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Covid News Watch

Sep 11, 2023

FDA Authorizes New Updated COVID Vaccines + More

FDA Authorizes New Updated COVID Vaccines

U.S. News & World Report reported:

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday authorized updated COVID-19 shots that could roll out as soon as this week.

The shots target XBB.1.5, which was responsible for about 3% of coronavirus infections in the U.S. in recent weeks, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC’s committee of outside vaccine experts will meet Tuesday to recommend who should receive the new shots. Once the CDC’s director signs off on the recommendations, shots can be administered.

FBI, HHS Stonewalling Congress Over Illegal Chinese COVID Lab in California

ZeroHedge reported:

The Chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has threatened to subpoena the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after they refused to produce information on an illegal Chinese lab that was “caught red-handed conducting dangerous research related to COVID-19 and other deadly diseases without a license by FBI agents and California officials.”

In Thursday’s letters to the agencies (FBI letter, HHS letter), Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) noted their failure to respond to prior requests for information, and said that if they fail to comply with oversight, “we will be forced to evaluate the use of the compulsory process.”

The letter also puts the agencies on notice that the Subcommittee may request that employees sit for voluntary transcribed interviews.

As we previously noted, the lab was found in what was thought to be an empty storage building in Reedley, California — located in the central San Joaquin Valley.

Public Health staff also observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums; and thousands of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material. Additionally, they found 900 genetically engineered mice, engineered to catch and carry COVID-19, living in “inhumane” conditions.

CORONAVIRUS/Taiwan Man to Receive NT$450,000 Payout in COVID Vaccine Case

Focus Taiwan reported:

A man who developed an autoimmune disease after he was vaccinated against COVID-19 will receive a payout of NT$450,000 (US$14,023), according to information released Saturday by Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

The 56-year-old, a resident of Taipei identified by his last name Tsai developed limb numbness, difficulty breathing and unsteady walking after getting a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, CDC Deputy Director General Tseng Shu-hui said.

Tsai immediately sought medical attention, and was later diagnosed as having Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare disorder caused by an immune attack on the nerve cells, Tseng said.

While there is no conclusive evidence directly linking Tsai’s symptoms to the AstraZeneca vaccine he received, he will be given compensation under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), the CDC said.

COVID Booster Warning From Florida Surgeon General, Who Advises People Not to Get New Vaccine

Fox News reported:

While speaking at a Thursday news conference for Gov. Ron DeSantis in Jacksonville, Florida, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, that state’s surgeon general, advised people to steer clear of the updated booster vaccine for COVID-19.

“There’s a new vaccine that’s coming around the corner, a new mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, and there’s essentially no evidence for it,” Ladapo said during the news conference, according to local news outlets.

“There’s been no clinical trial done in human beings showing that it benefits people,” he said. “There’s been no clinical trial showing that it is a safe product for people — and not only that but then there are a lot of red flags.”

In terms of specific concerns, Ladapo warned that the updated vaccines “actually cause cardiac injury in many people.”

U.S. CDC Says Existing Antibodies Can Work Against New COVID Variant

Reuters reported:

Early research data has shown that antibodies produced by prior infection or existing vaccines against the coronavirus were sufficient to protect against the new BA.2.86 variant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday.

Since the CDC’s initial risk assessment last month, BA.2.86 has been identified in nine U.S. states as of Friday. The Omicron offshoot has also been identified from both human and wastewater specimens in countries including Japan, U.K. and Canada.

This is in contrast to the CDC’s comments in August that the new variant may be more capable than older variants in causing infection in people who have previously had COVID-19 or who have received vaccines.

Pfizer and Moderna Are Pushing the New COVID Booster. Should You Get It? The CDC Is About to Decide.

KFF Health News reported:

A small percentage of Americans got the most recent COVID-19 booster shot, and even fewer probably realize the federal government is preparing to recommend yet another shot as early as Tuesday.

Until a week or two ago, William Schaffner read that indifference as a sign the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should advocate vaccinating only those most at risk from the virus. But then Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, changed his mind.

Members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices won him over to the argument that the vaccine be recommended for all Americans above 6 months of age, he said in an interview. The committee, which sets U.S. vaccination policy and helps determine insurance coverage for vaccines, will vote on the question Tuesday as it weighs the benefits of updated vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax.

