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Covid News Watch
Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs Overwhelmed + More
Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs Overwhelmed as Congressional Reform Languishes
A pair of federal programs compensating people who suffer injuries from vaccines and pandemic treatments are now facing so many claims that thousands of people may not receive payment for their injuries any time soon.
The first program, meant for standard vaccines, such as measles and polio, has too little staff to handle the number of reported injuries, and thousands of patients are waiting years for their cases to be heard.
A second program designed for vaccines and other treatments created or used during pandemics has seen unsustainable growth. Between 2010 and 2020, the Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program received 500 complaints. In the two years since COVID-19 appeared, it has received over 8,000 complaints.
Epidemiologist: ‘COVID-19 Can Result in Long-Term Consequences, Even Among the Vaccinated’
It’s estimated between 10% to 30% of patients can suffer with long COVID after recovering from COVID-19, according to the American Medical Association.
Now new research shows even people who are vaccinated that have mild infections can experience lingering symptoms that affect the heart, brain, lungs and other parts of the body, CBS News reports.
Sam Nordel was vaccinated and boosted when she got COVID-19 in January. Now the previously healthy 47-year-old working mom suffers from long COVID.
B.C. Man Among First Canadians Approved for COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Payout
In the year since he became partially paralyzed, Ross Wightman has kept his focus on small victories — from getting up the stairs unassisted, to going for a solo walk near his rural B.C. home.
But the biggest win came in the form of an e-mail from Canada’s Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) that confirmed something he says he knew all along: that his condition was likely caused by the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
“That was quite vindicating,” Wightman said from his Lake Country home in the Okanagan Valley. “To have it in hand, in paper, acknowledging it has been vindicating.”
COVID Vaccines Can’t Keep Up With New Omicron Subvariants
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the air. New subvariants of the Omicron strain of the COVID-19 virus “appear to be even more immune-resistant than the original,” Axios reported Wednesday.
The original Omicron strain was known as BA.1, but that’s old hat by now. All the cool kids are getting BA.4, or even BA.5. Unfortunately, while the virus has moved on, vaccine makers are stuck in the past.
Per Axios, “[c]linical trials are underway to study tweaked versions of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines” designed to tackle O.G. Omicron, but by the time they’re ready — this fall at the earliest — it might be too late.
How Are Vaccines Being Adapted to Meet the Changing Face of SARS-CoV-2?
It seems like a lifetime ago, but the first clinically approved vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 was given to a patient just 17 months ago, on Dec. 8, 2020. Since that first vaccine dose, developed by the drug company Pfizer, a number of vaccines have been developed. Ten are approved by the World Health Organization, and scores more are still undergoing trials.
However, just as vaccine development hasn’t stood still, neither has the virus itself. The changing face of the novel coronavirus has challenged scientists to modify existing vaccines to better tackle the changing characteristics of SARS-CoV-2. Yet, despite much talk of modified vaccines for variants, the world is still using largely the same original vaccines for initial rollouts and booster doses.
“It seems as if the dominant things I’m hearing about at the moment are updates to existing vaccines,” says Paul Bieniasz, virologist at the Rockefeller University, New York.
‘Significant’ Cases of Neurological Disorder Associated with the AstraZeneca Vaccine
A U.K. study by University College London has confirmed “small but significant” cases of the serious Guillain–Barré syndrome (GNS), a rare neurological disorder associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19.
The researchers speculate that “the majority or all” of the 121 UK cases of GBS (pdf) in March to April 2021 were associated with first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine administered in January.
“A similar pattern is not seen with the other vaccines or following a second dose of any vaccine,” said lead author Prof. Michael Lunn on May 30.
7 in 10 Public Schools Report Increase in Children Seeking Mental Health Services Since Pandemic’s Start: Survey
Seven out of 10 public schools say they have seen an increase in children seeking mental health services since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a study from an independent government agency has revealed.
The Institute of Education Sciences found requests increased across all demographics accounting for region, school size and level and percentages of minority students and students in poverty. A slight majority of public schools surveyed reported that they moderately or strongly agree they can effectively provide mental health services to their students.
The institute, which is under the purview of the Education Department, launched the study, called the School Pulse Panel, to investigate the impact of the pandemic on a sample of elementary, middle, high and combined schools throughout the country.
The researchers are conducting their study from January to June and are tracking schools’ teaching formats and health policies throughout the study’s entirety. They are additionally probing different topics related to the pandemic’s impact on education each month.
