibility that “needs study.”
Now, Fauci is suddenly “open-minded” about the theory.
Is BA.5 Past Its Peak? COVID Deaths Drop 20% From Previous Week
Immunologists and scientists have been concerned about the latest COVID subvariant, BA.5. Data has shown that it is more contagious than previous strains and that it can not only get by antibodies created by vaccines, it can bypass even those gained by catching the actual virus.
Now, though, a new report has come out saying perhaps the spread of BA.5 has already peaked.
The U.S. is now averaging 426 COVID deaths per day, a 20% drop from the previous week, the Daily Mail reported. That is significant because deaths between July 6-13 had doubled over the previous week.
The number of case figures are beginning to fall off as well, dropping 8% over last week to 128,785 per day.
Second Coronavirus Booster Shots for People Under 50 on Hold Amid Drive to Speed up New Vaccine
Second booster shots of the coronavirus vaccine for people younger than 50 are on hold as the Biden administration tries to accelerate a fall vaccination campaign using reformulated shots that target the now-dominant Omicron subvariants, according to federal health officials.
Officials are hoping vaccine makers — Moderna and Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech — are able to make the updated shots available as soon as early to mid-September instead of later in the fall, said three officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the issue.
The retooled boosters will contain components from the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 as well as the original formula, which was based on the version of the virus that spread globally in early 2020. The hope is that the redesigned boosters will be more effective in dealing with an evolving virus.
White House Plans COVID Vaccine Summit as Biden Recovers
As President Joe Biden continues to recover from his coronavirus infection, the White House plans to hold a summit on Tuesday to discuss developing a new generation of vaccines that could more effectively guard against contagious variants.
The summit, which involves top administration officials, scientists and pharmaceutical executives, comes as the country faces a surge of infections from BA.5, a variant that’s an offshoot of the Omicron strain.
First Cases of Monkeypox in Children in U.S. Confirmed
The first two U.S. cases of monkeypox in children have been confirmed as part of a record outbreak of more than 2,800 infections nationwide, a top health official said Friday.
The pediatric cases, detected this week in an infant and a toddler, are likely the result of household transmission, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky disclosed the development in a Washington Post Live interview Friday.
CDC and public health authorities are still investigating how the children became infected. The two cases are unrelated and in different jurisdictions, the agency said in a statement. The toddler is in California; the infant’s case was confirmed while the family was traveling in Washington, DC, but they are not residents of this country.
Scientists Are Narrowing in on Why Some People Keep Avoiding COVID. BA.5 Could End That Luck.
A majority of people in the U.S have had COVID-19 at least once — likely more than 70% of the country, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha said on Thursday, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Many have been infected multiple times. In a study that has not been peer viewed that looked at 257,000 U.S. veterans who’d contracted COVID at least once, 12% had reinfection by April and about 1% had been infected three times or more.
This raises an obvious question: What is keeping that shrinking minority of people from getting sick?
Disease experts are homing in on a few predictive factors beyond individual behavior, including genetics, T cell immunity and the effects of inflammatory conditions like allergies and asthma.
High Blood Pressure Doubles Odds That COVID Will Be Severe
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Nearly half of American adults have high blood pressure — and that alone more than doubles their odds of being hospitalized if they are infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, a new study revealed.
This was true even in people who were fully vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19, according to researchers at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
People with high blood pressure (hypertension) who get COVID-19 should be aware of this heightened risk and should discuss antiviral therapy with their doctor, suggested study author Dr. Joseph Ebinger, a clinical cardiologist at the institute.
Monkeypox Vaccine From Bavarian Nordic Wins EU Approval
Danish biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic (BAVA.CO) said on Monday the European Commission had given permission for its Imvanex vaccine to be marketed as protection against monkeypox, as recommended last week by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The approval comes just one day after the World Health Organization issued a high-level alert declaring the rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak as a global health emergency.
White House Attempts to Use Biden’s COVID Diagnosis as ‘Teachable Moment ’+ More
White House Attempts to Use Biden’s COVID Diagnosis as ‘Teachable Moment’
For more than a year, Joe Biden’s ability to avoid the coronavirus seemed to defy the odds. When he finally did test positive, the White House was ready. It set out to turn the diagnosis into a “teachable moment” and dispel any notion of a crisis.
“The president does what every other person in America does every day, which is he takes reasonable precautions against COVID but does his job,” the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, told MSNBC late in the afternoon on Thursday.
