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Biden Proposes $81.7 Billion in Spending to Prepare for Future Pandemics
President Biden’s budget proposal released Monday calls for $81.7 billion over five years to prepare for future pandemics, in what would be a major investment in boosting the country’s readiness for future threats.
However, the president’s budget is only a proposal, and any new funding for pandemic preparedness would require congressional approval.
The president’s budget calls for $40 billion for the development and manufacturing of vaccines, treatments and tests aimed at future threats. Another $28 billion would go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for surveillance, lab capacity and the public health workforce.
The National Institutes of Health would get $12.1 billion for research on vaccines and other measures, while the Food and Drug Administration would get $1.6 billion for its labs and information technology.
‘They Didn’t Die From COVID, but Because of COVID’: The Inseparable Couple Torn Apart by the Pandemic
Both of Alexa Every’s parents died in institutions during the pandemic — Kathleen on Mother’s Day 2020 after a short and distressing stint in an aged care facility, and John in hospital a year later, on Christmas Eve.
Her family wasn’t alone in this unnatural grieving process. Thousands went through what Every calls “COVID-adjacent deaths” — the experience of losing a loved one not from COVID, but wrapped up in the pandemic and its associated pains.
“They didn’t die directly from COVID, but I believe they both died because of COVID,” Every says.
Coping With Vaccine Side Effects
The vaccines promoted to protect against COVID-19 are described as safe. So why are there so many reports of adverse reactions? And just how much harm do these shots cause?
Compared to past VAERS reports, the numbers for the COVID-19 shot are off the charts, totaling more adverse events than all other vaccines combined. Last month, VAERS reported a total of more than 1 million adverse events following COVID injections from Dec. 14, 2020, to Jan. 28, 2022. Over 183,000 serious injuries were reported, and among them over 24,000 deaths.
Other eyes are watching for adverse events, however. Numerous videos shared and often banned on social media illustrate the tics, seizures and other debilitating effects that purportedly followed COVID-19 shots. Both the FDA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are quietly studying reports of neurological issues linked to the vaccine. And hundreds of clinical studies also document the injuries and deaths correlated with these injections.
Omicron Deaths of Johnson & Johnson Recipients Were Double the Rate of Other Vaccinated Americans, New Data Show
For close to 17 million Americans vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson‘s Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, new data from the Omicron variant wave is renewing questions over its effectiveness as federal officials weigh a new round of booster shots.
While offering less protection than the peaks reached by the widely-used mRNA vaccines produced by Moderna or Pfizer and BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson has long pointed to studies suggesting its vaccine offers more “durable” protection than its competitors.
Multiple outlets also pointed to data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from more than two dozen state health departments, which tallied lower rates of COVID-19 breakthrough cases for recipients of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine compared to the mRNA shots through January.
But recently published figures from the same CDC database now suggest that COVID-19 deaths among Johnson & Johnson recipients may have peaked at more than double the rate of other vaccinated Americans during the Omicron variant wave.
Officials Expected to Offer 2nd Booster Shot for Those Over 50 Years Old
As soon as Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could authorize COVID-19 booster shots for Americans over 50 years old, two officials familiar with the matter told ABC News, though the fourth shots are likely to be only offered and not formally recommended.
The officials stressed that the details are still under discussion and could change in the next few days.
After FDA’s expected authorization early this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will give guidance on how to implement it in pharmacies and doctors’ offices around the country, as the process has gone throughout the pandemic.
FDA’s panel of experts will convene on April 6 to discuss the broader population and what population will need booster shots next, as well as the need for a variant-specific booster.
Three-Quarters of Parents Worried About Impact COVID Has Had on Their Child’s Early Development
Three-quarters of parents are worried about the impact COVID has had on their child’s early development, leaving a third fearing their children have been held back.
A poll of 1,000 parents who have had a baby in the last five years found 26 percent are concerned about their little one’s speech as a result of the pandemic. Another 35 percent are worried about how their child’s emotional intelligence may have been impacted.
It also emerged 7 in 10 don’t completely understand what should be expected of their youngster at their age, as they’ve had less interaction with other parents and families themselves.
Fauci Says BA.2 Will Likely Be ‘Dominant, More Transmissible’ COVID Variant
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday that Omicron‘s subvariant BA.2 will likely be the “dominant” COVID variant, adding that it is more transmissible.