CDC to Stop Reporting Suspected COVID Cases + More
CDC Plans to Stop Reporting Suspected COVID Cases to Ease Burden
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to simplify the COVID-19 hospital data it collects as the demands of the pandemic evolve and some assembled information has become outdated or redundant.
The agency is likely to stop collecting data from hospitals on suspected COVID cases that haven’t been confirmed by tests, for example, and may also wind down federal reporting from rehabilitation and mental health facilities that aren’t major intake points for virus cases, according to a draft of the plan that was viewed by Bloomberg News.
The agency is also suggesting that the U.S. stop collecting COVID vaccination data from hospitals because it isn’t required to be reported, isn’t widely used and hospital workers are required to report their vaccine status via a different mechanism.
Kids Under 5 Could Pose Major Challenge for Maine’s COVID Vaccine Effort
Slow progress in vaccinating kids aged 5 to 11 could foretell a harder slog getting younger children inoculated both in Maine and across the country when shots likely become available for the latter population this summer.
Only the states of Vermont, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have higher vaccination rates for the 5-11 group, which is the youngest demographic now authorized for COVID-19 vaccines, according to a New York Times tracker. But the 44% of fully vaccinated children in Maine has only ticked up by 7 percentage points since early January.
It shows much of the progress comes at first and that getting additional shots into younger children could be a daunting task.
Patient Group Calls for Recurring COVID Boosters to Cut Through Vaccine Apathy
USA TODAY via Yahoo!News reported:
Fewer than one in three Americans have received an extra shot of the COVID-19 vaccine and one patient safety group thinks that’s a public health challenge.
The nonprofit ECRI said in a position paper that adopting a booster shot schedule targeting emerging variants would create certainty and convince more Americans to get boosted and help reduce COVID-19 spread in communities.
Federal health agencies have cleared vaccine boosters for adults and teens, and last week, for kids ages 5 to 11. The FDA is reviewing Moderna’s vaccine for younger children. Pfizer-BioNTech on Monday said its COVID-19 vaccine appears to be safe and effective for kids under 5. Federal health officials authorized a second booster shot for adults over 50 and immunocompromised people over 12.
If the vaccine booster became routine like annual flu shots, Marcus Schabacker, president and CEO of ECRI, believes more people would be willing to take the extra COVID-19 jab.
We’re in the ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’ Phase of the Pandemic
Heading into what seems like a fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with cases almost quadrupling over the last two months and hospitalizations beginning to increase as well, much of the country seems content to simply go about its business. Stores are full of maskless shoppers, baseball stadiums are crowded and there are lines outside many popular restaurants.
According to a recent Axios/Ipsos poll, a third of the country appears to be “done with COVID.”
If only. The pandemic is not over, nor have we arrived in the gauzy realm referred to as endemic infection in which all COVID-19 spikes are local, not national, and each of us is left to just deal with it. No, instead, the COVID-19 pandemic is still barreling along — and will be for the foreseeable future.
But, thankfully, the pandemic has changed. The newest dominant sub-variant, Omicron BA.2.12.1, causes less severe disease, though it is no walk in the park for many, and hospitalization and death rates have been slower to rise than with previous waves.
NYC Still at High COVID Alert Level as New CDC Map Slashes Number of Riskiest Counties
The latest COVID-19 wave overtaking the tri-state in recent weeks appears to be ebbing, based on the CDC‘s latest update, just as the wildly contagious strain that has been spreading rampantly in New York for weeks asserts national dominance.
The number of U.S. counties deemed to be at high risk for community COVID spread dropped to 250 in the CDC’s Friday update, a 16% decline from the 297 with that distinction last week. At the time, 54 of New York state’s 62 counties — or 87% of the total — met the CDC’s threshold for high COVID community spread risk, accounting for nearly a fifth of all U.S. counties that had the same distinction.
The situation has changed, with the number of New York counties meeting that standard slashed to a third of the total (30). The state added more green, representing a low risk for community COVID spread, according to the CDC, since last week when Orange County was New York’s lone representative in that category.
Coronavirus Hasn’t Developed Resistance to Paxlovid. How Long Can That Last?
Resistance is the hobgoblin of antiviral medicine, even with antivirals as effective as Paxlovid. After doctors deployed nearly every new virus-killing infusion or pill in history, strains popped up — either immediately or eventually — with machinery warped in just the right way to evade the threat.
Exactly how much of a problem resistance will be for Paxlovid is complicated. In some patients, the coronavirus will inevitably find ways to evade the pill, as it did prior COVID-19 drugs.
