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Confused About the Second COVID Booster? So Are Some of the Experts
Vaccine resisters have accused the federal government of pushing COVID-19 shots without ensuring that the benefits outweigh the risks. But what about when one of the people raising questions about the latest round of jabs is Paul A. Offit, arguably the most prominent supporter of vaccines in the nation, a vocal force against people who spread silly myths about vaccination and himself the developer of a vaccine against rotavirus.
Well, then you listen more closely.
Offit has concerns about additional boosters. Other prominent vaccine experts have been raising questions too, including Phil Krause, a former deputy director of the FDA Office of Vaccines Research and Review, and Luciana Borio, formerly the agency’s acting chief scientist, who co-wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “You Likely Don’t Need a Fourth COVID Shot.” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said waning immunity makes repeated boosting unsustainable.
CDC Launches Forecasting Center to Be Like a ‘National Weather Service for Infectious Diseases’
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched its Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics on Tuesday. The center aims to be like the “National Weather Service for infectious diseases,” helping to guide decision-making at all levels.
The CDC’s new disease forecasting center aims to guide decisions about broad public health needs like developing vaccines or deploying antivirals, and helping individuals decide whether it’s safe for them to go to the movie theater, Dylan George, epidemiologist and director of operations for the new center, said during a call with reporters.
George and a small team of colleagues are faced with tackling a “critical need” to improve the government’s “ability to forecast and model emerging health threats.” Planning for the center began in August, backed by $200 million in initial funding from the 2021 COVID-19 stimulus package, the American Rescue Plan.
COVID: Is the U.S. Compensation Scheme for Vaccine Injuries Fit for Purpose?
Patients and lawyers say that America’s system for COVID vaccine injury claims is costly, opaque and yet to issue a single payout.
“My toes move constantly, 24 hours a day, uncontrollably back and forth,” says Chris Dreisbach, a 44-year-old attorney who was admitted to hospital with debilitating neurological symptoms after a second dose of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine in March 2021. “I often spend at least four hours a day in my bathtub, because a hot bath is the only way I can turn down this electrical sensation that pulses through me. The cognitive issues are worse. I used to pride myself on being able to get up in a courtroom and think on my feet. Now, I have this brain fog. It’s embarrassing.”
From his hospital bed Dreisbach began researching compensation schemes, only to discover that the U.S.’s national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was not available to people injured by COVID-19 vaccines. Instead he was forced to lodge a claim with a more costly, opaque and less generous system that has yet to pay out on a single claim for COVID vaccines. Senators, lawyers, doctors and others such as Dreisbach are questioning why patients injured by vaccines are being routed into a scheme they view as inferior.
J&J Pulls COVID Vaccine Sales Forecast Due to Low Demand, Supply Glut
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) on Tuesday cut its full-year profit expectation and said it could no longer provide a forecast for sales of its COVID-19 vaccine because of demand uncertainty as well as surplus supply of other shots.
The company had earlier predicted as much as $3.5 billion in sales from the single-dose vaccine, which has fared poorly compared to rivals due to low demand in the United States and safety concerns.
The vaccine, which is sold at a “not-for-profit” price, brought in $457 million in the first quarter. Its sales last year had underperformed rival mRNA shots also due to manufacturing bottlenecks and weak global demand.
Moderna Announces Step Toward Updating COVID Shots for Fall
Moderna hopes to offer updated COVID-19 boosters in the fall that combine its original vaccine with protection against the Omicron variant. On Tuesday, it reported a preliminary hint that such an approach might work.
Today’s COVID-19 vaccines all are based on the original version of the coronavirus. But the virus continues to mutate, with the super-contagious Omicron variant — and its siblings — the latest threat.
Before Omicron came along, Moderna was studying a combination shot that added protection against an earlier variant named Beta. Tuesday, the company said people given that beta-original vaccine combination produced more antibodies capable of fighting several variants — including Omicron — than today’s regular booster triggers.
White House Announces Global COVID Summit in May
The White House on Monday announced it would co-host a global COVID-19 summit in May, in a bid to boost efforts to vaccinate the world.
The announcement comes as efforts to fight the virus globally have hit roadblocks, including $5 billion for global COVID-19 aid being stripped out of a relief package in Congress amid a dispute over how to pay for it.
The summit, scheduled to be held virtually on May 12, will be co-hosted by the United States; Belize, chair of the Caribbean Community; Germany, the G-7 president; Indonesia, the G-20 president; and Senegal, chair of the African Union.