Some of Schaffner’s scientific colleagues argue the government should be recommending the shot only for frail, older, sick, and immunocompromised people. Over 95% of the U.S. population are already COVID-immunized through vaccination, infection, or both, and the risks of serious illness for healthy younger people are not great.

The new vaccine is “not remotely a game changer,” said John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Fauci: We ‘Need to Be Prepared’ for Likely COVID Uptick This Winter

Politico reported:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former top infectious disease expert in the U.S., isn’t sounding alarm bells on the rising number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. yet, but he did caution that the trend will continue into the fall and winter months.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m alarmed but I’m certainly keeping an eye on it,” Fauci said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. The former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is now a professor at Georgetown University.

COVID Vaccine Rollout Begins Early in the U.K. With New Variant Under Watch

CNBC reported:

England on Monday began its winter COVID-19 and flu vaccination campaign ahead of schedule as it monitors a new variant and seeks to avoid another “twindemic” straining the healthcare system.

National Health Service (NHS) England said the program was brought forward based on the latest expert advice. Flu vaccines are available to all, while COVID vaccines will be offered to eligible groups including care home residents, over-65s, front-line health and social care workers, and those at clinical risk.

The early start was criticized by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society for coming at short notice and potentially creating confusion for pharmacists and the public. Winter vaccination campaigns also begin this month in Scotland and Northern Ireland, with Wales starting last week.

Research published Saturday said the variant had not been proven to have a “growth advantage” compared with other variants in circulation. The U.K. Health Security Agency also said there was insufficient evidence to link it to early indicators of increased COVID-19 transmission in the U.K. or to judge its severity.

Amid Another Rise in Cases, COVID’s New Normal Has Set in

STAT News reported:

Among people who are still paying attention to COVID-19, there’s been a recent surge — not just in viral activity but in the concern once again being paid to COVID.

While the angst is understandable, there’s something we need to grasp at this point in our coexistence with SARS-CoV-2: This is our life now.

“COVID’s never going to be over. You need to set expectations accordingly. It is never going to be over,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center, told STAT.

COVID is now like influenza, RSV, rhinoviruses, and a large number of other pathogens that will at some point or points in a year increase in transmission activity and then decline, ceding the stage to something else that can make people cough, sneeze, run a fever, feel lousy, and sometimes require medical care and can on occasion lead to death.

Sep 08, 2023

U.S. Quietly Terminates a Controversial $125 Million Wildlife Virus Hunting Program Amid Safety Fears + More

The U.S. Quietly Terminates a Controversial $125 Million Wildlife Virus Hunting Program Amid Safety Fears

The BMJ reported:

A flagship project for the controversial practice of hunting viruses among wildlife in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America to prevent human outbreaks and pandemics is being quietly dropped by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) after private and bipartisan criticism over the safety of such research, The BMJ has found.

For more than a decade the U.S. government has been funding international projects engaged in identifying exotic wildlife viruses that might someday infect humans. Although critics have raised concerns over the potentially catastrophic risks of such virus-hunting activities, hundreds of millions of dollars in unabated funding have symbolized a commitment to the effort.

The shuttering of the project, as described in a new congressional budget document and during interviews with scientists and federal policymakers, marks an abrupt retreat by the U.S. government from wildlife virus hunting, an activity that has also been funded by the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health.

The turnabout follows early warnings raised by skeptics — including officials in the Biden White House — that the $125m (£99m; €115m) “DEEP VZN” program could inadvertently ignite a pandemic. The misgivings continue to resonate, as the cause of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the world’s deadliest such event in a century, remains unproven.

Arkansas Hospital Sued Thousands of Patients Over Medical Bills During the Pandemic, Including Hundreds of Its Own Employees

CNN reported:

As COVID cases spread in 2020, visitors to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences were greeted by a colorful sign put up by grateful neighbors outside the university’s medical center: “Heroes Work Here.” But at least a dozen of the “heroes” that UAMS featured in online advertisements and other videos weren’t just employed by the university — they’ve also been sued by it.

UAMS, Arkansas’ flagship public health sciences university, has been aggressively suing thousands of former patients over medical debt in recent years, including hundreds of its own employees, a CNN investigation found.

Since 2019, UAMS has sued more than 8,000 patients to collect unpaid medical bills, according to court records. It filed more debt collection lawsuits in recent years than any other plaintiff in the Arkansas court system other than the state tax office.