“If there is anything we know about viruses and antiviral drugs is that eventually, we will see some sort of resistance,” Andrew Pavia, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah Health, said in an email.
Long COVID Cures May Need to Go Beyond Vaccines
New research casting doubt on vaccines’ ability to protect against “long COVID” suggests that as the virus itself becomes endemic, its lingering aftereffects aren’t going anywhere without new treatments or vaccines.
Long COVID is emerging as the next phase of the global healthcare crisis. However, it’s still unclear how many more people will come down with serious health aftershocks as variants continue to evolve and the population continues to develop more immunity.
A Department of Veterans Affairs study of almost 34,000 vaccinated people who had breakthrough infections in 2021 found the shots only cut the likelihood of long COVID by about 15%.
Breakthrough Infections May Be Less Contagious; Vaccine Protection Wanes Faster in Cancer Patients
The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review.
Fully vaccinated individuals who get infected with the coronavirus spread the infection to fewer people and are contagious for less time compared to people who are partially vaccinated or unvaccinated, a small study from South Korea suggests.
COVID-19 vaccines are effective in most cancer patients, but less so than in the general population and the efficacy wanes more quickly, according to a large study.
North Korea Stockpiled Chinese Masks, Vaccines Before Reporting COVID Outbreak
In the months before it acknowledged its first official COVID-19 outbreak, North Korea suddenly imported millions of face masks, 1,000 ventilators, and possibly vaccines from China, trade data released by Beijing showed.
North Korea is not known to have conducted any significant COVID-19 vaccine campaign. In February, however, China exported $311,126 worth of unidentified vaccines to its neighbor, according to the data released this month. China reported no other vaccine exports to North Korea for any other month this year or all of last year.
‘Nobody Wants Them’: Moderna Throwing out 30 Million Vaccine Doses, CEO Says + More
‘Nobody Wants Them’: Moderna Throwing out 30 Million Vaccine Doses, CEO Says
After two-and-a-half years of COVID-19, we’re all moving on. Sure, the virus is still there, albeit generally less dangerous with the Omicron variant, but many Americans no longer don masks and regular life has mostly returned. The whole “moving on” thing has one serious effect on vaccine makers.
“It’s sad to say, I’m in the process of throwing 30 million doses into the garbage because nobody wants them,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said this week. “We have a big demand problem.”
Speaking to an audience at the World Economic Forum, Bancel also said efforts to contact various governments have failed. “We right now have governments — we tried to contact … through the embassies in Washington. Every country, and nobody wants to take them,” he said. “The issue in many countries is that people don’t want vaccines,” he added.
Bancel’s announcement comes just after the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a stern warning: the COVID-19 pandemic is “most certainly not over,” warned WHO head Tedros Ghebreyesus.
The Risk for Guillain-Barré Syndrome Following J&J COVID Vaccination
The incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) was elevated following vaccination with the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine Ad.26.COV2.5, according to study findings published in JAMA Network Open.
In the U.S., there are 3 available COVID-19 vaccines, the replication-incompetent adenoviral vector vaccine Ad.26.COV2.5 or the mRNA vaccines BNT162b2 from Pfizer-BioNTech and mRNA-1273 from Moderna.
In April 2021, use of Ad.26.COV2.5 was paused due to concerns about thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome and in July 2021, a report from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) raised concerns about GBS after Ad.26.COV2.5.
The researchers sought to evaluate the rate of GBS after receiving any COVID-19 vaccine. Data were sourced from the Vaccine Safety Datalink which included records from 10,158,003 people in the US as of November 2021. Incidence rates of GBS up to 84 days after vaccination were evaluated for each of the 3 vaccines.
Novavax Missed Its Global Moonshot but Is Angling to Win Over mRNA Defectors
Novavax hitched its wagon to the global coronavirus pandemic. Before most Americans truly grasped the scope of the danger, the small Maryland biotech startup had secured $1.6 billion in U.S. funding for its COVID vaccine. Its moonshot goal: delivering 2 billion shots to the world by mid-2021.
Although the U.S. commitment eventually expanded to $1.8 billion, hardly any Novavax shots have found arms due to manufacturing issues, and most of the world has moved on. Novavax stock has plummeted from $290 a share in February 2021 to around $50 recently.
The FDA finally appears poised to authorize the company’s vaccine, however. If it does, Novavax would target the tens of millions of Americans who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 or would benefit from boosters but have avoided mRNA vaccines because of health concerns or conspiracy theories about their dangers.
