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Mistake to Recommend COVID Vaccines for All Children: Top Danish Health Official + More
Mistake to Recommend COVID Vaccines for All Children: Top Danish Health Official
COVID-19 vaccines should not have been recommended for all children aged 5 and up, a top Danish health official has said.
Søren Brostrøm, the director-general of the Danish Health Authority, told TV 2 that it was a mistake to broadly vaccinate children based on the knowledge that has accumulated since late 2021.
Studies on the effects of the vaccines have shown that they confer little protection against infection from the virus. Research has also increasingly indicated that the vaccines do not protect well against severe disease in children, who are largely at little risk from severe outcomes if they get the virus.
Denmark’s new vaccine strategy recommends adults get vaccinated but specifies different advice for children.
New York City Forced to Cut off Monkeypox Vaccine Walk-Ins Over High Demand
New York City was forced to halt walk-in appointments within hours after offering monkeypox vaccines on Thursday due to high demand amid the virus outbreak worldwide.
The city’s health department announced on Thursday that a temporary clinic at the Chelsea Sexual Health Clinic will be opened to administer the two-dose Jynneos vaccine to eligible individuals who have been recently exposed to monkeypox.
However, by Thursday afternoon, the health department tweeted that it would not allow any more walk-ins for the day and that appointments were booked through Monday, but individuals opting for the vaccine were advised to check back on Sunday for next week’s appointments.
Over 100 people were lined up outside the clinic shortly after the opening to receive the vaccine, including one person who told the news website that many appointments were filled around 10 minutes after they became available online, NBC News 4 reported.
CDC Vaccine Advisers Unanimously Vote to Recommend Moderna COVID Vaccine for People Ages 6 Through 17
Vaccine advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted on Thursday to support recommending the two-dose Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for use in people ages 6 through 17 years old.
The vaccine received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week.
The CDC said that the risk of myocarditis “may be higher” with the Moderna vaccine than from vaccination from Pfizer, but there are limitations to what scientists know about the condition in this age group since the data is observational and limited.
COVID: U.K. Makes First Payments to Compensate Injury or Death From Vaccines
The first compensation payments in the U.K. have been made to families who have been bereaved, or to people who have been injured, as a result of a COVID-19 vaccine. Vikki Spit from Cumbria is believed to be the first person to receive compensation, after her 48-year-old partner, Zion, became ill eight days after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. Zion, a former rock singer, died at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle in May 2021.
A handful of other people have received payments in the past few days under the government’s vaccine damage payment scheme (VDPS), which pays out up to a maximum of £120 000 (€140 000; $150 000).
Sarah Moore, a partner at the Hausfeld law firm, which is representing people seeking compensation, told The BMJ it was an important moment. However, it was “far too little, too late,” she said. “With a 60% disability eligibility criteria, a historical acceptance rate of 1.7%, and a maximum cap of £120 000, the inadequacies of the scheme mean that some families will have no choice but to look at litigation in order to access substantive financial support.”
The NHS Business Services Authority, the body that handles the VDPS, confirmed that as of May 20, 2022, it had received 1,681 claims in relation to COVID-19 vaccines.
Fauci Says He’s ‘Example’ for COVID Vaccinations
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, says his COVID-19 recovery is an “example” for the nation of the protection offered by vaccines and boosters.
Speaking during a White House briefing, Fauci, 81, said he began experiencing virus symptoms on June 14 and tested positive a day later. He was prescribed the anti-viral drug Paxlovid, which has proven to be highly effective at preventing serious illness and death from COVID-19, on June 15.
“I think I’m an example, given my age, of what we’re all talking about today,” Fauci said. “I’m vaccinated. I’m doubly boosted. And I believe if that were not the case, I very likely would not be talking to you looking as well as I look, I think, right now. So all is well with Fauci.”
COVID Vaccination Reactivates Highly Contagious Virus: Studies
Doctors and scientists are seeing an increase in the reactivation of the chickenpox virus, known as varicella-zoster virus (VZV), following the COVID-19 injections. The chickenpox virus will show up as shingles, or herpes zoster (HZ) when it gets reactivated.
Federal health authorities claim that there’s no correlation between COVID-19 injections and shingles, but studies show that there is a higher incidence of shingles in people who’ve received the vaccine.
