Covid News Watch
40% of Those Who Died of COVID Had Diabetes + More
As Many as 40% of Those Who Died of COVID Had Diabetes and Experts Hope That Will Lead Policymakers to Address the Disease
Somewhere between 30% to 40% of those who died from COVID-19 in the U.S. had diabetes, and health experts are hoping that could lead policymakers to pay more attention to the disease, The New York Times reported.
“It’s hard to overstate just how devastating the pandemic has been for Americans with diabetes,” Dr. Giuseppina Imperatore, who oversees diabetes prevention and treatment at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the paper in a story published on Sunday.
According to data from the National Institute of Health, diabetes draws less funding than diseases like cancer and heart disease despite impacting 37 million Americans.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that the number of adults diagnosed with diabetes more than doubled in the past 20 years and 96 million Americans have prediabetes.
‘Not Surprising to See, but Sad’: Experts Alarmed by Large Number of Teens Experiencing Emotional Abuse
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new statistics on high school students’ mental health. Among its findings was an alarmingly high number of U.S. teens reporting emotional abuse at home: more than half.
Defined by the survey as being sworn at, insulted or put down by a parent or other adult in their home, 55 percent of the more than 7,700 high school students polled said they had experienced emotional abuse.
The survey responses, which were collected in the first half of 2021, asked about experiences in 2020, which included the height of pandemic-related lockdowns.
FDA Says COVID Vaccines May Need to Be Updated to Ensure High Level of Effectiveness Against Virus
The currently approved COVID-19 vaccines may need an update to ensure a high level of protection as the virus continues to evolve, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA, in a briefing document published ahead of an advisory committee meeting this week, said scientists still don’t entirely understand COVID variants and the effectiveness of the vaccines. For example, mutations to the spike protein, which is used by the virus to invade human cells, have reduced the effectiveness of current vaccines. That’s because today’s COVID shots were developed to target the spike protein in the original strain of the virus that emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019.
The FDA’s advisory committee of outside vaccine experts on Wednesday will discuss how the U.S. can develop a transparent process to make recommendations about changing the composition of the current ones if needed. Pfizer and Moderna are conducting clinical trials on vaccines based on the Omicron variant, the dominant version of the virus worldwide.
The effectiveness of Pfizer or Moderna’s two-dose vaccines against mild illness from Omicron dropped from 70% to just 10% 25 weeks after the second shot, according to the U.K. Health Security Agency.
U.S. FDA Advisers to Discuss Additional COVID Vaccine Shots, Booster Design
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s expert advisers will discuss the timing of additional COVID-19 vaccine boosters and the people eligible for the extra shots in a meeting later this week, the health agency said on Monday.
The independent advisers will also discuss at the April 6 meeting the FDA’s role in how future versions of COVID vaccines are created to help fight new variants. It could be similar to the current process of selecting the composition of the seasonal flu shot, where regulators pick the strain to use for the coming year’s vaccines, FDA staff said in briefing documents ahead of the meeting.
The FDA’s staff said on Monday that new variants are often more infectious, transmissible and distinct from earlier virus strains.
We Need to Be Developing Vaccines for the Next Pandemic — Right Now
While the COVID-19 vaccines were developed in record time — Moderna’s mRNA shot took just a weekend for its initial design — and extraordinary, innovative studies found effective treatments quickly as well, neither was fast enough to outrun the virus’s exponential growth.
COVID-19 will not be the last disease with the potential to grow into a pandemic. To fight the next one, we need to have a game plan to speed up the search for and deployment of vaccines and treatments.
Such a plan would launch research and development efforts targeting pathogens with pandemic potential, stand up an infrastructure to accelerate the testing of candidate vaccines and antivirals, and pump funding into both.
With Students in Turmoil, U.S. Teachers Train in Mental Health
As Benito Luna-Herrera teaches his 7th-grade social studies classes, he is on alert for signs of inner turmoil. And there is so much of it these days.