The university’s use of the courts ballooned during the coronavirus pandemic. It filed 35 lawsuits in 2016 but more than 3,000 in 2021 — an average of nearly nine a day.

Long COVID Research: A Pre-Pandemic Common Cold Coronavirus Infection Could Explain Why Some Patients Develop Long COVID

Boston Herald reported:

A pre-pandemic common cold coronavirus infection may help set the stage for long COVID, according to Boston researchers who have been looking to explain why some patients end up facing the long-lasting, debilitating symptoms.

The researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital teamed up with experts in immunology and virology to look for clues about long COVID in blood samples from patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases.

The team found that among these patients, those who developed long COVID were more likely to have expanded, pro-inflammatory antibodies specific to a coronavirus that causes the common cold.

A person’s viral history, especially prior infection and expansion of antibodies against a pre-pandemic coronavirus, could prime the immune system for developing long COVID, according to the researchers.

Study Shows Elite Athletes Suffered No Long-Lasting Heart Damage After COVID

CIDRAP reported:

Today in Heart, researchers from Amsterdam University Medical Centers report that elite athletes followed up for 2 years after COVID-19 infections suffered no lasting damage to their hearts and faced no career setbacks because of their illnesses.

Because COVID-19 can cause inflammation of the heart muscles, and elite athletes are more prone to cardiac problems given the intense exertion experienced during their sports, the researchers followed outcomes for up to 27 months after infection to determine if any lasting cardiac damage was suffered.

A total of 259 elite athletes, 40% women, were included in the prospective study. The mean age was 26.5 years. All athletes were 16 years of age or older and included Olympians, Paralympians, and professional athletes who exercised more than 10 hours per week with an emphasis on competition and performance.

In the ICU, Doctors See Rise in COVID Cases but Less Severe Disease

NBC News reported:

For more than three years, Dr. Christopher Ohl has been treating COVID patients in the intensive care unit at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in North Carolina.

Lately, however, he’s noticed a change: His patients are nowhere as sick as they used to be. It’s a trend other ICU doctors have noticed, too, even as COVID hospitalizations continue to rise.

The latest Omicron subvariants that have evolved and are now circulating “are not as nasty” as previous variants like Delta, or the original strain that first swept the country, Ohl said.

What’s more, the vast majority of Americans — 95%, according to the CDC — have some level of protective immunity to the virus, whether through vaccination, infection or both.

Long COVID Less Likely After Omicron Than Other Variants, Data Show

CIDRAP reported:

Researchers in Sweden report that the risk of getting long COVID after a COVID-19 infection was higher for the wild type, Alpha, and Delta variants compared to Omicron. The study is published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Though prior research has shown that severe COVID-19 is less likely from Omicron infections compared to earlier variants, less is known about how each variant increases the likelihood of developing long COVID, or persistent symptoms lasting 12 or more weeks following acute infections.

The new study is based on cases in Stockholm, Sweden, and includes 3,002 people who received a long-COVID diagnosis any time from 90 to 240 days after first testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. All diagnoses were made after confirmed primary infections with the virus from October 2020 to February 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: FDA Refuses to Provide COVID Vaccine Safety Data to U.S. Senator

The Epoch Times reported:

U.S. officials are refusing to provide COVID-19 vaccine safety data to a U.S. senator. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the results of analyses on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in January. The request came after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said none of the safety signals it identified for the COVID-19 vaccines were “unexpected.”

The first time the CDC ran analyses using the method for the COVID-19 vaccines, in 2022, hundreds of signals were triggered, files obtained by The Epoch Times show.

Mr. Johnson demanded answers on that claim, prompting the CDC to point him to the FDA. The FDA recently responded to Mr. Johnson, telling him that it cannot provide the information he seeks.

“FDA’s EB data mining analyses of adverse events contained in VAERS reports for COVID-19 vaccines are currently the subject of pending FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] litigation. FDA is unable to comment on pending litigation or provide information or data that is currently being considered in pending litigation,” the agency told the senator.

COVID Map Shows 9 States Where Positive Tests Are Rising

Newsweek reported:

The highest rates of people testing positive for COVID-19 are in Texas and the states that surround it, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 15% of COVID tests in the U.S. were positive in the week ending August 26, the most recent week of federal data, up 1.4% from the previous week.