Israel was one of the earlier countries to publish a case series of six women (out of 491 participants) with an autoimmune disorder who developed shingles 3 to 14 days after receiving the first or second dose of Pfizer COVID-19 shot. None of the 99 participants in the control group developed shingles. The study was published in the journal Rheumatology in April 2021.
The largest study to date, based on real-world data (pdf) of more than two million patients, found that there was a higher incidence of shingles among the vaccinated (who received a COVID-19 shot within 60 days) than in the unvaccinated cohort, who were diagnosed with shingles within 60 days of visiting a healthcare office for any other reason.
U.S. Monkeypox Response Mirrors Early Coronavirus Missteps, Experts Say
Public health experts, including within the Biden administration, are increasingly concerned that the federal government’s handling of the largest-ever U.S. monkeypox outbreak is mirroring its cumbersome response to the coronavirus pandemic 2½ years ago, with potentially dire consequences.
As a result, they said, community transmission is occurring largely undetected, and the critical window in which to control the outbreak is closing quickly.
More than 150 monkeypox cases have been identified in the United States since May 19, federal officials said this week, and more than 3,300 cases have been detected in 42 countries around the world.
The rapidly rising global case counts have prompted the World Health Organization to convene an emergency committee on Thursday to assess whether the monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern — the agency’s highest-level warning, which currently applies only to the coronavirus and polio.
These ER Doctors Said Profit-Driven Company Officials Pressed Them to Work While They Had COVID Symptoms
In January, Sonali Patel, an emergency department doctor at a big Houston hospital, became ill while on duty. After testing positive for COVID, she said she told her boss she had the coronavirus and was going home.
“He insisted I stay and finish the shift,” she recalled in an interview with NBC News and in a recent lawsuit. “I told him it’s not the safe thing to do. We have a ton of immunocompromised patients and we were putting them at risk.”
By requesting time off from work while sick with COVID, Patel breached an unofficial policy promoted by officials at the hospital staffing company she works for — American Physician Partners — according to the lawsuit filed against the company by her and seven physician colleagues.
Those doctors say American Physician Partners’ officials pressed them to work while ill, even if they contracted COVID and could spread it to patients and colleagues, according to the suit filed in Harris County, Texas, district court in March. Physicians who worked while sick were celebrated, while those who stayed home with COVID had their pay docked, the lawsuit says.
Primary-Age Children’s Screen Time Went up by 83 Minutes a Day During Pandemic — Study
Screen time during the COVID pandemic increased the most among primary schoolchildren, by an extra hour and 20 minutes a day on average, according to the first global review of research.
The sharp rise in screen time was associated with poorer diets in children, poor eye health, deteriorating mental health including anxiety and behavioral problems such as aggression, irritability and increased frequency of temper tantrums, researchers said.
The findings have prompted calls for action to curb the harmful impact on the health of millions of children.
Sanofi, GSK Variant-Specific COVID Shot Found Effective Against Omicron
Late-stage data on an experimental COVID-19 vaccine from Sanofi (SASY.PA) and GSK (GSK.L) has shown the shot confers protection against the Omicron variant of the virus, the companies said on Friday.
The so-called bivalent vaccine targets the Beta variant — first identified in South Africa — as well as the original Wuhan strain of the virus. In a trial involving 13,000 adults, the vaccine demonstrated an efficacy rate of 64.7% against symptomatic COVID, and 72% efficacy against infections specifically caused by the Omicron variant.
Sanofi and GSK, two of the world’s biggest vaccine makers, are hoping to gain a foothold in the market for next-generation variant-focused COVID shots, after falling behind competitors including Moderna (MRNA.O), AstraZeneca (AZN.L) and Pfizer-BioNTech, in the original race to contain the pandemic.
Newly Diagnosed HIV Cases Dropped During the Pandemic — Here’s Why That’s Bad News
New HIV diagnoses dropped 17% during the first year of the pandemic, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but researchers warn disruptions brought by the pandemic’s early lockdowns mean that far fewer people got tested.
“Usually, we would be celebrating a 17% drop in HIV diagnoses,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the CDC’s director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP). However, Daskalakis said, “We know that something happened specifically in 2020 that makes it unlikely that the 17% drop was more than an artifact of the impact of COVID-19 on HIV testing.”
Now, experts worry thousands of people may be living with an undiagnosed HIV infection. Even before the pandemic, the CDC estimated that more than 1 million people were living with HIV in the U.S. — but about 13% were unaware of their infection.