South Africa COVID Vaccine Hesitancy Due to Side-Effect Fears — Survey
Fears over the possible side effects and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines have been the main drivers of hesitancy among thousands of South Africans, a government-backed online survey showed on Thursday.
It has, like many countries in Africa and on other continents, struggled to convince skeptics to get vaccinated.
Among the 18-34 age group, hesitancy was highest, at 39%, the survey taken in October and November found, with the white population the most likely racial group to eschew the vaccine, at 48% of respondents.
“What this analysis has demonstrated is that the majority of those that express hesitation about taking the vaccine are not anti-science, but are expressing rational and legitimate doubts,” a presentation on the survey’s findings said.
Dominant Coronavirus Mutant Contains Ghost of Pandemic Past
The coronavirus mutant that is now dominant in the United States is a member of the Omicron family but scientists say it spreads faster than its Omicron predecessors, is adept at escaping immunity and might possibly cause more serious disease.
Why? Because it combines properties of both Omicron and Delta, the nation’s dominant variant in the middle of last year.
A genetic trait that harkens back to the pandemic’s past, known as a “Delta mutation,” appears to allow the virus “to escape pre-existing immunity from vaccination and prior infection, especially if you were infected in the Omicron wave,” said Dr. Wesley Long, a pathologist at Houston Methodist in Texas. That’s because the original Omicron strain that swept the world didn’t have the mutation.
The Omicron “subvariant” gaining ground in the U.S. — known as BA.2.12.1 and responsible for 58% of U.S. COVID-19 cases last week — isn’t the only one affected by the Delta mutation. The genetic change is also present in the Omicron relatives that together dominate in South Africa, known as BA.4 and BA.5. Those have exactly the same mutation as Delta, while BA.2.12.1 has one that’s nearly identical.
WHO: COVID Cases Mostly Drop, Except for the Americas
The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths are still falling globally after peaking in January, the World Health Organization said.
COVID-19 cases rose in only two regions of the world: the Americas and the Western Pacific.
WHO said it is tracking all Omicron subvariants as “variants of concern.” It noted that countries which had a significant wave of disease caused by the Omicron subvariant BA.2 appeared to be less affected by other subvariants like BA.4 and BA.5, which were responsible for the latest surge of disease in South Africa.
U.S. Making COVID Antiviral Drug More Available at Test Sites
The White House on Thursday announced more steps to make the antiviral treatment Paxlovid more accessible across the U.S. as it projects COVID-19 infections will continue to spread over the summer travel season.
The nation’s first federally backed test-to-treat site is opening Thursday in Rhode Island, providing patients with immediate access to the drug once they test positive. More federally supported sites are set to open in the coming weeks in Massachusetts and New York City, both hit by a marked rise in infections.
Rebound COVID Is Just the Start of Paxlovid’s Mysteries
The first data on Paxlovid, out last November, hinted that the COVID antiviral would cut the risk of hospitalization and death by 89%. Pundits called the drug “a monster breakthrough,” “miraculous,” and “the biggest advance in the pandemic since the vaccines.”
Now, finally, the game is being changed. The government has ordered 20 million courses of Paxlovid, committing half of the $10 billion in additional COVID funding that is being negotiated in the Senate; and Pfizer says that the number of patients taking the drug increased by a factor of 10 between mid-February and late April.
But as the treatment spreads, so too does confusion over its effectiveness and side effects. Patients have complained of a bitter, metallic taste, or one like grapefruit juice mixed with soap, the whole time they were on the drug. More concerning, some have reported experiencing a second round of symptoms, and going back to testing positive, when the pills were done, a phenomenon that’s become known as “Paxlovid rebound.”
Meanwhile, Pfizer has never published any final data on the use of the drug by vaccinated patients, leaving medical professionals with little information about how the drug works for people who have received their shots — which is to say, most of the adult population in the U.S.
Nation’s Latest COVID Wave Largely Hidden From View, Health Experts Say
Current COVID-19 cases are just a fraction of what they were at the peak of the Omicron wave. But many people in the country may be noticing what seems to be a flood of cases in their social circles.
Health experts say this anecdotal evidence may not be simply coincidence, as the U.S. may be in a “hidden” wave — one much larger than reported data would suggest.
This is due in part to changes in data collection and reporting and the proliferation of at-home tests. Some state officials report that health departments and healthcare facilities have also ended traditional tracking of COVID-19 patients, which epidemiologists say make it more difficult to know how many patients are coming into hospitals in need of care.
Hospitalization numbers have been increasing in recent weeks, but not at a rate as significant as infections.