Luna-Herrera is just one teacher, in one Southern California middle school, but stories of students in distress are increasingly common around the country. The silver lining is that special training helped him know what to look for and how to respond when he saw the signs of a mental emergency.
Since the pandemic started, experts have warned of a mental health crisis facing American children. That is now playing out at schools in the form of increased childhood depression, anxiety, panic attacks, eating disorders, fights and thoughts of suicide at alarming levels, according to interviews with teachers, administrators, education officials and mental health experts.
COVID Pandemic Has Impacted Kids’ Writing and Social Skills, Study Finds
Kids continue to struggle with basic skills such as writing and speaking in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study by the U.K. government’s education authority has found.
These were among the findings of a series of reports published on Monday by Ofsted, which were based on evidence from around 280 inspections of educational institutions across different age groups, as well as focus groups with the government department’s inspectors.
In the “early years” group, Ofsted found that education providers had noted delays in young children’s development of speech and language. Some providers also found that babies had struggled to respond to basic facial expressions, which they said could be due to reduced social interaction amid the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns.
Providers also noticed how the pandemic had affected young children’s physical development, such as a delay in babies learning to crawl and walk. Some reported that children had regressed in their independence and self-care skills, prompting providers to spend longer with kids on physical activities, in order to help develop gross motor skills.
Some Hesitant Parents Warming to COVID Shots, Poll Finds
A growing segment of the wait-and-see crowd may be warming to the idea of getting a COVID-19 shot for kids 5 and under, according to a poll provided exclusively to Axios from The Harris Poll.
In particular, Harris found nearly half of parents who were unvaccinated themselves said they’d get the vaccine for their little kids, up from 35% in early February.
While many polls tend to generalize the unvaccinated as partisan and unwilling to change their minds, this data shows more nuance to how parents weigh what’s best for their kids, said John Gerzema, CEO of The Harris Poll.
More than one in four parents with kids 5 and under said they were unvaccinated and 46% of those parents said they would be likely to vaccinate their kids.
Biden Admin Cuts Off 14 More States From COVID Treatment as BA.2 Variant Spreads
President Joe Biden’s administration has ordered 14 additional states to stop using a COVID-19 treatment made by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on March 30 it has paused shipments of the drug, sotrovimab, to the states, bringing the total number of states that are no longer receiving doses to 22.
The states are Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin in the midwest; Arizona, California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington state in the west; and Alaska and Hawaii.
Sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody, was granted emergency use authorization for treating patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are designated as high-risk for progressing to severe cases. But emerging data suggest the drug does not work against BA.2, a subvariant of the Omicron virus variant, U.S. regulators say.
States Are Ready to Live With COVID. Congress’ Funding Fight Is Making That Hard.
States are eager to transition to a long-term COVID response strategy, but Congress’ failure to provide new pandemic dollars is leaving them instead grappling with an acute crisis.
A POLITICO review of more than a half-dozen preparedness plans reveals how reliant states remain on the federal government to fund vaccination, testing and treatments for the uninsured and to support manufacturing those key COVID-fighting tools.
Health officials from Alabama to Washington state say that congressional gridlock over providing billions in new money has undermined efforts to transition to a steady, long-term approach to COVID-19.
Roche Says U.S. FDA Grants Priority Review to Actemra for COVID
Roche (ROG.S) said on Monday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted priority review to its Actemra/RoActemra for the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized adults.
“If approved, Actemra/RoActemra would be the first U.S. FDA-approved immunomodulator for the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients,” Roche said in a statement, adding that more than 1 million people hospitalized with COVID-19 had been treated with Actemra/RoActemra worldwide since the beginning of the pandemic.
UK Hits Record COVID Levels, Nearly 5 Million Infected
Some 4.9 million people were estimated to have the coronavirus in the week ending March 26, up from 4.3 million recorded in the previous week, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. The latest surge is driven by the more transmissible Omicron variant BA.2, which is the dominant variant across the U.K.
The figures came on the same day the government ended free rapid COVID-19 tests for most people in England, under Johnson’s “living with COVID” plan. People who do not have health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus now need to pay for tests to find out if they are infected.