Scientists Probe Japan’s Remarkable COVID Success in Hunt for New Vaccine to Protect Some of the Most Vulnerable
Japan’s notable coronavirus pandemic resilience has generated scores of possible explanations, from the country’s preference for going shoeless indoors, to the purportedly low-aerosol-generating nature of Japan’s quiet conversation, to its citizens’ beneficial gut bacteria. Even irreligiousness — said to have spared the Japanese from exposure to crowded houses of worship — has been touted as a virtue in the age of COVID-19.
Despite having the world’s oldest population, with almost one in three residents 65 or older, Japan has had fewer COVID fatalities per capita than almost any other developed nation. As of Thursday, Japan had registered only 246 COVID-19 deaths per million people, surpassing even New Zealand (263) which initially adopted a zero-COVID, maximum-suppression strategy. By comparison, the U.S. has a cumulative toll of 3,045 deaths per million people.
But COVID mortality statistics alone, often based on inconsistent and/or incomplete records, don’t tell the whole story. Researchers estimate that Japan has had 111,000 “excess deaths,” more than five times the number of reported COVID fatalities when mortality from disrupted medical care and social dislocation are factored in.
Tennessee GOP Leaders Urge Delay of Toddler COVID Shots + More
Tennessee GOP Leaders Urge Delay of Toddler COVID Shots
Top Tennessee Republican House leaders on Wednesday urged Gov. Bill Lee to delay the state’s health department from distributing and promoting the COVID-19 vaccines to infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
In a letter sent to the Republican governor, House leaders said they had too many concerns surrounding the vaccine for those under 5 years old. “We ask that you direct the Tennessee Department of Health to halt distribution, promotion or recommendation of COVID-19 vaccines for our youngest Tennesseans,” the letter stated. It was signed by leading Republicans including House Speaker Cameron Sexton and House Majority Leader William Lamberth.
The lawmakers added that the “COVID-19 emergency has long passed in Tennessee” though that declaration is disputed by public health experts.
Tennessee’s Republican lawmakers have long been skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine ever since it became available in late 2020, even as U.S. regulators have maintained the shot is safe for adults and children. Nevertheless, the GOP-controlled General Assembly has enacted legislation largely banning vaccine requirements and some members threatened to dissolve the state’s health agency after it encouraged kids to get the vaccine.
Publix Not Giving COVID Vaccine to Children Younger Than 5
Health officials approved COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months last week, but Florida-based Publix will not be offering the Moderna and Pfizer shots to children younger than 5.
A spokesperson for the supermarket, which is headquartered in Lakeland and has nearly 1,300 locations across the southeast, confirmed the news to Fox 13 Tampa Bay on Wednesday.
About two-thirds of Publix stores are in Florida, which was the only state not to preorder vaccines from the federal government in anticipation of them being approved for toddlers.
U.S. Delivers Over 4 Million Doses of COVID Vaccine for Young Children
The United States has already delivered more than 4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for children under 5 years old to sites that will administer the shots, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson said on Thursday.
HHS has received about 4.3 million orders for vaccines for young children since pre-ordering began a few weeks ago, and will continue to take new orders, the spokesperson said.
Delivery to vaccination sites such as pharmacies, doctors’ offices and children’s hospitals, began on Friday, immediately after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted the emergency use authorization.
U.S. CDC Advisers Weigh Moderna COVID Vaccine for Teens, Older Children
Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are meeting on Thursday to decide on the use of Moderna Inc’s (MRNA.O) COVID-19 vaccine for children and adolescents aged 6 to 17, after months of delay in that age group due to safety concerns.
Should they vote to recommend its use, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky must then sign off for the U.S. government to start rolling the Moderna vaccine out for these children and teens.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in November delayed a decision on Moderna’s shot in the age group now under consideration on concerns that it could cause heart inflammation, particularly in younger men, at higher rates than the Pfizer vaccine.
The FDA authorized Moderna’s vaccine just last week for the 6-11 age group, along with clearance for use in children aged 5 and under.
Signals From Monkeypox: Create an External Advisory Group to Start Preparing for the Next Pandemic
As the U.S. reels from more than 1 million reported deaths due directly to the COVID-19 pandemic, another infectious disease — monkeypox — is beginning to percolate. Cases of monkeypox, which scientists have been warning about for years, continue to rise worldwide.
COVID-19 followed by monkeypox offers an opportunity to reflect on what can be done to reduce the impact of this and future pandemics.