With Failed COVID Shot Still Dragging on Earnings, CureVac Tries to Turn Page to Next-Gen mRNA Tech
CureVac’s first-generation COVID vaccine — a shot that failed to reach anywhere near the high efficacy bar set by rivals — is continuing to drag on the German biotech’s earnings and is expected to negatively impact sales for the rest of the year.
But the company is looking to its future, pointing to a next-generation COVID-19 shot and an influenza program in development with GlaxoSmithKline, plus a new focus on oncology thanks to a freshly signed deal with myNEO.
The company’s financials continued to be marred by “prior commitments” related to the CVnCoV vaccine, CFO Pierre Kemula said in a first-quarter earnings report released Wednesday. These impacts will continue through the year but will start to wane.
Vaccines Offer Little Protection Against Long COVID, Study Finds + More
Vaccines Offer Little Protection Against Long COVID, Study Finds
The COVID vaccines, while holding up strong against hospitalization and death, offer little protection against long COVID, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Nature Medicine.
The findings are disappointing, if not surprising, to researchers who were once hopeful that vaccination could significantly reduce the risk of long COVID.
The COVID vaccines were developed early on in the pandemic, long before doctors, scientists and patients knew of the existence of long COVID. They were never designed to protect against it, said Al-Aly, who is also chief of research at the V.A. St. Louis Health Care System.
Viruses That Were on Hiatus During COVID Are Back — and Behaving in Unexpected Ways
For nearly two years, as the COVID pandemic disrupted life around the globe, other infectious diseases were in retreat. Now, as the world rapidly dismantles the measures put in place to slow the spread of COVID, the viral and bacterial nuisances that were on hiatus are returning — and behaving in unexpected ways.
Consider what we’ve been seeing of late. The past two winters were among the mildest influenza seasons on record, but flu hospitalizations have picked up in the last few weeks — in May! Adenovirus type 41, previously thought to cause fairly innocuous bouts of gastrointestinal illness, may be triggering severe hepatitis in healthy young children.
And now monkeypox, a virus generally only found in West and Central Africa is causing an unprecedented outbreak in more than a dozen countries in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Australia, with the United Kingdom alone reporting more than 70 cases as of Tuesday.
Because of COVID, 2020 Was a ‘Lost Year’ in the Fight Against HIV, Report Suggests
Confronted by the COVID-19 pandemic, an ambitious new plan by the federal government, marshaled by Dr. Anthony Fauci, to accelerate the battle against the stubbornly persistent HIV epidemic in the U.S. appears to have made a markedly disappointing debut.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual HIV Surveillance Report, published Tuesday, provides the first major bird’s-eye view of the turn the country’s four-decade-old epidemic took after the coronavirus upended society.
The report, which includes 2020 data, follows worrisome previous findings that HIV testing plunged as stay-at-home orders swept the country in March 2020.
CDC officials have expressed concern that the extraordinary disruptions the country’s COVID response has caused to HIV-related services have inflicted collateral damage that could take years to undo. It even remains possible that, after decades of hard-fought declines, the national HIV transmission rate has crept up again.
Bay Area COVID Cases Surpass 2021 Winter Surge, but Far Fewer Hospitalized
San Francisco Chronicle via MSN reported:
Coronavirus cases in the Bay Area’s spring surge have surpassed the peaks of the devastating winter wave of early 2021, but high levels of vaccination and immunity in the community are keeping hospitalizations at more manageable levels so far, and deaths remain notably low throughout the region.
The Bay Area is reporting roughly 4,500 new coronavirus cases a day as of Tuesday — about the same as the peak of the winter 2020-21 surge, which was the deadliest period of the pandemic.
Hospitalizations are a fraction of the 2020-21 surge, though — about 516 people are currently hospitalized with COVID in the Bay Area, up from 255 last month and compared to more than 2,000 in the worst days of the pandemic. The region is reporting about three deaths per day, far below the 50 or more deaths reported daily during the deadliest time.
Pfizer CEO Predicts ‘Constant Waves’ of COVID Because of Complacency About the Coronavirus and Politicization of the Pandemic
The world is likely to suffer from “constant waves” of COVID-19, the CEO of Pfizer warned Wednesday. Albert Bourla pointed to complacency about the virus, politicization of the pandemic and diminishing immunity from vaccines and prior infections, according to comments reported by the Financial Times.
People are also growing “tired” of COVID-19 safety regulations, said Bourla, who was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where world leaders and members of the business elite are gathered for an annual summit.
Pfizer said on May 3 that it expects 2022 revenue from Comirnaty, its COVID-19 vaccine, of around $32 billion.