The White House has issued repeated assurances that the president was hard at work while isolating in the residential areas of the White House with “very mild symptoms” including a runny nose, dry cough and fatigue.
It was all part of an administration effort to shift the narrative from a health scare to a display of Biden as the personification of the idea that most Americans can get COVID and recover without too much suffering and disruption if they’ve gotten their shots and taken other important steps to protect themselves.
Novavax CEO Eyes Next Batch of COVID Vaccines After CDC Approval
Novavax (NVAX) finally passed all four necessary steps for its COVID-19 vaccine to be available for adults in the U.S. next week, with the final green light coming from the CDC.
The 3.2 million doses purchased by the U.S. government as part of contracts with the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed and U.S. Department of Defense have been released to the government’s distribution sites. They are slated to arrive Friday, according to Novavax senior vice president Silvia Taylor.
Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine is the biotechnology company’s first commercial product, and it has given the company leverage to pursue a flu vaccine and combination flu/COVID vaccine. Experts believe that annual boosters to protect against COVID could be necessary for the foreseeable future.
Novavax now has its sights set on making its vaccine eligible for younger age groups and is working with the FDA toward booster authorization after submitting data from its Phase 3 trial.
New York Family Gave Hochul $300K, State Paid Their Company $637M for COVID Tests
A New York City family has given Governor Kathy Hochul‘s campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, while the state has paid the family’s company more than half a billion dollars.
Entrepreneur Charlie Tebele’s family donated close to $300,000 to Hochul’s campaign, according to an investigative report by the Times Union published Tuesday.
Meanwhile, New York paid hundreds of millions for COVID tests to Tebele’s company, Digital Gadgets. Since December, the New York Health Department has paid Digital Gadgets $637 million in taxpayer funds for COVID test kits, records show.
The health department reportedly did not conduct any competitive bidding before ordering the COVID tests from the company and paying it the enormous sum.
Hochul signed a state of emergency executive order back in November for COVID-related purchases, suspending competitive bidding as well as the contract review and approval process for some spending.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Partly Funded an Omicron Variant Study With a Surprising Conclusion About Boosters
The latest Omicron subvariant may be a master at evading the immune response our bodies produce from the vaccine or previous COVID-19 infection, but a new study suggests existing booster shots will still help.
The researchers ultimately determined that BA.5 will be the most immune-evasive COVID-19 variant to date, but that doesn’t mean our previous boosters can no longer restore protection.
The research effort was an international collaboration between infectious disease research physicians and scientists from UW Medicine, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, and institutes in California, Argentina, Italy, Pakistan and Switzerland.
It received funding from a plethora of sources, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Oral Vaccine Shows Promise; Hypertension Ups COVID Hospitalization Risk
An experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the form of an oral tablet has shown promising immune responses in a small preliminary trial designed mainly to evaluate its safety, according to drug manufacturer Vaxart Inc (VXRT.O).
The South San Francisco, California-based company had earlier said the tablet was well tolerated, with no one dropping out of the study because of adverse effects. On Tuesday, they reported on immune responses in the 35 healthy volunteers who received the tablet.
While the currently approved vaccines induce antibodies in the blood, the tablet induced antibodies in the mucosa — the tissues lining the nose and airways that are the first line of defense against the virus, according to a report posted on the medical website medRxiv ahead of peer review.
High blood pressure more than doubles the risk of hospitalization during COVID-19 infections with the coronavirus Omicron variant, even in people who are fully vaccinated and boosted, a U.S. study showed.
As BA.5 Dominates U.S., Is Omicron Subvariant BA.2.75 on the Horizon?
U.S. News & World Report reported:
So, what comes next? It’s a guessing game that is baffling experts — many of whom have been humbled by a virus that has rendered predictions a losing battle.
The FDA is asking vaccine manufacturers to update their shots to match circulating variants in the hopes of providing more efficient boosters in the fall. However, concern is growing that the rapid pace at which variants are turning over means vaccine makers are already falling behind.
Just the latest example of this is BA.2.75, which was first reported in India. More than 20 cases have been documented across nine states in the U.S. However, the subvariant is not yet at a high enough threshold to make it onto the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s variant tracker as of last week.
While WHO is the official body that names coronavirus variants, several news reports have deemed Omicron subvariant BA.2.75 “Centaurus” after one Twitter user posted the name on July 1.
First U.S. Polio Case Detected in Close to a Decade — Vaccine Clinics to Be Set up Just North of New York City
The first known case of polio in the U.S. since 2013 has turned up in the New York City metropolitan area, and healthcare workers are being advised to be “vigilant” for more potential cases.