One of the most important actions that can be taken now is to bring together an external advisory group — a private-public partnership — to address disease modeling and interventions (both pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical), as well as be available before, during, and after a pandemic, just as we have external advisory groups for making clinical recommendations on vaccines to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
Biden Delivers Humiliating Snub to CDC Director
President Joe Biden appeared to demote his Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tuesday in a humiliating snub caught on video.
Biden was speaking to a group assembled at a Washington, DC, clinic Tuesday when he introduced Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID response coordinator. Except the president did not use that title.
“You see Dr. Jha there,” Biden said, pointing him out. “He’s the guy that’s running the CDC for me these days, basically.”
The introduction must have come as news to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the actual director of the CDC. She began leading the agency on January 20, 2021. Prior to taking the high-level Biden administration job, Walensky was the top infectious diseases expert at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School.
Social Stress Prematurely Ages Your Immune System, Study Finds
Social stress such as discrimination and family problems, along with job and money problems, can contribute to premature aging of your immune system, a recent study found. That’s a double whammy, as the immune system already deteriorates with age.
Immune aging can lead to cancer, heart disease and other age-related health conditions and reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, such as COVID-19, said lead author Eric Klopack, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.
“People with higher stress scores had older-seeming immune profiles, with lower percentages of fresh disease fighters and higher percentages of worn-out T-cells,” Klopack said.
Long COVID Affects 1 in 5 Virus Patients, U.S. Survey Finds
Almost one-fifth of U.S. adults who have had COVID-19 are currently experiencing symptoms of long COVID that persist for at least three months, new federal data show.
The results of a June survey by the U.S. Census shed light on how frequently the virus’s symptoms linger beyond the initial period when people are acutely sick. More than one-third of U.S. COVID patients reported ever having long COVID symptoms, and 19% said they currently were experiencing them.
Health Emergencies: WHO’s Highest Form of Alert
World Health Organization (WHO) experts meet on Thursday to evaluate whether monkeypox constitutes an international emergency, its highest form of an alert.
Only six such emergencies have previously been declared: COVID-19 (2020), the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2019), Zika virus (2016), polio (2014), West Africa’s Ebola outbreak (2014) and the H1 virus that caused an influenza pandemic (2009).
WHO does not declare pandemics, but it did start using the term to describe COVID-19 in March 2020. For many governments, that — rather than WHO’s earlier declaration of an emergency — was the moment they began to take real action to try to contain the disease, which proved to be far too late to make a difference.
EMA Recommends Novavax COVID Vaccine for Adolescents
The advisory committee to the European Union’s drug regulator on Thursday recommended expanding the use of Novavax Inc.’s (NVAX.O) COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged 12 to 17 years.
Joe Biden Says Government Needs Money Because ‘There’s Going to Be Another Pandemic’ + More
Joe Biden Says the Government Needs Money Because ‘There’s Going to Be Another Pandemic’
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the government needed more money to prepare for “the second pandemic,” which he assured reporters would come.
Biden, responding to a question about making vaccines available to young children in the wake of the most recent Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs), said that his administration was working to make sure that there were enough vaccines — but that his administration was also investing money into preparing for the next pandemic.
“We’ll get through at least this year,” Biden began, adding, “We do need more money. But we don’t just need more money for vaccines for children, eventually. We need more money to plan for the second pandemic. There’s going to be another pandemic.”
“We have to think ahead,” President Biden continued.
Moderna to Open Massive U.K. COVID Vaccine Factory
Moderna (MRNA) has announced plans to open its first vaccine factory in the U.K., as it hailed Britain’s “world-class life sciences and research community” which emerged during COVID-19.
The vaccine maker will collaborate with the U.K. government to build a manufacturing center for messenger mRNA vaccines for COVID and flu in a deal worth £1bn. Under the deal, which is an agreement in principle and needs final approval from both sides, Moderna will also invest in research and development efforts as it seeks to be a world leader in responding to pandemics.
The Boston-based biotech firm has not disclosed how large the facility will be or where it will be built, although reports suggest it is considering between London, Oxford and Cambridge. Once built, the center will produce up to 250 million doses per year, including some for export.
Health secretary Sajid Javid said: “Our new partnership with Moderna will cement the U.K.’s status as a science superpower, significantly boosting the economy and creating jobs — and it has the potential to unlock the next generation of cutting-edge vaccines to fight diseases such as COVID-19, seasonal flu and RSV.”