The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed Wednesday that the BA.2 subvariant, also called the “stealth Omicron,” is leading the spread of the coronavirus variant worldwide. The subvariant now makes the majority of cases sequenced by experts.
When Fauci was asked, “should we worry about it?” he responded that BA.2 is already highly recognizable and that its characteristics need to be further examined to make that determination. But, he confirmed that BA.2 “does not appear to be any more serious when it comes to complications like the need for hospitalization.”
Three New Signs BA.2 Might Not Hit America as Hard as Europe
Is BA.2 about to surge in America the way it’s surging in Europe? There are already some clues that it might not — and the coming days could provide even more reason for cautious optimism.
Across the pond, the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron — which is at least 30% more transmissible than its sister lineage — has sent COVID-19 case counts soaring again at the very moment when most Western European countries seemed to be putting their massive winter waves behind them.
For Americans, the fear is that we’re next — that BA.2, which now accounts for 35% of infections nationwide, will inevitably do to us what it is doing to our European counterparts.
But a big U.S. BA.2 surge isn’t as inevitable as it seems. Here are three emerging signs of hope:
Study: Aspirin Early on Could Be Effective for COVID Patients
A single baby aspirin could be all the difference for someone hospitalized with COVID-19. Scientists from George Washington University looked at medical data of more than 110,000 U.S. patients from 64 hospitals.
Those with moderate symptoms, meaning not in the ICU or on a ventilator, who took aspirin in the first 24 hours, showed a lower risk of dying.
“This study is so exciting because this is really a medication that is available to everyone throughout the world,” said Dr. Jonathan Chow who led the study.
Officials Limit an Antibody Therapy, Saying It’s Ineffective Against BA.2 Variant of Omicron
U.S. health officials on Friday stopped the further deployment of the COVID-19 treatment sotrovimab to places where the BA.2 coronavirus variant is now causing the majority of infections, given laboratory studies showing the treatment likely doesn’t work against the variant.
States in New England, as well as New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, will no longer receive shipments of the monoclonal antibody therapy made by Vir Biotechnology and GSK, officials said.
This is not the first time that the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has undercut the power of certain antibody therapies, which have generally been designed to target the virus’ spike protein. When the Omicron family of viruses took off late last year, the government halted shipments of antibody therapies made by Lilly and Regeneron when it became clear that they would no longer work against the strains that were circulating.
Long COVID Symptoms May Depend on the Variant a Person Contracted
Different variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, may give rise to different long COVID symptoms, according to a study that will be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2022) in Lisbon next month.
Italian researchers suggested that individuals who were infected with the Alpha variant of the virus displayed different emotional and neurological symptoms compared to those who were infected with the original form of SARS-CoV-2, an early release from the ECCMID regarding the study.
How COVID Brain Fog May Overlap With ‘Chemo Brain’ and Alzheimer’s
People with “chemo brain” and COVID brain fog could not seem more different: Those with “chemo brain” have a life-threatening disease for which they’ve taken toxic drugs or radiation. Many of those with COVID brain fog, in contrast, describe themselves as previously healthy people who have had a relatively mild infection that felt like a cold.
So when Stanford University neuroscientist Michelle Monje began studies on long COVID, she was fascinated to find similar changes among patients in both groups, in specialized brain cells that serve as the organ’s surveillance and defense system.
Monje’s project is part of a crucial and growing body of research that suggests similarities in the mechanisms of post-COVID cognitive changes and other long-studied brain conditions, including “chemo brain,” Alzheimer’s and other post-viral syndromes following infections with influenza, Epstein-Barr, HIV or Ebola.
Early Puberty Cases in Girls Have Surged During COVID, Doctors Say
Before the pandemic, Vaishakhi Rustagi, a Delhi-based pediatric endocrinologist, found that cases of early puberty were pretty uncommon, but not unheard of: In a typical year, she would see about 20 such patients.
Then the pandemic hit, and the cases started to pile up. Since June 2020, Rustagi has seen more than 300 girls experiencing early puberty, she said.
The phenomenon of increased cases during the pandemic hasn’t been restricted to India — pediatricians across the world, from Italy to Turkey to the United States — have reported increases in precocious puberty cases. Parents have, too.
For doctors to see such a spike — hundreds of patients in Rustagi’s case — is highly unusual, and a leading indicator of other mental and physical health problems.