New York health officials said the affected individual is a Rockland County resident with revertant polio Sabin type 2 virus confirmed in laboratory sequencing and by the CDC.
“This is indicative of a transmission chain from an individual who received the oral polio vaccine (OPV),” according to a statement from the New York State Department of Health. “This suggests that the virus may have originated in a location outside of the U.S. where OPV is administered since revertant strains cannot emerge from inactivated vaccines.”
OPV is no longer authorized in the U.S., and since 2000 only the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) is administered.
White House Announces $140 Million for Monkeypox Research Priorities
The White House announced Thursday a $140 million, 22-target research agenda for monkeypox to better understand and handle rising case counts across the country.
The agenda aims to improve data on transmission, testing, vaccines, equitable treatments and environmental factors.
The questions to be considered include the best use of vaccines and other therapeutics — as well as details about the length and severity of the disease.
The government also hopes to gather better data about how the virus may be changing, why there is so much spread in non-endemic countries and how to best communicate with the public about the outbreak.
EU Drug Regulator Recommends Clearing Vaccine for Monkeypox
The European Medicines Agency said Friday that the smallpox vaccine made by Bavarian Nordic should also be authorized against monkeypox, as the outbreak of the once-rare disease continues to sicken people across the continent.
The European Union drug regulator said its recommendation was based on animal studies that suggest the vaccine protects non-human primates from monkeypox. It is up to the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, to formally approve the vaccine based on the EMA’s recommendation.
The vaccine, known as Imvanex in Europe but sold as Jynneos in the United States, was already cleared for use against monkeypox by American regulators.
Of the more than 15,000 monkeypox cases reported worldwide, nearly 70% are in Europe, with more than 30 countries across the continent affected.
Biden — Fully Vaccinated and Twice-Boosted — Tests Positive for COVID + More
Biden Has Tested Positive for COVID and Is Fully Vaccinated and Boosted. Just 22.7% of Americans His Age Have Kept up to Date With Their Shots.
President Joe Biden — who is fully boosted and vaccinated — tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, becoming the second U.S. president to get infected by the virus.
And as the country sees a steady rise in daily new COVID-19 infections, just 22.7% of Americans in his age bracket have kept up to date with their vaccination shots, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a Thursday statement, the White House said Biden has begun taking the treatment drug Paxlovid.
U.S. health officials have continued to stress the importance of staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations as the country battles a rise in cases fueled by the infectious Omicron subvariant BA. 5, which infectious disease experts say can reinfect those who already had COVID-19.
New York City COVID Cases Surge as Unvaccinated Take the Brunt
COVID-19 cases are continuing to surge in New York City and unvaccinated residents are bearing the brunt. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that, as of Wednesday, the Big Apple has a seven-day case rate of 369.8 per 100,000, the second-highest rate in the United States, only behind California.
Doctors say that more than a year-and-a-half into the vaccine rollout, the majority of those getting sick, hospitalized and dying are unvaccinated people.
“The BA. 5 variant is accounting for a significant number of infections,” said Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of the division of infectious diseases at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine. “This almost all certainly due to BA.5.”
Evidence has shown that BA.5 is better at evading protection from both vaccines and previous infection including antibodies from BA.1 — the original Omicron variant — and BA.2, the first subvariant.
Could Vaccines Make Omicron Infection Worse? Scientists Weigh in on Antibody-Dependent Enhancement
Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE) happens when non-neutralizing antibodies generated from vaccination exacerbate viral infection, making the disease the vaccine is supposed to prevent worse for some people.
Of particular note was an article by an international team of scientists, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. This article outlined the characteristics and mechanisms of ADE, before the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out.
The scientists explained that “ADE and ERD (enhanced respiratory disease) have been reported for SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV both in vitro and in vivo.”
We know now that it is common for people vaccinated against COVID-19 to be infected and re-infected by SARS-CoV-2. The antibodies generated from the vaccines are not sterilizing (that is, they are not clearing infection), and are non-neutralizing.
What Are the COVID BA.5 Symptoms? Everything About the New Variant
As COVID Omicron BA.5 continues to spread in the U.S., some may be wondering if the variant might cause distinct symptoms that set it apart from other Omicron variants.
Scientists think that BA.5 is even more transmissible than the already highly-infectious earlier forms of the Omicron variant. However, there are still many unknowns, such as whether or not it causes more severe disease.
There have been reports that BA.5 might be causing slightly different symptoms from earlier Omicron types.