China Reports Record-High Five-Digit Daily Infections With Shanghai Worst Hit, New Variant Found in Suzhou
While one of the severest-hit regions in Northeast China’s Jilin Province successfully curbed the epidemic, the infection curve has not seen signs of decline, and a new Omicron variant mutation was detected in East China’s Jiangsu Province, neighboring Shanghai, where the mass majority of cases in China have been found in recent days.
Chinese Vice Premier, Sun Chunlan, stressed that the dynamic zero-COVID strategy must be upheld with resolute and swift action, while recognizing the enormous challenges that the megacity of 25 million faces in both maintaining the normal operation of its core functions and battling the Omicron variant outbreak.
Fauci Flashback: ‘The Most Potent Vaccination Is Getting Infected Yourself’ + More
Fauci Flashback: ‘The Most Potent Vaccination Is Getting Infected Yourself’
Throughout the pandemic, a large contingency of doctors, researchers and non-mainstream media outlets have been pounding the table over natural immunity as an alternative to vaccination to protect against COVID-19, with the obvious conclusion that vaccine passports are moot if a large percentage of the population has a higher degree of protection than even the vaccinated because they’ve already had the disease.
And as time has gone on, ‘the science’ has validated this theory — with even Bill Gates admitting recently that “the virus itself, particularly the variant called Omicron, is a type of vaccine.”
Yet, the official U.S. government response — led by Dr. Anthony Fauci and echoed worldwide — has excluded virtually all mention of natural immunity as a relevant mitigation against COVID-19, which would of course render vaccination, booster shots and vaccine passports moot for tens of millions of Americans.
And so, with Fauci pretending like he’s never heard of natural immunity for the past two years, here’s a flashback to the ‘good doctor’ explaining that “The most potent vaccination is getting infected yourself.”
American Kids Are Struggling — and They’re Asking Adults for Help
The kids have been saying it throughout the pandemic: They’re not okay.
“Students are taking the lead on addressing mental health,” Alynah King, a student at Wilson High School, said at a virtual D.C. Council budget hearing. “Not the adults.”
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that nearly all the students who spoke or submitted testimony want to do the work — taking care of others — that the adults aren’t doing well today.
The students proposed a $5 million initiative to create after-school mental health programs in 125 schools. And they explained that while many schools do have resources, kids don’t know about them, are disconnected from them or are embarrassed to use them.
Tragedy as Girl, 18, Dies of Blood Clot Two Weeks After COVID Vaccine
Manchester Evening News reported:
An 18-year-old student died from a blood clot only two weeks after having her COVID vaccination. Kasey Turner was admitted to the hospital after she was experiencing ‘thunder clap’ headaches. An inquest heard the headaches were the result of thrombosis in her sinus cavity.
It was later discovered that the paramedic student was actually suffering from a cerebral venous thrombosis — a blood clot in the sinus cavity. It is believed the blood clot was brought on by the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine, and her inquest found doctors at Barnsley Hospital had “missed opportunities” to diagnose the fatal clot, reports Yorkshire Live.
She suffered all of the “common” side effects of the vaccine but hoped these would last approximately 12 to 18 hours, the inquest heard. But two weeks later she was “screaming in pain” with the “worst headache” she had ever experienced.
U.S. COVID Hospitalizations Hit New Low, Falling 32 Percent in the Last Two Weeks
COVID hospitalizations are at their lowest levels since the U.S. began keeping records at the start of the pandemic, according to an NBC News analysis of data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
COVID cases are declining, as well, to an average of 32,000 new cases a day, a 7 percent fall in the last two weeks. At the same time, the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron became the dominant variant in the U.S. this week, and cases have started to rise slowly in the Northeast.
It’s unclear whether BA.2 will cause a wave; some experts remain optimistic that it won’t.
Five states set records Thursday for the fewest average COVID hospitalizations: Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, Nevada and Wyoming. Wyoming reported nine people hospitalized, a rate of close to 1 hospitalization per 100,000 residents, the lowest among states.