COVID Vaccines for Kids Under 5 Are Finally Here, but Most Parents Aren’t Jumping in Line
Families with small children lined up at 8 a.m. in a sparsely filled but buzzing auditorium, ready and relieved for COVID-19 vaccine appointments for their little ones at Children’s National Hospital’s research campus in Washington.
Onlookers cooed and clapped as the kids got their shots, each child receiving a high-five, a sticker and a chance to pet Barney and Sprout, two facility dogs specially trained to help soothe children during their recovery.
In polling data from April, 18% of parents said they would vaccinate their young child right away, while 27% said they definitely wouldn’t and 38% said they’d wait and see. Some parents say the vaccine trials conducted among young children were too small to satisfy their safety concerns, said Grant Paulsen, an infectious disease pediatrician and lead researcher for the children under 5 vaccine trials at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Strokes, Blood Clots, Wheelchairs: B.C. Patients Describe Rare Reactions to COVID Vaccines
As British Columbians were starting to get COVID-19 vaccinations in December 2020 and the first half of 2021, health officials were behind-the-scenes carefully tracking serious side effects from the shots, according to documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Although the 42-page released contains few examples of severe reactions, those that were flagged sparked immediate responses from health leaders who were monitoring the millions of Canadians getting the new vaccinations.
Pfizer COVID Vaccine Impacts Semen: Study
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine leads to lower levels of semen, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed 220 samples of semen from three sperm banks in Israel, drawn from men who received two doses of the vaccine. The semen collection was scheduled seven days after receipt of the second dose.
The researchers, led by Dr. Itai Gat with the Sperm Bank and Andrology Unit at the Shamir Medical Center and Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Medical School, found that there was a decrease in sperm concentration between 75 and 120 days post-vaccination.
Follow-up testing completed over 150 days after vaccination revealed “overall recovery,” with semen volume and sperm motility bouncing back, the researchers said. However, the levels outlined in the study were still lower than before vaccination.
Moderna CEO: COVID Variant Vaccine to Be Ready for Shipping in August
Moderna‘s COVID-19 variant vaccine will be ready to ship in August as the company has been making shots ahead of approval, Chief Executive Stephane Bancel told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that the only bottleneck to supply was a regulatory one.
“Our goal is as early as August given we’re going to file all the data in June, by the end of June… hopefully in the August timeframe, the vaccine is authorized,” Bancel said in an interview.
Omicron-Specific COVID Vaccines on the Horizon, Pfizer Chief Says
COVID-19 vaccines that specifically target the Omicron and other variants are under development, Pfizer Inc.’s (PFE.N) chief executive said on Wednesday, adding that the company will be able to quickly adapt shots as the novel coronavirus mutates.
While the ultimate approval decisions rest with U.S. regulators, “we are ready for that,” the drugmaker’s CEO Albert Bourla told MSNBC in an interview, noting that the Food and Drug Administration is convening a meeting later this month.
Survey Shows 3 in 5 Americans Say Pandemic Made Driving Feel Less Safe
The pandemic overall has increased road anxiety, with 65% of Americans claiming they feel more anxious in cars now compared to before the pandemic, according to new research.
A survey of 2,000 adults looked at how people are being more careful on the road and found that over half of drivers “always” or “often” feel anxious about other drivers’ behavior (53%).
Three in 5 agree that the pandemic has made people drive more unsafely (61%) which may be why a similar percentage say it’s more important to drive safely now than ever before (62%).
Omicron Subvariants BA.4, BA.5 Move Closer to Becoming Dominant Coronavirus Strains in U.S.
U.S. News & World Report reported:
A pair of Omicron subvariants that only recently started circulating in the U.S. was responsible for more than a third of new coronavirus cases last week, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CDC data shows that BA.4 and BA.5 caused roughly 35% of new infections last week. That’s up from nearly 23% of cases the prior week and 15% the week before that.
As BA.4 and BA.5 have increased, the prevalence of other Omicron subvariants in the U.S. has decreased. BA.2.12.1, which has been the dominant strain circulating in the U.S. since May, fell from 63% of cases to 56% over the past two weeks. BA.2, or “stealth Omicron,” was the dominant strain before BA.2.12.1 but now makes up less than 10% of infections.