CDC Overhauls Travel Warning List; Much of Europe Now at ‘High’ Risk
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unveiled its new system for travel risk assessments on Monday.
Many European nations are now considered at “high” risk for COVID-19, along with other marquee destinations around the world.
The big change comes at Level 4, which was regularly used for places considered “very high” risk for travelers. Level 4 will no longer be routinely used for that purpose. Instead, a Level 4 notice is reserved, in the new system, for only special circumstances. The CDC did not assign any destinations to Level 4 — “Special Circumstances/Do Not Travel” — on its Travel Recommendations website page on Monday.
Analysis: Demand for Pfizer’s COVID Pills Lags Around the World
Worldwide demand for Pfizer Inc’s (PFE.N) oral COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid has been unexpectedly light due to complicated eligibility requirements, reduced testing, and potential for drug interactions, a Reuters review of data and interviews with experts has found.
Demand also has been hampered by the perception that Omicron infections are not that severe.
Paxlovid was expected to be a major tool in the fight against COVID after it reduced hospitalizations or deaths in high-risk patients by around 90% in a clinical trial.
Why Cheap, Older Drugs That Might Treat COVID Never Get out of the Lab
In March 2020, Dr. Joseph Vinetz left the contemplative world of his Yale University infectious-disease laboratory and plunged into the COVID ward at Yale New Haven Hospital, joining an army of healthcare workers who struggled to treat the deadly viral disease.
“We were in the hospital. We had nothing,” Vinetz said. “I was one of tens of thousands of doctors around the world who said, ‘We gotta figure out what to do.’”
On April 16, 2020, Vinetz saw an article in the journal Cell about a drug called camostat, licensed in Japan in 1985 to treat inflammation of the pancreas. Research during the first SARS epidemic, in 2004, had shown the drug had a plausible biochemical mechanism for slowing coronavirus infections, so Vinetz and his colleagues quickly organized a small clinical trial on outpatients with mild to moderate symptoms.
A few old drugs still show promise, but they’ve had trouble getting traction. The ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine fiascoes soured doctors on repurposed medications, and the pharmaceutical industry has shown little interest in testing them, especially when it can earn billions from even mediocre new ones, scientists tracking the field say.
4 Michiganders With COVID Strain Unique to Mink Were Likely 1st U.S. Spillover Cases
Four Michiganders — a taxidermist, his wife and two mink farm employees — were infected with a unique coronavirus strain connected to minks, leading Michigan health officials and the CDC to conclude they likely contracted the first known U.S. cases of so-called animal-to-human virus “spillover.”
The Detroit Free Press and the Documenting COVID-19 project first reported on the mink cases in April 2021, after discovering details about them in Freedom of Information Act requests, and National Geographic confirmed last month that four cases with the same genetic mutations had been linked together.
All four people fully recovered.
There have been other animal-to-human COVID-19 cases documented in Canada with white-tailed deer and a hamster in Japan. While Michigan’s cases are the only known animal-connected COVID-19 cases in the U.S., there could be other cases that have gone unreported, as the country is not actively testing for such outbreaks.
Japan Approves Novavax COVID Vaccine
Japan’s health ministry on Tuesday formally approved Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine, a fourth foreign-developed tool to combat the infections as the country sees signs of a resurgence led by a subvariant of fast-spreading Omicron.
The ministry approval comes the day after its experts panel endorsed use of Novavax’s protein vaccine, which is designed with similar technology used to fight diseases such as the flu and hepatitis B, for the first two shots and a booster.
Health Minister Shigeyuki Goto told reporters that Novavax product adds variety to the choices available and could appeal to those who are hesitant to use COVID-19 vaccines such as Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, which are designed with newer technologies.
Poland Declines to Take or Pay for More COVID Vaccines for Now
Poland will not take or pay for more doses of COVID-19 vaccine under the European Union’s supply contract, its health minister said on Tuesday, setting the stage for a legal battle with manufacturers.
Poland, along with other EU members, has been receiving COVID-19 vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic under supply contracts agreed between the European Commission and vaccine makers such as BioNTech SE and Pfizer or Moderna.
Poland’s biggest supplier is Pfizer. However, the country has seen lower vaccine uptake than most of the European Union and has surplus vaccine stock, part of which it has sold or donated to other countries.