Five states — Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana and Arkansas — had the highest test positivity at 20.8%, according to CDC data. In Texas, a ban on mask mandates went into effect earlier in September.

Those states were followed by Nevada, Hawaii, California, and Arizona, which all had 16.1% of tests come back positive that week.

Latest COVID Variant Spreading in U.K., Health Data Suggests

The Guardian reported:

The latest COVID-19 variant, BA.2.86, appears to be spreading in the U.K., health surveillance data suggests.

The variant, nicknamed Pirola, has prompted concern among scientists because of the high number of mutations it carries, which raises the possibility that it could evade the immune system more easily or be more transmissible.

In a briefing note on Friday, the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that an outbreak at a care home in Norfolk and other cases across the U.K. indicated there was likely to be community transmission of the strain, but said it was too early to judge the full extent of its spread.

In an outbreak of COVID-19 in a care home in Norfolk at the end of August, 33 out of 38 residents tested positive for the virus, along with 12 members of staff, the UKHSA said. One resident needed hospital treatment but no deaths were reported. Laboratory tests later showed that 22 residents had the BA.2.86 variant, along with six staff.

Sep 06, 2023

To Mask or Not to Mask? Biden Goes Both Ways After First Lady Tests Positive for COVID + More

To Mask or Not to Mask? Biden Goes Both Ways After First Lady Tests Positive for COVID

Associated Press reported:

President Joe Biden turned up in a mask for the first time in months on Tuesday, a day after his wife tested positive for COVID-19. But the president quickly ditched it during a ceremony honoring an 81-year-old Vietnam veteran, and the two unmasked octogenarians shared a hearty handshake before they parted.

The White House had said earlier that Biden, who had tested negative for the virus earlier in the day, would wear a mask indoors, but that he might remove it when standing at a distance from others.

Biden and Capt. Larry Taylor, who both took off their masks after entering the East Room, stood side by side as a commendation was read aloud, and then Biden reached around the vet’s body to place the medal around his neck. The two then stood face-to-face and shook hands heartily.

MSNBC Doctor Says Everyone Older Than 6 Months Needs COVID Booster

The Daily Wire reported:

Public health commentator Vin Gupta recommended on Tuesday that everyone over six months of age get boosted against COVID. During an appearance on MSNBC, where he is a medical contributor, Dr. Gupta alluded to the emergence of new variants amid a reported uptick in cases across the country when asked who needs to get a booster and when.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does recommend that everyone in the United States six months and older get vaccinated against COVID and that people stay up to date.

Vaccine manufacturers Moderna, Pfizer, and Novavax are expected to roll out new versions of the jab later this month after advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended revised shots that target Omicron spinoff XBB.1.5 for the fall.

Gupta faced a wave of backlash on social media as conservative media accounts shared a clip on X, with several commenters saying they had no intention of following his advice.

U.K. Regulator Approves Updated Pfizer-BioNTech COVID Vaccine

Reuters reported:

The U.K. drug regulator said on Tuesday it has approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine by Pfizer (PFE.N) and its German partner BioNTech (22UAy.DE) that targets only the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant.

The vaccine, which like their other COVID shots will also be sold under brand Comirnaty, has been approved for use in individuals aged 6 months and above, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said. MHRA’s approval for the shot follows the European regulator’s clearance last week.

Besides Pfizer-BioNTech, other vaccine makers Moderna (MRNA.O) and Novavax (NVAX.O) have also created so-called monovalent versions of their shots that target only the XBB.1.5 subvariant of the virus.

While the U.S. expects to deploy all three vaccines in the fall season, the U.K. plans to deploy the mRNA vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna for the autumn immunization campaign.

EXCLUSIVE: CDC Repeatedly Advised People With Post-Vaccination Conditions to Get More Doses

The Epoch Times reported:

A network composed of experts from inside and outside the U.S. government repeatedly recommended that people who suffered adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination receive additional shots, even when the experts could not rule out the vaccines as the cause of the events, documents obtained by The Epoch Times show.

The network, the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Project, is run by a doctor who has received extensive funding from pharmaceutical giants, including the top two COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, according to other records.

In one example, CISA was presented with records showing a 63-year-old woman experienced chronic kidney disease, with symptoms including kidney swelling, after receiving a second dose of Pfizer‘s COVID-19 vaccine.