BA.2 Stealth Omicron Spread Shows COVID Not Over, Says Science Chief
It is “clear” that the COVID pandemic is not yet over, a top U.K. scientist has said, due to ongoing infections driven by the Omicron BA.2 subvariant.
The expert also said the world is going to experience another pandemic in the future and governments need to prepare for it ahead of time.
Speaking at a meeting titled The Science of COVID, hosted by the Royal Society on March 30 and March 31, the U.K. government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, warned that the world needed to get into a position where it can produce a brand new vaccine within 100 days of identifying a new dangerous virus or other type of pathogen, and stressed the importance of proper scientific funding.
Senate Finalizing $10 Billion Deal on Coronavirus Aid
Senators are finalizing an agreement to provide $10 billion in new coronavirus aid as they race to try to pass a bill before a two-week break set to start in days.
Senators negotiating the deal signaled that they were close to a finalized agreement, but said they were still ironing out legislative text, waiting for an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and haggling over final details.
That $10 billion is expected to be split to include $5 billion for therapeutics including vaccinations. The deal would be funded by reprogramming money passed in previous coronavirus bills.
How the Next Coronavirus Variant Could Emerge
Stopping the next major coronavirus variant involves knowing where it might come from. With Omicron, those answers are still a mystery: How did a variant that looked so different from all its older cousins appear so suddenly? How to explain its jumble of mutations, many of which had rarely been seen in variants of interest?
Viruses change all the time, often in ways that actually hurt their chances at survival. But once in a while, those mutations can work out in the virus’ favor.
Sarah Cobey, associate professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, explained in an op-ed in the New York Times this week that the coronavirus’ transmissibility will hit a ceiling — eventually. However, it probably won’t stop evolving in ways that skirt our immune response.
‘Recognition of Failure’: A Shift Urged in Global Vaccination Strategy
Global health organizations are considering changing their COVID-19 vaccination pledges — a move that could leave millions of people without first shots as countries reprioritize at-risk groups in the coming months, according to four people familiar with the matter.
In June 2021, the World Health Organization initially proposed that 70 percent of the world population be vaccinated by mid-2022 to protect against new variants and help ensure people in poorer countries had equal access to the shot. But 47 countries still have inoculation rates below 20 percent.
Now, many health organizations involved in the global vaccination effort aim to immunize 90 percent of vulnerable populations in every country — a move that seems to undercut the WHO’s 70 percent target.
Children Aged ‘Zero to Four’ Added to Vaccine Injury Claims Scheme
Children aged under four years old will be added to Australia’s vaccine injury compensation claims scheme, as health authorities lay the groundwork for administering COVID-19 jabs to babies and toddlers.
While no coronavirus vaccines have yet been approved for children under five in Australia, Health Minister Greg Hunt revealed as part of Tuesday night’s federal budget that planning was underway for “children aged zero to four”.
Not mentioned in the wide-ranging Health Ministry press release, but quietly noted in budget papers, was the announcement that the government had extended the COVID-19 vaccine claims scheme “to include children aged zero to four years and fourth doses for priority cohorts to access compensation for claims related to the administration of Therapeutic Goods Administration approved Covid-19 vaccines”.
The scheme — which allows people who suffer serious adverse reactions to coronavirus vaccines to claim up to $20,000 for lost income, medical bills and other expenses — began paying out the first claims earlier this year after more than 10,000 people registered interest.
Did the COVID Pandemic Make People More Generous?
According to psychologists, overwhelming crises such as wars, natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic could either make people behave more selfishly than usual or display increased generosity towards their community members.
In a new study published in Scientific Reports, researchers found that U.S.-based individuals displayed “catastrophe compassion” with greater financial generosity during the ongoing pandemic.
On the positive side, the perceived threat of a major crisis could potentially promote the expansion of social connections. For instance, a survey conducted by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy during the COVID-19 pandemic found that nearly half of respondents supported their communities by continuing to pay individuals and businesses for services that could not be rendered.