COVID Rebound After Paxlovid Treatment Likely Due to Insufficient Exposure to the Drug
“COVID-19 rebound,” the relapse of symptoms that occurred in some patients treated with Paxlovid, may actually be caused by insufficient drug exposure, according to a recent study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a health advisory warning individuals about “COVID-19 rebound” where symptoms of COVID infection returned in some patients after a course of treatment with the medication Paxlovid. Paxlovid is currently the leading oral medication used to prevent severe cases of COVID-19 in high-risk patients, according to the researchers.
The investigators from the University Of California San Diego School of Medicine evaluated one patient who suffered a “COVID-19 rebound” after being treated with Paxlovid. They discovered that the patient’s relapse in COVID symptoms after taking Paxlovid was not caused by a developed resistance to the drug or impaired immunity against the coronavirus, but was due to having insufficient amounts or exposure to the drug, according to the study authors.
Summer Starts in Europe With New COVID Wave
European countries are seeing a significant increase in COVID-19 cases spurred by highly infectious subvariants of Omicron, raising fears of a new global wave of the disease as immunity declines and the summer travel season gets underway.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) warned last week that “the growth advantage reported for BA.4 and BA.5 suggest that these variants will become dominant” throughout the European Union, and probably result in a surge in cases.
Infections are rising in multiple countries, including Portugal, Germany, France, Greece, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Spain, according to the Our World in Data (OWID) project at the University of Oxford, which tracks the pandemic.
New studies have shown that Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 have a growth advantage compared with earlier variants and appear to be good at evading the immune system. In other words, neither previous infections nor vaccines provide particularly strong protection against the subvariants, which is why they’re becoming the dominant strains.
CDC Approves COVID Vaccines for Youngest Kids + More
CDC Approves COVID Vaccines for Youngest Kids
On Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on COVID vaccines for the youngest Americans. Her endorsement means shots can begin immediately, finally ending the two-and-a-half-year wait on the part of parents of children under 5.
Walenksy accepted the recommendation within hours after the CDC advisory committee voted unanimously in favor of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for children as young as 6 months.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee on Saturday endorsed Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines for the youngest children, the last step before CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky could issue her final sign-off.
The unanimous recommendations from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices followed the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of the shots on Friday.
White House Health Official Makes False Claim About COVID Vaccines
A White House official made a false claim on June 20 about COVID-19 vaccines while encouraging parents to get their young children vaccinated. Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, said that “there have not been any serious side effects of these vaccines.”
Contrary to Jha’s claim, severe allergic reactions, blood clotting, heart inflammation and paralysis are among the serious side effects linked to the three COVID-19 vaccines that are available in the United States.
“There is a well-documented risk of myocarditis from the COVID vaccine, especially in young men and adolescent boys, and an elevated risk of clotting in young women with the Moderna vaccine,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, told The Epoch Times in an email. “It’s not right for government scientific advisers to downplay documented risks of the vaccine because it ultimately undermines confidence in public health.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Says White House Lying About COVID Vaccine Policy
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said the White House lied about his state’s COVID-19 vaccine policy changes and that the media has largely chosen to ignore it.
The Republican was in Callahan, just north of Jacksonville, when he was asked about a debate on vaccines that occurred Friday and comments from the Biden administration last week that he had changed course and was ordering vaccines for young children.
“We are not going to have any programs where we’re trying to jab 6-month-old babies with mRNA,” he added. “That’s just the reality. I think what they thought would happen was that we’d be embarrassed about it.”
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Florida had reversed course and is allowing healthcare providers to order the mRNA vaccines for children under six months to 5 years of age.
On Monday, DeSantis said the state would not be ordering any mRNA vaccines for children.
Study CDC Cited in Arguing for COVID Vaccines for Babies Being Updated
A non-peer-reviewed study that U.S. government scientists cited in asserting COVID-19 is a leading cause of death for children is being updated after inaccuracies were detected.
The preprint paper, published in May, says that COVID-19 has been the fifth-leading cause of death during the pandemic for children aged 1 to 5. The authors, primarily British scientists, also concluded that COVID-19 has been a top cause of death for all children. But the paper has flaws, Seth Flaxman, a professor in Oxford University’s Department of Computer Science, and one of the authors, acknowledged on Twitter on June 19.
The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, the source for the paper, separates deaths with COVID-19 as the underlying cause from deaths as a contributing, but not the, cause.
The paper said that only deaths where COVID-19 was “the underlying cause of death” were counted. But the authors listed 1,433 deaths among those aged 0 to 19. There were actually just 1,088 deaths, according to an Epoch Times review of the data in a CDC database called WONDER.