“Weighing the potential risks of COVID-19 vaccination and the benefits of preventing COVID-19, the SMEs provided their opinion that the patient should receive future COVID-19 vaccinations,” the Feb. 24, 2023, letter to the patient’s doctor stated.

Moderna Says Updated COVID Vaccine Is Effective Against Newer Variant

Reuters reported:

Moderna (MRNA.O) on Wednesday said clinical trial data showed its updated COVID-19 vaccine will likely be effective against the highly-mutated BA.2.86 subvariant of the coronavirus that has raised fears of a resurgence of infections.

The company said its shot generated an 8.7-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies in humans against BA.2.86, which is being tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Moderna said it had shared the new finding on its vaccine with regulators and submitted it for peer review publication. The retooled shot has yet to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but is expected to be available later this month or in early October.

All Signs Point to a Rise in COVID

NBC News reported:

Signs in the U.S. continue to point to a rise in COVID activity as fall approaches.

While individual cases have become more difficult to track as states are no longer required to report numbers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at-home test use has increased, experts have turned to other tools to track the virus.

“We’re now only testing people who are symptomatic,” said Jodie Guest, a professor of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, who added that this makes it difficult to directly compare hospitalization numbers to what was seen previously in the pandemic. Current numbers may be missing asymptomatic cases and therefore be lower than earlier ones.

Sep 05, 2023

Fauci Admits to Lack of COVID Mask Evidence — but Wants Us to Wear Them Anyway + More

Fauci Admits to Lack of COVID Mask Evidence — but Wants Us to Wear Them Anyway

New York Post reported:

Dr. Anthony Fauci flip-flopped once again on masking as a means to tamp down COVID-19 as he admitted that a wide-ranging study found that face masks made no difference in the course of the pandemic.

As the White House’s chief medical adviser, Fauci gave conflicting advice on the efficacy of masking, first saying it was unnecessary for the general public, then that “universal wearing of masks is the most practical way to go.”

As recently as this May, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that unvaccinated children still should mask up when playing with friends. But in February, a major study from the Cochrane Library found that wearing them was pointless. “There’s still no evidence that masks are effective during a pandemic,” Tom Jefferson, the study’s lead author, said in February.

Confronted with Jefferson’s quotes, Fauci backtracked. “When you’re talking about the effect on the epidemic or the pandemic as a whole, the data are less strong,” he admitted.

Federal Appeals Court Revives Lawsuit Against FDA Over COVID Ivermectin Messaging

The Hill reported:

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its campaign against the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19 can continue, reversing a lower court decision.

Three doctors sued the FDA last year claiming that the agency’s anti-ivermectin campaign went too far, overstepping its authority and acting more as a medical body than a regulator.

A district court ruled that the suit could not continue, but the 5th Circuit Appeals Court revived the doctors’ hope in its Friday ruling, sending the case back to a lower court where it will be reconsidered.

The three doctors said their reputations were harmed by the FDA campaign because they promoted ivermectin use. One doctor was suspended from a hospital, while another was fired from a medical school.

University of Wisconsin Investigated by House Republicans Over ‘Dangerous Gain-of-Function’ Research

The Daily Wire reported:

House Republicans announced an investigation on Friday into gain-of-function research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that they said could be “dangerous.”

The letter was sent by Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) to UW Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin requesting information on the university’s gain-of-function research and any information on if the university had worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology or on any coronavirus projects.

The letter pointed to previous problems identified with gain-of-function research at the university, but the university has said that the controversial research is “needed and highly regulated.”

Wenstrup said that he disagreed with the university’s assertion that there was enough regulation on gain-of-function research, saying that previous use of gain-of-function research at the university proved otherwise.

New AI-Generated COVID Drug Enters Phase I Clinical Trials: ‘Effective Against All Variants’

Fox News reported:

Artificial intelligence is increasingly moving into the healthcare arena and helping to streamline medical processes — including the creation of new drugs.

Insilico Medicine, an AI-driven biotech company based in Hong Kong and New York City, recently announced that its new AI-designed drug for COVID-19 has entered Phase I clinical trials. This oral drug is a treatment, not a vaccine. If approved, it would become the first-ever alternative to Paxlovid, noted Alex Zhavoronkov, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine.

Paxlovid, which is currently the only medication available to treat COVID symptoms, has been linked to some undesirable side effects, Insilico noted. One of these is “Paxlovid rebound,” which is when patients recover from COVID and test negative — but then test positive again a short time later.