‘A Cry for Help’: CDC Warns of a Steep Decline in Teen Mental Health + More
‘A Cry for Help’: CDC Warns of a Steep Decline in Teen Mental Health
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning of an accelerating mental health crisis among adolescents, with more than 4 in 10 teens reporting that they feel “persistently sad or hopeless,” and 1 in 5 saying they have contemplated suicide, according to the results of a survey published Thursday.
“These data echo a cry for help,” said Debra Houry, a deputy director at the CDC. “The COVID-19 pandemic has created traumatic stressors that have the potential to further erode students’ mental well-being.”
The findings draw on a survey of a nationally representative sample of 7,700 teens conducted in the first six months of 2021, when they were in the midst of their first full pandemic school year. They were questioned on a range of topics, including their mental health, alcohol and drug use, and whether they had encountered violence at home or at school. They were also asked whether they had encountered racism.
Pregnant People at Much Higher Risk of Breakthrough COVID, Study Shows
Pregnant people who are vaccinated against the coronavirus are nearly twice as likely to get COVID-19 as those who are not pregnant, according to a new study that offers the broadest evidence to date of the odds of infections among vaccinated patients with different medical circumstances.
The analysis, based on medical records of nearly 14 million U.S. patients since coronavirus immunization became available, found that pregnant people who are vaccinated have the greatest risk of developing COVID among a dozen medical states, including being an organ transplant recipient and having cancer.
The analysis found that the 110,000 pregnant individuals included in the study were 90 percent more likely to have been infected with coronavirus than the same number of people who were not pregnant.
The findings do not explain the reason behind the risk levels. Denise Jamieson, a specialist in infectious diseases during pregnancy, called the high risk of infection among vaccinated pregnant people an “interesting and intriguing finding.”
WHO Unveils Plan to End Global COVID Emergency in 2022
The World Health Organization (WHO) unveiled a new strategic plan on Wednesday that lays out a path toward ending the global emergency of COVID-19.
In its third strategic preparedness and response plan on COVID-19, the WHO acknowledged the pandemic remains an acute global crisis but charted a path to end the global emergency if key measures are implemented rapidly.
The organization outlined two key objectives: reducing coronavirus infections and diagnosing and treating COVID-19 cases effectively to reduce deaths. The WHO said that can be achieved by increased surveillance and monitoring, improving global vaccine equity, bolstering healthcare systems and supplies, as well as upgrading research and data analyses.
Many People Eligible for Second Booster Shot Don’t Need to Race, Experts Say
The Food and Drug Administration has authorized a second COVID-19 booster shot for people ages 50 and older, but several public health experts said younger, healthier members of that group don’t necessarily need a fourth shot as soon as they become eligible.
“This is one of those where I don’t think anyone needs to race,” Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told NBC’s “TODAY” show on Wednesday. “This is one of those things where people should think thoughtfully.”
While older adults and those with underlying health conditions should seriously consider the newly available booster soon, others could determine the timing based on their own risks and circumstances, said Dr. Prathit Kulkarni, an infectious disease expert and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, who described a sliding scale of vaccination need.
In About Half of U.S. Counties, Less Than 10% of Children Ages 5 to 11 Are Fully Vaccinated Against COVID
The youngest group eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the U.S., children ages 5 to 11, is also the least vaccinated one.
In about half of U.S. counties, less than 10% of children 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated, according to a CNN analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Even though they’ve been eligible for vaccination for nearly five months, less than 28% of children ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated. Of more than 3,100 counties in the U.S., only a few dozen have fully vaccinated more than half of this age group.
Biden Warns U.S. Won’t Have Enough COVID Vaccine Shots This Fall if Congress Fails to Pass Funding
President Joe Biden warned Wednesday that the U.S. will not have enough COVID vaccine shots this fall to ensure free and easy access for all Americans if Congress fails to pass the $22.5 billion in additional funding the administration has requested.
Biden said the U.S. has enough supply to ensure people eligible for fourth shots have access to them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week recommended an additional Pfizer or Moderna dose for people ages 50 and older, as well as certain younger individuals who have compromised immune systems.