Professor Luke O’Neill from Trinity College Dublin told an Irish radio station recently that “one extra symptom from BA.5 I saw this morning is night sweats,” according to the British newspaper The Independent.
Officials Reorganize HHS to Boost Pandemic Response
The Biden administration is reorganizing the federal health department to create an independent division that would lead the nation’s pandemic response, amid frustrations with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The move elevates a roughly 1,000-person team — known as the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR — into a separate division, charged with coordinating the nation’s response to health emergencies, according to seven people briefed on the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.
The reorganization allows the division “to mobilize a coordinated national response more quickly and stably during future disasters and emergencies while equipping us with greater hiring and contracting capabilities,” Dawn O’Connell, who leads ASPR and would run the new division, wrote to staff members Wednesday afternoon.
Feds Pay NYC $4B in COVID Relief Funds After Push From Sen. Schumer
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has paid New York City $4 billion in COVID relief funds after a push from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
The cash covers spending for personal protective equipment and to run testing, vaccination and emergency operation centers in the five boroughs, Schumer said Thursday.
The reimbursement comes before the end of the city’s fiscal year, beating a crucial deadline for officials to plan for future fights against the virulent BA.5 sub-variant and other strains of the deadly virus.
‘I’m Over It.’ Many in LA Shrug off COVID Wave Despite Super-Infectious Subvariants
As summertime temperatures flirted with 100 degrees this week, families and teenagers crowded into the indoor mall, soothed by its air conditioning. But there was nary a mask in sight, even though coronavirus infections are skyrocketing because of the ultra-infectious Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.
Amid the carefree atmosphere, few seemed concerned.
The number of coronavirus-positive patients hospitalized in L.A. County as of Wednesday was 1,328 — up 44% from two weeks ago. But the majority of those patients — about 60%, according to public health officials — were hospitalized for other medical issues while testing positive for the disease.
The virus — which is widespread and overwhelmingly causing mild illness right now — simply does not scare people like it used to.
WHO Again Considers Declaring Monkeypox a Global Emergency
As the World Health Organization’s emergency committee convened Thursday to consider for the second time within weeks whether to declare monkeypox a global crisis, some scientists said the striking differences between the outbreaks in Africa and in developed countries will complicate any coordinated response.
African officials say they are already treating the continent’s epidemic as an emergency. But experts elsewhere say the mild version of monkeypox in Europe, North America and beyond makes an emergency declaration unnecessary even if the virus can’t be stopped. British officials recently downgraded their assessment of the disease, given its lack of severity.
There are now more than 15,000 monkeypox cases worldwide. While the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries have bought millions of vaccines, none have gone to Africa, where a more severe version of monkeypox has already killed more than 70 people. Rich countries haven’t yet reported any monkeypox deaths.
Scientists Developing New Self-Boosting COVID Vaccine + More
Scientists Developing New Self-Boosting COVID Vaccine
A one-jab self-boosting vaccine that can give many doses at different times is being developed by scientists.
One shot would provide multiple measurements of an inoculation thanks to microparticles that release payloads at separate intervals, according to new research. These microparticles resemble tiny coffee cups sealed with a lid and the jab could combat a host of illnesses — from measles to COVID, scientists said.
The particles remain under the skin until the vaccine is released and then break down, just like reabsorbable stitches.
“This is a platform that can be broadly applicable to all types of vaccines, including recombinant protein-based vaccines, DNA-based vaccines, even RNA-based vaccines,” said Dr. Ana Jaklenec, senior author of the study.
As Omicron Rages on, Scientists Have No Idea What Comes Next
In the short history of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 was the year of the new variants. Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta each had a couple of months in the Sun.
But this was the year of Omicron, which swept the globe late in 2021 and has continued to dominate, with subvariants — given more prosaic names such as BA.1, BA.2, and BA.2.12.2 — appearing in rapid succession. Two closely related subvariants named BA.4 and BA.5 are now driving infections around the world, but new candidates, including one named BA.2.75, are knocking on the door.
Omicron’s lasting dominance has evolutionary biologists wondering what comes next. Some think it’s a sign that SARS-CoV-2’s initial frenzy of evolution is over and it, like other coronaviruses that have been with humanity much longer, is settling into a pattern of gradual evolution.
But others believe a new variant different enough from Omicron and all other variants to deserve the next Greek letter designation, Pi, may already be developing, perhaps in a chronically infected patient.
‘One in 5,000 Affected by Severe Adverse Reaction to COVID Vaccination’ in Germany
According to the German Ministry of Health on Wednesday, July 20, “one in 5,000 people is affected by a severe adverse reaction after a COVID vaccination.”