Another documented side effect, “Paxlovid mouth,” occurs when the drug leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth for those who take it. An additional limitation of Paxlovid is that as COVID mutates, drug-resistant strains can emerge.

FDA, CDC Hid Data on Spike in COVID Cases Among the Vaccinated: Documents

The Epoch Times reported:

COVID-19 cases among vaccinated seniors soared in 2021, according to newly disclosed data that was acquired by U.S. health agencies but wasn’t presented to the public.

Humetrix Cloud Services was contracted by the U.S. military to analyze vaccine data. The company performed a fresh analysis as authorities considered in 2021 whether COVID-19 vaccine boosters were necessary amid studies finding waning vaccine effectiveness.

Humetrix researchers found that the proportion of total COVID-19 cases among seniors was increasingly comprised of vaccinated people, according to the newly disclosed documents. For the week ending on July 31, 2021, post-vaccination COVID-19 cases represented 73% of the cases among people 65 and older, the company found. The elderly were 80% fully vaccinated at the time.

Breakthrough infection rates were higher among those who were vaccinated early, the researchers found. They estimated that the rates were twice as high in those who had been vaccinated five to six months prior when compared to people vaccinated three to four months before.

YOUR HEALTH: COVID Vaccine Nasal Drops

WAFB reported:

Getting immunized from COVID-19 could soon be as simple as using nasal spray. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are working on nasal drops that could be key to stopping the transmission of the virus before it enters the body.

There are two main advantages of a nasal spray instead of a shot in the arm. There are no needles involved, and nasal spray triggers an immune response in the nose and upper airway.

Without using mRNA, researchers are targeting fiber proteins in the virus. “We’re trying to engineer these proteins so that we can infect the nose even better than our present vaccine,” Dr. Curiel explained.

The nasal drop vaccine is also quickly adaptable, so it can be quickly modified to match new variants that emerge of the COVID-19 virus. The nasal drops are already being manufactured in India, Europe, and Japan and should be ready to be presented to the FDA in the United States by the end of 2023.

Tonix’s Long COVID Drug Fails to Meet Mid-Stage Trial Goal

Reuters reported:

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp (TNXP.O) said on Tuesday its experimental drug failed to meet the primary goal in a mid-stage study for management of widespread muscle pain and tenderness associated with long COVID-19.

Shares of the company were down 12% in premarket trading.

The 63-patient study was designed to monitor the intensity of pain in patients who had long COVID and administered either the drug, TNX-102 SL, or placebo, but the trial failed to show improvement at week 14 of treatment, the company said.

Tonix intends to meet officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in early 2024 to seek permission to conduct a late-stage trial that focuses on reducing fatigue in patients with long COVID, an illness with no approved drugs.

U.S. Lab Tests Suggest New COVID Variant BA.2.86 May Be Less Contagious and Less Immune-Evasive Than Feared

CNN Health reported:

Two teams of U.S. scientists have completed lab experiments testing the antibodies from vaccinated and infected Americans to see how well they might be able to fend off currently circulating variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, including the highly mutated BA.2.86.

Their results match up almost exactly, and the news — at least when it comes to BA.2.86, which has also been dubbed Pirola — is very good. Our immune systems can recognize and fight off this variant as well as, and perhaps even a bit better than, the currently circulating offshoots of the XBB variant.

Their results align with earlier experiments by labs in China and Sweden. Taken together, the data suggests that BA.2.86 will not be as troublesome as experts had feared. In short, this one seems to be a “scariant.”

But another variant, FL.1.5.1, which is causing an estimated 15% of new COVID-19 infections in the U.S., may be a different story. This fast-growing descendant of the XBB recombinant variant has a constellation of mutations that have raised the eyebrows of variant trackers. In lab testing, it was the most immune-evasive.

Biden, First Lady Last Together Monday, Same Day She Tested Positive for COVID

ABC News reported:

Jill Biden was last with President Joe Biden on Monday, her press secretary Vanessa Valdivia said Tuesday, the same day the first lady tested positive for COVID-19.

“She’ll be monitored by the White House medical team and follow their advice on when to return to the White House,” Valdivia said in an update on Biden‘s health.

She was isolating at her home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, away from her husband, who returned to the White House on Monday.

Following the first lady’s positive test, President Biden took a COVID test on Monday evening and tested negative, his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.