Bourla said Pfizer believed that antiviral drugs would replace vaccines as the key weapon in fighting the coronavirus, at least until shots providing a longer period of immunity were developed. Pfizer was “doubling down” on producing its antiviral pill Paxlovid, Bourla added.
CDC: New Omicron Subvariant Takes Over as Dominant Coronavirus Strain
U.S. News & World Report reported:
A highly contagious subvariant of Omicron has taken over as the dominant strain circulating in the U.S., according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
BA.2.12.1 was responsible for 58% of recorded new coronavirus cases last week, according to the updated data. That’s up from 49% of infections the week prior.
The Omicron subvariant takes the spot over from another Omicron subvariant, BA.2, or “stealth Omicron.” That strain dropped to 39% of new infections last week. BA.2.12.1 is believed to be about 25% more transmissible than BA.2, but there are no signs yet that it causes more severe disease.
CDC Says Monkeypox Doesn’t Spread Easily by Air: ‘This Is Not COVID’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to calm public anxiety over how the monkeypox virus is transmitted, emphasizing that it doesn’t spread that easily through the air because it requires close contact with an infected person.
Monkeypox is primarily spread through sustained physical contact such as skin-to-skin touch with someone who has an active rash, CDC officials said this week. The virus can also spread through contact with materials that have the virus on it like shared bedding and clothing. But it can spread through respiratory droplets as well, although not nearly as easily as COVID-19, they said.
“This is not COVID,” Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, a CDC official, told reporters on a call Monday. “Respiratory spread is not the predominant worry. It is contact and intimate contact in the current outbreak setting and population.”
Employers Are Not Accommodating People Disabled by Long COVID, Activists Tell House Panel
Some people disabled by long COVID-19 are struggling in the workplace, with employers refusing to make accommodations for the new condition, disability activists told a House committee on Tuesday.
During a hearing for the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion, witnesses detailed the challenges that disabled people continue to face in accessing financial services, equitable housing and work opportunities.
The rate at which long COVID-19 occurs among patients remains unclear. Symptoms of the condition are diverse and can range from mild to debilitating. Many people report breathing issues, persistent brain fog and fatigue.
Pfizer CEO Says He ‘Wouldn’t Worry Much’ About Monkeypox; Cuts Drug Prices for Low-Income Countries
Pfizer’s CEO said Wednesday that he “wouldn’t worry much” about a recent monkeypox outbreak that has seen cases surge in non-endemic countries. Albert Bourla told CNBC that current data on the disease suggests it doesn’t transmit as easily as other viruses, such as COVID-19, and that it is unlikely to lead to a pandemic.
“That doesn’t mean that we should relax,” however, he continued. “I think we should monitor where the situation goes.”
Bourla noted that the availability of existing treatments presents a reason for optimism. Smallpox vaccinations have proven 85% effective against monkeypox, and already France and Denmark are considering targeted vaccination campaigns for those most at risk of transmitting the disease.
In a separate announcement Wednesday, Pfizer said that it would make all of its patented medicines available at a not-for-profit price for the world’s poorest countries. The pharmaceutical giant said the plan covers 23 wholly-owned, patented medicines and vaccines for infectious diseases, certain cancers and some other rare and infectious diseases.
Long-Term Heart Inflammation Strikes 1 in 8 Hospitalized COVID Patients
U.S. News & World Report reported:
A year after being hospitalized with COVID-19, more than 12% of patients had been diagnosed with heart inflammation, according to a new study of the long-term effects of the virus.
For the study, researchers in Scotland followed 159 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between May 2020 and March 2021. A year later, many patients had ongoing health conditions.
Besides heart inflammation (myocarditis), inflammation across the body and damage to other organs, including the kidneys, were common, according to the team from the University of Glasgow and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
Pandemic-Weary Americans Plan for Summer Despite COVID Surge
A high school prom in Hawaii where masked dancers weren’t allowed to touch. A return to virtual city council meetings in one Colorado town after the mayor and others tested positive following an in-person session. A reinstated mask mandate at skilled nursing facilities in Los Angeles County after 22 new outbreaks in a single week.
A COVID-19 surge is underway that is starting to cause disruptions as the school year wraps up and Americans prepare for summer vacations. Many people, though, have returned to their pre-pandemic routines and plans, which often involve travel.
Yet vaccinations have stagnated and elected officials nationwide seem loath to impose new restrictions on a public that’s ready to move on even as the U.S. death toll surpassed 1 million people less than 2 1/2 years into the outbreak.