The reason for the announcement from Germany’s Health Ministry was due to the formation of a new COVID “adverse reaction registry.”
A tweet from the German health department read: “One in 5,000 people is affected by a serious side effect after a COVID-19 vaccination. If you suspect side effects, get medical attention and report your symptoms to the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedical Drugs.”
Omicron BA.5 Makes up Nearly 78% of COVID Variants Circulating in U.S. — CDC
The BA.5 subvariant of Omicron was estimated to make up 77.9% of the circulating coronavirus variants in the United States for the week ended July 16, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday.
BA.5, which has shown to be particularly good at evading the immune protection afforded either by vaccination or prior infection, has been driving a surge of new infections globally.
Omicron subvariant BA.4 was estimated to make up 12.8% of the circulating variants in the United States, the data showed.
The U.S. health regulator has asked vaccine manufacturers to target those variants for a potential fall season booster dose.
Study: Yale-Developed mRNA Vaccine Offers Superior Protection Against Omicron Variants Compared to Moderna, Pfizer Vaccines
Yale scientists have developed a new Omicron-specific mRNA vaccine that offers better protection over subvariants than standard mRNA vaccines, according to the university.
The new vaccine, called Omnivax, had a better antibody response against the BA.1 and BA.2.12.1 Omicron subvariants in pre-immunized mice by 19-fold and eight-fold, respectively.
The experimental vaccines use engineered lipid nanoparticles to deliver mRNA to cells with “instructions” to create spike proteins from mutating variants, which the virus uses to attach to and infect cells, according to the university.
The rapid mutation of these spike proteins has blunted the protection offered by earlier mRNA vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, according to the university.
Schools Race to Improve Indoor Air Quality as Coronavirus Cases Climb
The federal government gave schools billions for coronavirus mitigation over the past two years. Only recently, though, are most using those dollars for what has turned out to be a critical measure: keeping indoor air clean.
School officials reluctant to reinstate mask-wearing requirements when students return to the classroom this fall are rushing to improve indoor air quality to combat what one expert called the “worst version” of the virus: Omicron subvariant BA. 5, which has shown a remarkable ability to evade immunity and reinfect Americans.
The science has been evident for more than a year that ventilation is key to slowing the spread of the virus, we’ve detailed how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was slow to emphasize this in its recommendations.
Japan Health Panel Delays Emergency Approval of Shionogi COVID Pill
A Japanese health ministry panel on Wednesday delayed emergency approval for an oral treatment against COVID-19 that has been developed by Shionogi & Co (4507.T).
Health experts on the panel voted to support a motion that they would await more data from ongoing clinical trials and continue discussions on the drug, dealing another blow to Shionogi’s global ambitions for the antiviral pill.
WHO Reports 14,000 Cases of Monkeypox Globally, Five Deaths in Africa
The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 14,000 cases of monkeypox worldwide, with five deaths reported in Africa, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.
Most of the cases reported thus far have been found in Europe, particularly among men who have sex with men, the WHO said, although all the deaths have occurred in Africa, the region where monkeypox outbreaks have historically been found.
On Thursday, the WHO will convene the second meeting of a committee that will decide whether the outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), its highest level of alert.
U.K. Orders More Doses of Monkeypox Vaccine as Cases Pass 2,000
Public health officials have ordered 100,000 more doses of vaccine to help curb the spread of monkeypox as the number of U.K. cases rose to more than 2,000 in the months-long outbreak.
According to figures released by the Health Security Agency (UKHSA) on Tuesday, confirmed cases have risen to 2,137 in the U.K., with 2,050 recorded in England. The majority of infections are in London and among men who have sex with men.
Despite the continued growth in cases, health officials have revised their guidance for close contacts of confirmed monkeypox cases, no longer requiring them to isolate themselves at home if they do not have symptoms of the disease.
Treatment of U.K. Prisoners During COVID Meets UN Definition of Torture
By and large, we know by now how hospitals, care homes, schools and most other state-run institutions coped, or didn’t, with the COVID pandemic. But not until now, with this shocking, distressing, authentic and academically robust study, have we had the unvarnished truth about conditions in U.K. prisons.
The report, by the prisoner-led charity User Voice and Queen’s University Belfast, reveals that 85% of prisoners reported being locked up for at least 23 hours a day, for long periods. The consequences were sadly predictable: anxiety, depression, self-harm and off-the-scale mental illness.