Biden also warned the U.S. will not have the money to surge testing, monoclonal antibody treatments and antiviral pills if another COVID wave sweeps the U.S.
The president also unveiled a new government website, COVID.gov, where Americans can find out where they can obtain masks, tests, vaccines and treatments.
COVID Pandemic’s End May Bring Turbulence for U.S. Healthcare
When the end of the COVID-19 pandemic comes, it could create major disruptions for a cumbersome U.S. healthcare system made more generous, flexible and up-to-date technologically through a raft of temporary emergency measures.
The array of issues is tied to the coronavirus public health emergency first declared more than two years ago and periodically renewed since then. It’s set to end on April 16 and the expectation is that the Biden administration will extend it through mid-July. Some would like a longer off-ramp.
Transitions don’t bode well for the complex U.S. healthcare system, with its mix of private and government insurance and its labyrinth of policies and procedures. Healthcare chaos, if it breaks out, could create midterm election headaches for Democrats and Republicans alike.
Why People Are Acting So Weird
Everyone is acting so weird! The most obvious recent weirdness was when Will Smith smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars. But if you look closely, people have been behaving badly on smaller stages for months now.
During the pandemic, disorderly, rude and unhinged conduct seems to have caught on as much as bread baking and Bridgerton. Bad behavior of all kinds — everything from rudeness and carelessness to physical violence — has increased, as the journalist Matt Yglesias pointed out in a Substack essay earlier this year.
Americans are driving more recklessly, crashing their cars and killing pedestrians at higher rates. Early 2021 saw the highest number of “unruly passenger” incidents ever, according to the FAA. In February, a plane bound for Washington, DC, had to make an emergency landing in Kansas City, Missouri, after a man tried to break into the cockpit.
One likely explanation for the spike in bad behavior is the rage, frustration and stress coursing through society right now.
Missouri Governor Declares `the COVID Crisis Is Over’
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday declared “the COVID-19 crisis is over,” announcing that the state will soon begin handling the coronavirus like influenza and other ongoing diseases that occasionally flare up.
Parson said the state will officially start treating the coronavirus as an endemic on Friday. One result is that the public will receive less frequent updates about the number of deaths, hospitalizations and cases attributed to COVID-19.
“The COVID-19 crisis is over in the state of Missouri, and we are moving on,” the Republican governor said at a Capitol news conference, a little over two years since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
Novavax Asks EU Regulator to Clear COVID Vaccine for Teens
The pharmaceutical developer Novavax says it has asked the European Medicines Agency to extend the authorization of its coronavirus vaccine to children aged 12 to 17 amid a surge of disease across the continent.
In a statement on Thursday, Novavax said its request is based on data from research in more than 2,200 adolescents aged 12 to 17 in the U.S., which found its vaccine to be about 80% effective against COVID-19. The study was done when the Delta variant was the predominant virus in the U.S. The main side effects reported were pain at the injection site, headache and tiredness.
The EMA has previously OK’ed vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna for use in children from age 6.
U.S. CDC Scraps COVID Warning for Cruise Travel After 2 Years
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday removed its COVID-19 notice against cruise travel, around two years after introducing a warning scale showing the level of coronavirus transmission risk on cruise ships.
The move offers a shot of hope to major U.S. cruise operators such as Carnival Corp (CCL.N), Royal Caribbean Group (RCL.N), and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NCLH.N) that have struggled to bring in revenue since the pandemic started.
Cruise operators had also said the health agency was discriminating against the industry, when hotels and airlines could operate with limited or no restrictions.
Analysis: Governments Want COVID Vaccine Developers to Aim Higher in Hunt for Better Shots
As governments prepare to live with COVID-19, some are questioning how much to rely on drugmakers to adapt vaccines to ward off future virus variants amid signs of tension between companies and regulators over the best approach, according to several sources familiar with the matter.
Some vaccine experts say government agencies should fund and help develop a new generation of COVID shots, and seek innovation from smaller developers, as they did to identify current vaccines.
