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Americans Deserve Apology From CDC, Biden’s Anti-Science Machine
For the first time in two years, children are walking back into classrooms mask-free. For too long, policymakers and public perception have associated success with the absence of COVID. But COVID is still present, so what is driving this sudden change of policy?
Children have suffered a great deal from the pandemic lockdowns and have not been made a priority to regain normalcy as information evolved. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic many restrictions, such as mask-wearing in schools, were quickly enforced through desperation to slow the transmission despite negligible data proving benefit.
However, by summer 2021 enough data emerged demonstrating cloth masks predominately had no perceptible benefit, and the low risk of severe COVID in children became apparent. Yet, no updates were made by the CDC regarding mask-wearing in schools. In fact, despite vaccines being readily available for everyone 5 years and older, it doubled down on its school masking recommendations as the less severe Omicron variant became dominant.
Biden Gives Third Extension to FEMA Funds for States’ Emergency COVID Costs
President Joe Biden is extending Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds for the third time to aid the ongoing U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House announced Tuesday.
Biden signed an order on his second day in the presidential office instructing FEMA to provide 100% reimbursement to states, tribes and territories through September 2021 for emergency costs related to the pandemic. After two earlier extensions, this latest move will now provide the reimbursements through July 1.
Scientists Seek to Solve Mystery of Why Some People Do Not Catch COVID
In March 2021, Phoebe Garrett, a 22-year-old from High Wycombe, participated in the world’s first COVID-19 challenge trial, which involved dripping live virus into her nose and pegging her nostrils shut for several hours, in a deliberate effort to infect her. Still her body resisted.
Most people know someone who has stubbornly resisted catching COVID, despite everyone around them falling sick. Precisely how they do this remains a mystery, but scientists are beginning to find some clues.
White House Unveils Plan for Next Phase of COVID Fight
The White House on Wednesday unveiled a plan for fighting COVID-19 in its new phase, with the virus moving from a crisis to a lower-level risk that does not dominate daily life.
The plan comes as the Omicron wave has declined and many are eager to turn the page on the pandemic. President Biden in his State of the Union on Tuesday night said COVID-19 “no longer need control our lives” in this “new moment.”
The 96-page plan will require new funding from Congress, the White House said, though there are not specific dollar amounts for each item. Ahead of a Mar. 11 deadline for funding the government, the White House recently informally outlined the need for $30 billion focused on domestic needs and $5 billion for global vaccinations.
The CDC No Longer Recommends Universal Case Investigation and Contact Tracing
Almost two years after the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for 100,000 contact tracers to contain the coronavirus, the CDC said this week that it no longer recommends universal case investigation and contact tracing. Instead it encourages health departments to focus those practices on high-risk settings.
The turning point comes as the national outlook continues to improve rapidly, with new cases, hospitalizations and deaths all continuing to fall even as the path out of the pandemic remains complicated. It also reflects the reality that contact-tracing programs in about half of U.S. states have been eliminated.
New York City announced on Tuesday that it was ending its main contact-tracing program in late April and moving toward treating the coronavirus as another manageable virus.
Republicans Signal They May Oppose New COVID Aid Unless White House Accounts for Existing Spending
Three dozen Republican senators told the White House on Wednesday that they may be unwilling to approve new coronavirus aid until they first learn how much money the U.S. government has already spent.
The early warning arrived in a letter led by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.), just days after the Biden administration asked Congress to approve $30 billion to boost public health as part of a still-forming deal to fund the government and stave off a shutdown at the end of next week.
In their note, the 36 Republicans stressed they have supported “unprecedented investments in vaccines, therapeutics and testing” in the past, including multiple bipartisan stimulus packages adopted under now-former President Trump. But they fretted it is still “not yet clear why additional funding is needed,” particularly now, given a lack of transparency in the roughly $6 trillion approved to date.
FDA Warns of Possible False Results From Unauthorized COVID Tests
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday named three unauthorized rapid COVID-19 tests that it says people should not use due to the risk of false results.
The FDA instructed people to not use the Celltrion DiaTrust COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test, the SD Biosensor Inc. STANDARD Q COVID-19 Ag Home Test and the Flowflex SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Self-Testing).
His Wife Died From Johnson & Johnson COVID Vaccine Complications. Why He’s Still Pro-Vaccine.
Monica Melkonian wanted the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine. It was only one shot and then she would be protected against the virus.
But on Apr. 13, Melkonian started experiencing headaches, a sharp pain behind her left eye. That same day federal health officials announced a pause in the use of the J&J vaccine after learning that six people had developed a rare blood-clotting disorder following their shots.
Less than a week later, she was dead.
People Who Test Positive for COVID Can Receive Antiviral Pills at Pharmacies for Free, Biden Says
President Joe Biden on Tuesday said the Americans who test positive for COVID-19 can receive antiviral pills for free at local pharmacies and community health centers under a new program that launches this month.
The administration will launch hundreds of sites nationwide at CVS, Walgreens and Kroger as well as community health centers this month, a White House official said. Biden said Americans can also order more free COVID tests at the government’s website, covidtests.gov, next week.
The president said Pfizer is working to deliver 1 million courses of its COVID treatment pill, Paxlovid, this month.
Variants of COVID Virus May ‘Hide Out’ in Body: Study
U.S. News & World Report reported:
It looks like coronavirus variants can hide out in the human body much like some of their viral cousins do, making it hard for infected people to get rid of the virus entirely, researchers report.
Kapil Gupta, a senior research associate in biochemistry at the University of Bristol in the U.K, is lead author of one of two new studies recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
The international team of researchers found that the virus can evolve distinctly in different cell types and adapt its immunity in the same infected person.
They focused on the function of a specific pocket in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and concluded that it plays an essential role in the virus’ ability to spread.
In Cuba, Most Children 2 and up Are Vaccinated Against COVID
Cuba is the only country currently vaccinating the majority of children as young as 2, inoculating them with its own COVID-19 vaccines, the smallest country in the world to have developed its own. Along with Chile, Cuba has the Americas’ highest vaccination rate, with 94% of people having received at least 1 dose.
“It’s a terrible dichotomy,” said Helen Yaffe, a Cuba expert and lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. “Cubans themselves are acutely aware, on the one hand, that they are the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean to have produced a COVID-19 vaccine. And at the same time, Cubans are struggling to get antibiotics, paracetamol and diabetes drugs.”
India’s Output, Exports of Russia’s Sputnik Vaccine at Risk Due to Ukraine Crisis
India’s production and exports of Russia’s Sputnik COVID-19 vaccines are expected to slow further following U.S. sanctions on Russia’s sovereign wealth fund that promotes the shot globally, three Indian pharmaceutical industry sources told Reuters.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) had billed India as one of Sputnik’s biggest production hubs and markets, though local sales have stagnated at 1.2 million doses out of 1.8 billion doses of various vaccines administered in the country.
Brazil Is Now Producing Its Own COVID Vaccine Doses
On Valentine’s Day, scientists in Brazil produced a special gift: the first COVID-19 vaccine doses produced fully within the country. These used active pharmaceutical ingredients from Brazil, drew on a technology-transfer agreement with AstraZeneca and were produced in a new vaccine production facility run by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and the Immunobiological Technology Institute (Instituto de Tecnologia em Imunobiológicos, or Bio-Manguinhos).
The new lab expects to produce 120 million COVID-19 doses by the middle of 2022. This would allow for 1 dose each for over half of Brazil’s population. Brazil already has high rates of vaccination against COVID-19 (with virtually universal vaccination in São Paulo), but booster shot coverage is low.