Biden to Visit DC Clinic Following Approval of COVID Shots for Kids Under 5
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will visit a COVID vaccination clinic in Washington, DC, on Tuesday afternoon to highlight the recent approval of the shots for children under age 5.
Following the visit, Biden will deliver remarks at the White House about the long-awaited milestone.
In a statement after the announcement, Biden said it was a “monumental step forward in our nation’s fight against the virus, with virtually every American now eligible for the protections that COVID-19 vaccines provide.”
WHO’s Tedros Privately Admits Lab Leak ‘Most Likely Explanation’ for COVID
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who spent the early months of the pandemic publicly kowtowing to China, has privately admitted that he thinks COVID-19 escaped from a Chinese laboratory in a “catastrophic accident,” according to the Daily Mail, citing a senior Government source.
The WHO came under heavy fire early into the pandemic for praising China’s “transparent” response to the pandemic, repeating misinformation from Beijing about human-to-human transmission, and bowing to pressure from Chinese President Xi Jinping not to declare the COVID-19 outbreak an emergency.
Yet, while initially promoting the natural origin theory, Tedros and the WHO have become far more ‘open’ to the lab leak theory — despite officially being on the fence, unlike Tedros.
Some Omicron Sub-Variants Escaping Antibodies From Sinopharm Shot, Chinese Study Says
A small Chinese study detailed in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal showed neutralizing antibodies against some Omicron sub-variants were largely undetectable after two doses of a Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, with a booster shot only partly restoring them.
The study comes as China, which has approved only locally developed COVID shots including the Sinopharm vaccine, strives to improve vaccination rates, maintaining a “dynamic zero-COVID” policy aimed at eradicating all outbreaks while many countries have adopted an approach of learning to live with the virus.
The vaccine, BBIBP-CorV, is one of the two Sinopharm COVID shots approved for use in China and is also the main shot that the state-owned firm has exported.
Contagious Vaccines: A Warning
For two decades, scientists have been quietly developing self-spreading contagious vaccines. The National Institutes of Health funded this research, in which either DNA from a deadly pathogen is packaged in a contagious but less harmful virus, or the deadly virus’s lethality is weakened by engineering it in a lab.
The resultant “vaccines” spread from one person to the next just like a contagious respiratory virus. Only 5% of regional populations would need to be immunized; the other 95% would “catch” the vaccine as it spreads person-to-person through community transmission.
This technology bypasses the inconvenience of recalcitrant citizens who may refuse to give consent. Its advocates highlight that a mass vaccination campaign that would ordinarily take months of expensive effort to immunize everyone could be shortened to only a few weeks.
In the wake of the COVID pandemic, about a dozen research institutions in the United States, Europe and Australia are investigating the potential human uses for self-spreading vaccines. The federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, for example, is examining this technology for the U.S. military to protect against the West African Lassa fever, a virus spread by rats to humans. This project, it should be noted, doesn’t require the consent of our military service men and women.
COVID Vaccines for Australian Children Aged 6 Months to 5 Years May Be Approved in Weeks
Australian children aged five and under could be in line to receive a COVID-19 vaccination within a matter of weeks, the federal government has confirmed, as tests begin on a combined shot for flu and coronavirus.
The health minister, Mark Butler, said the Therapeutic Goods Administration was considering an application from the drug maker Moderna to allow its vaccines to be given to children aged from six months to five years old.
Australians will have access to a single vaccine for COVID-19, influenza and the respiratory virus RSV by 2024, Moderna has announced. The company’s chief medical officer, Dr. Paul Burton, said the combined shot was in the early testing stages, with trials to start later this year.
Women More Susceptible Than Men to Long COVID
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Women are far more likely than men to suffer from long COVID, according to a broad new research review.
The review, published June 21 in the journal Current Medical Research and Opinion, included 1.3 million patients and revealed women were 22% more likely to develop persistent symptoms after a COVID infection.
For women, lingering symptoms after a COVID infection included fatigue; ear, nose and throat issues; as well as mood disorders like depression. They also had respiratory symptoms, and neurological, skin, gastrointestinal and rheumatic disorders. In contrast, men with long COVID were more likely to have endocrine disorders, including diabetes and kidney issues.
Led by Shirley Sylvester, senior medical director for women’s health at Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, N.J., the researchers noted that differences in how men’s and women’s immune systems function could be an important factor.