Some health officials question whether companies that have reaped tens of billions of dollars from first-generation COVID shots and stand to earn billions more from repeated boosters are willing to spend the money to find vaccines offering much broader and longer-lasting protection, which could take years.
Early Use of High-Titer Plasma Reduced COVID Hospitalizations
In a largely unvaccinated population, high-titer convalescent plasma given early after the development of COVID-19 reduced hospitalizations, a randomized controlled trial showed.
COVID-19-related hospitalization or death within 28 days occurred in 2.9% of transfusion recipients compared with 6.3% of recipients of control plasma (P=0.005), for a relative 54% risk reduction that was entirely accounted for by hospitalization.
The magnitude of the effect was on par with that of monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 during the Alpha variant wave, noted David J. Sullivan, MD, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and colleagues in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“We encourage healthcare professionals to keep SARS-CoV-2 antibody-rich blood plasma available in their blood banks as part of the treatment arsenal against early-stage COVID-19,” Sullivan said in a statement.
Chinese City Orders All COVID Patients’ Pets in One Neighborhood to Be Killed + More
Chinese City Orders All Indoor Pets Belonging to COVID Patients in One Neighborhood to Be Killed
A Chinese city ordered all indoor pets belonging to COVID-19 patients in one neighborhood to be killed.
The Anci District of Langfang city, in northern China, on Wednesday ordered the “complete culling of indoor animals” of coronavirus patients, the state-run China News Service reported. The work had stopped by 5 p.m. local time Wednesday, the China News Service reported, citing a staff member for the Langfang Center for Disease Control and Prevention. It is not clear how many animals were killed.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that pets can get COVID-19 from humans but that the risk of pets spreading the disease to people was “low.”
Hebei province, where Langfang is located, recorded hundreds of new daily COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, China’s CDC reported.
There Are Fewer Evangelists for a Second Coronavirus Booster Shot
Older adults are now eligible for a second booster shot. But don’t expect a massive surge of people rushing to secure an appointment.
To strengthen waning protection, the Food and Drug Administration greenlit another dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for people 50 and older at least four months after their first booster. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quickly updated its guidance yesterday to allow for the second booster, but didn’t explicitly say all eligible individuals should go out and get the shot.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky pinpointed people 65 and over — as well as those 50 and older with underlying medical conditions — as “most likely to benefit from receiving an additional booster dose at this time.”
There’s a debate among outside experts about who should get a second booster. Many scientists who support a fourth dose for some older adults see little proof that those under 60 or even 65 would clearly benefit. The evidence is based largely on data from Israel — and it’s limited and mixed.
Moderna ‘Happy’ With Results From Its Kids Vaccine Trial, but Is It Enough for the FDA?
Moderna says it has gathered enough data in support of its COVID-19 vaccine for the youngest children. But it may not be enough for regulators to greenlight the shot for kids.
Public health officials, pediatricians and infectious disease experts are split over whether the company’s trial results are sufficient for the Food and Drug Administration and its independent advisers, or whether they will want to see data on a third dose as they did with Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine for children under 5.
While U.S. cases and hospitalizations are at eight-month lows, many fear that infections will soon spike, adding fresh urgency to authorizing a shot for the roughly 19 million children younger than 5 in the U.S. for whom there is no vaccination currently available.
BioNTech’s Quarterly Profit Soars on COVID Vaccine Demand
BioNTech, the German pharmaceutical company that teamed with Pfizer to develop the first widely used COVID-19 vaccine, on Wednesday reported strong quarterly earnings growth on pandemic-fueled demand.
The company posted net profit of nearly 3.2 billion euros ($3.6 billion) for the final three months of 2021, up from 367 million euros in the same period the previous year. Earnings per share rose to 12.18 euros from 1.43 euros a year ago.
Quarterly revenue rose to 5.5 billion euros from 345.4 million euros previously.
“Our 2021 COVID-19 vaccine revenues were significantly influenced by the extraordinary circumstances of the ongoing pandemic,” Chief Financial Officer Jens Holstein said in a press release.
