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CDC Endorses COVID Boosters Starting at Age 12
On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed an extra Pfizer shot for younger teens — those 12 to 15 — and strengthened its recommendation that 16- and 17-year-olds get it, too.
Earlier Wednesday, the CDC’s independent scientific advisers wrestled with whether a booster should be an option for younger teens, who tend not to get as sick from COVID-19 as adults, or more strongly recommended. The decision means about 5 million of the younger teens who had their last shot in the spring are eligible for a booster right away.
The chief safety question for adolescents is a rare side effect called myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation seen mostly in younger men and teen boys who get either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
Pfizer Expects Updated COVID Vaccine Data for Kids Under 5 by April
Pfizer Inc. expects the latest results from a clinical trial for kids under the age of 5 of the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with Germany’s BioNTech SE by April, a top company scientist said on Wednesday.
“The study has been amended to give a third dose to everybody who’s less than five at least eight weeks after their last vaccination,” Dr. Alejandra Gurtman, a Pfizer vaccine researcher said at a meeting of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
In December, Pfizer said it was changing the design of the trial because children between the ages of 2 and 4 who were given two 3-microgram doses of the vaccine did not have the same immune response that a larger dose of the vaccine generated in older children.
Gurtman also said the company was studying a third dose of its vaccine in children ages 5 to 11, six months after their second dose.
COVID-Positive Nurses Say They’re Being Pressured to Work While Sick, and They’re Petrified of Infecting Patients
What was once an ill-advised practice is now becoming a common request across U.S. hospitals: Healthcare workers are being asked to treat patients while sick with COVID-19.
In a TikTok video now viewed more than 7.2 million times, April Lynn, an ICU nurse, claimed her hospital cleared her to return to work five days after testing positive for COVID-19, despite still having a cough and severe fatigue.
Four other nurses told Insider that, in the last week or so, they’ve been instructed to come into work with symptomatic COVID-19, or risk losing pay or receiving a formal warning.
Schools Encounter ‘Hunger Games’ Scramble for COVID Tests
An avalanche of student COVID-19 test kits covered a FedEx drop box in Chicago. Long lines and delayed deliveries slowed school testing sites in California. And families scrambled across U.S. cities to find scarce rapid tests.
The White House and government leaders say classrooms must stay open during a record surge in Omicron-driven cases — but short supplies, logistical challenges and workforce problems threaten to trip up the country’s patchwork efforts to test schoolchildren for the virus as they return to class.
Rapid COVID Tests Are Reselling for as Much as $75 a Pack, 3 Times Their Normal Retail Price: Report
Rapid at-home COVID-19 test kits are reselling for as much as $75 a pack, which is more than three times their normal retail price.
Bloomberg reported the findings Wednesday. Kroger and Walmart sell Abbott Laboratories’ BinaxNow at-home rapid tests for $23.99 and $19.98.
BinaxNow kits, which include two COVID-19 tests, are now selling for about $75 on various digital marketplaces, seen by Insider and reported by Bloomberg.
Soaring prices of rapid tests come as the U.S. is reporting a soaring number of coronavirus infections during a wave fueled by the Omicron variant.
Here’s the Real Deal on Flurona
Two years of pandemic have us primed to panic at every headline. A new variant, a new complication, a new baffling policy move. Now, headlines have brought an alarmingly exotic new word to stoke our fears: flurona.
But soon enough the combination of anxiety and pandemic exhaustion led headline writers into a strange cutesy fearmongering: The Daily Beast grimly christened flurona “2022’s Hottest New Illness” and the Cut’s headline asked, “What Fresh Hell Is ‘Flurona’?”
The thing is, though, it’s not a fresh hell at all. (And sure enough, most articles about flurona get to that fact a few paragraphs in.) Israel’s first flu-COVID case, the story that triggered this latest wave of reporting, was mild even though the patient was unvaccinated and pregnant.
Candace Owens Claims She Would Not Take COVID Vaccine Even on Her Deathbed
Conservative pundit and talk show host Candace Owens stated that she would not receive the COVID-19 vaccine even if it would save her from dying.
During the live taping of her show Candace, Owens responded to a user on Twitter who questioned if she was truly unvaccinated, as she had claimed many times before. The question arose after a picture circulated of Owens at a UFC fight at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, which requires all attendees to be vaccinated per city law.
“I would say to the people, first and foremost, I am obviously unvaccinated…I am not getting this vaccine, ever,” Owens replied. “Never going to get it. I don’t care if I’m on my deathbed and they say ‘it can save you,’ I’m not going to get it.”
‘The Next Variant Is Just Around the Corner’: Experts Warn the World’s at Risk Until All Are Vaccinated
New COVID-19 variants are likely to keep on emerging until the globe has been vaccinated against the virus, experts warn, saying that the sharing of vaccines is not just an altruistic act but a pragmatic one.
“Until the whole world is vaccinated, not just rich Western countries, I think we are going to remain in danger of new variants coming along and some of those could be more virulent than Omicron,” Dr. Andrew Freedman, an academic in infectious diseases at Cardiff University Medical School, told CNBC on Thursday.
Viruses “tend to become milder” as they evolve, Freedman noted, but he cautioned that this “isn’t always the case.”
India Says Safety Concerns, Restricting Use of Merck COVID Pill
India has not added Merck’s (MRK.N) COVID-19 pill to its national treatment protocol for the disease due to known safety concerns that have restricted its use elsewhere, a senior health official told a media briefing on Wednesday.
“It can cause teratogenicity, mutagenicity and it also can cause cartilage damage and be damaging to muscles. More importantly, contraception will have to be used for three months if this drug is given because the child born could be problematic with teratogenic influences,” Balram Bhargava, head of the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research, said.
The U.S. FDA’s Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee voted 13-10 in November to recommend the drug after discussing concerns it could cause the virus to mutate as well as the potential birth defect worries.
Brazil Greenlights COVID Vaccines for Children Ages 5 to 11
International Business Times reported:
Brazilian health authorities authorized COVID-19 vaccines for children age five to 11 on Wednesday, as South America’s most populous country faces a rapid increase in cases due to holiday gatherings and the arrival of the Omicron variant.
Controversy abounded in Brazil until Wednesday’s announcement, with many alleging an improper delay by the government.
President Jair Bolsonaro, who did not get vaccinated and said he will not immunize his 11-year-old daughter Laura, asked weeks ago to publish the names of those responsible for Anvisa’s decision, unleashing a wave of threats.