CDC: If You Got J&J’s Vaccine and Booster, Consider an mRNA Shot Now
The nearly 17 million Americans who received the one-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine are less protected against serious illness and hospitalizations than those who got the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots, according to federal data released Tuesday.
The latest data suggest Johnson & Johnson recipients should get a booster with one of the messenger RNA vaccines, if they haven’t already done so — and even consider a second messenger RNA booster for the greatest protection.
The data come from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that analyzed the results of mix-and-match vaccine-and-booster combinations during a four-month period when the highly transmissible Omicron variant was dominant.
WHO Says Most Likely Scenario Shows COVID Severity Will Decrease Over Time
The World Health Organization on Wednesday released an updated plan for COVID-19, laying out three possible scenarios for how the pandemic will evolve this year.
“Based on what we know now, the most likely scenario is that the COVID-19 virus continues to evolve, but the severity of disease it causes reduces over time as immunity increases due to vaccination and infection,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a briefing.
Talking about the other two potential scenarios, Tedros said either less severe variants will emerge and boosters or new formulations of vaccines will not be necessary, or a more virulent variant will emerge and protection from prior vaccination or infection will wane rapidly.
COVID Reinfection Remains Rare in Kids — Risk Increases by Age, U.K. Study Finds
Fewer than 0.5% of children infected with COVID had a subsequent COVID infection, and reinfection was not associated with more severe disease, British researchers found.
From January 2020 to July 2021, the reinfection rate was more than three times lower in children than in adults, at 21 per 100,000 people in children 16 and under compared to 72 per 100,000 in adults, the study group noted in Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.
Of the 2,343 children who were reinfected, 109 were hospitalized during either their first or second infection, three-quarters of which had underlying comorbidity.
Special Ultraviolet Light Prevents Indoor Transmission of Airborne Pathogens Without Harming Humans: Study
The light at the end of the tunnel for the COVID-19 pandemic might just be overhead.
A new study shows a hands-off approach using ultraviolet light, called far-UVC light, reduced transmission of indoor airborne pathogens by more than 98% in less than five minutes, according to a recent statement.
“Far-UVC rapidly reduces the amount of active microbes in the indoor air to almost zero, making indoor air essentially as safe as outdoor air,” said co-author Dr. David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The joint study by scientists at Columbia University and in the U.K. suggests far-UVC light installed in ceiling lamps can reduce the risk of the next pandemic by effectively reducing airborne indoor transmission of infectious diseases known to cause major outbreaks, such as COVID-19 or influenza.
Delays for Autism Diagnosis and Treatment Grew Even Longer During the Pandemic
Wylie James Prescott, 3, had to wait more than a year after his autism diagnosis to begin behavioral therapy, even though research shows early treatment of autism can be crucial for children’s long-term development.
Those frustrations are all too familiar to parents who have a child with autism, a complex lifelong disorder. And the pandemic has exacerbated the already difficult process of getting services.
Children from Georgia to California often wait months — and in many cases more than a year — to get a diagnosis and then receive specialized treatment services.
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, many families canceled in-home services, fearing infection. Virtual therapy often didn’t seem to work, especially for nonverbal and younger children. With fewer clients, some providers laid off staff or shut down entirely.
COVID and Schizophrenia: Why This Deadly Mix Can Deepen Knowledge of the Brain Disease
New data published in JAMA Psychiatry showed that people with schizophrenia were nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as the general population. Their risk of death from the virus is greater than it is for people with diabetes, heart disease or any other factor aside from older age.
Then studies started rolling in from countries with universal healthcare systems — the U.K., Denmark, Israel, South Korea — all with similar findings: a nearly three times higher risk of death for people with schizophrenia. A more recent study from the U.K., published in December 2021, found the risk was nearly five times as great.
The immune dysfunction that causes severe COVID in people with schizophrenia could be what drives their psychotic symptoms, Nemani said. This suggests schizophrenia is not just a disorder of the brain, but a disease of the immune system, she said.
