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COVID: Suspended B.C. Doctor on Speaking Tour Warns Parents About Vaccinating Their Kids
A doctor suspended by the College of Physicians and Surgeons for allegedly disseminating false narratives about COVID-19 is on a speaking tour of the B.C. Kootenays to warn parents about the risks of vaccinating kids.
Dr. Stephen Malthouse, a family practitioner on Denman Island, has joined a pair of other dissenting doctors in recent speaking engagements in Nelson, Castlegar and Trail to present data they say indicates the risk to children from COVID-19 is “statistically zero” and that vaccines are the bigger risk for that age group.
Malthouse and Drs. Sophia Bayfield and Kevin Sclater spoke over the weekend to what they said were full houses. Their “key message is that the risk to children under the age of 19 for the COVID-19 virus itself is statistically zero. Yet the dangers of the COVID-19 shot for the same age group are significant, including myocarditis, stroke, arrhythmias of the heart and even death.”
COVID-Cautious Freak out at CNN Medical Analyst for Urging Large Events to ‘Still Go on’
CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen said Thursday in a Washington Post column and corresponding Twitter thread that “our new normal” regarding COVID-19 should involve allowing individuals to assess their “own risks” and no longer canceling potential “superspreader” events.
Prominent Twitter users, including doctors and liberal journalists, accused Wen of “dangerous,” “repulsive” messaging that is “killing” people in response.
The controversy started with her article commenting on the recent Washington, DC, Gridiron Club dinner which led to an outbreak of COVID among D.C. politicians. Rather than admonish people who would dare attend large events like these during a pandemic, Wen, formerly the head of Planned Parenthood, explained that we’ve come to a “new normal” in which people should “be thoughtful about their own risks” and be allowed to make their own decisions.
She concluded her Twitter posts, stating, “accepting that #COVID19 infections will be part of our lives doesn’t mean that we are giving up. Rather, it means acknowledging that we finally have the tools to live with it, and that people will make different choices from our own.”
72 People at High-Profile DC Dinner Test Positive for COVID
Seventy-two people have tested positive for COVID-19 after having attended the Gridiron Dinner in Washington last weekend, including members of the Biden administration and reporters.
Gridiron Club President Tom DeFrank said Sunday that the group had reported 72 cases out of the hundreds of people who attended. New York Mayor Eric Adams, who was also at the dinner, tested positive Sunday. It was the first Gridiron Dinner since 2019, before the pandemic, and guests were required to show proof of vaccination, DeFrank said.
‘Get Used to It’: Outbreaks Give Taste of Living With Virus
The U.S. is getting a first glimpse of what it’s like to experience COVID-19 outbreaks during this new phase of living with the virus, and the roster of the newly infected is studded with stars.
Cabinet members, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Broadway actors and the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut have all tested positive. Outbreaks at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University are bringing back mask requirements to those campuses as officials seek out quarantine space.
Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, expects the high level of U.S. immunity built up from previous infections and vaccinations will protect the nation from a large surge. “We’re going to have some infections here and there, but it’s not going to shut down the country,” Mokdad said. “Life has to go on. We have to be vaccinated and boosted. We need to protect the vulnerable, but we have to get used to it.”
Ivermectin as Treatment for COVID May Become More Accessible in Tennessee
Tennessee may make ivermectin accessible without a prescription for treatment against COVID-19 if legislation that was approved in the Senate on April 6 is signed by Gov. Bill Lee.
“The bill would put it behind the counter with a consultation, which means you would explain your symptoms to the pharmacist, fill out a sheet listing your preexisting conditions and what other medication you’re on in order for the pharmacist to determine the right dosage,” Niceley said.
“Ivermectin is one of the many therapeutic options, like vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and anti-virals, that have proven to be effective in the treatment of COVID-19,” Republican state Sen. Rusty Crowe, a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement.
“Ivermectin clearly works,” state Sen. Frank Niceley said. “We’ve had doctors in the Senate who prescribe it all the time. You’ve got to take it early. As with any disease, early treatment is better than late,” he said, adding that he took ivermectin when he tested positive for COVID-19.
The Next Leap in Coronavirus Vaccine Development Could Be a Nasal Spray
As the Omicron variant of the coronavirus moved lightning-fast around the world, it revealed an unsettling truth. The virus had gained a stunning ability to infect people, jumping from one person’s nose to the next. Cases soared this winter, even among vaccinated people.
That is leading scientists to rethink their strategy about the best way to fight future variants, by aiming for a higher level of protection: blocking infections altogether. If they succeed, the next vaccine could be a nasal spray.
A switch in the vaccine delivery route from a shot to a sniff could muster a wall of immunity right where viruses find their foothold and block the spread of the virus, preventing even mild infections.
WHO Says It Is Analyzing Two New Omicron COVID Sub-Variants
The World Health Organization said on Monday it is tracking a few dozen cases of two new sub-variants of the highly transmissible Omicron strain of the coronavirus to assess whether they are more infectious or dangerous.
It has added BA.4 and BA.5, sister variants of the original BA.1 Omicron variant, to its list for monitoring. It is already tracking BA.1 and BA.2 — now globally dominant — as well as BA.1.1 and BA.3.
The WHO said it had begun tracking them because of their “additional mutations that need to be further studied to understand their impact on immune escape potential.”
With COVID Mission Over, Pentagon Plans for Next Pandemic
One of the key lessons learned was the value of small military teams over mass movements of personnel and facilities in a crisis like the one wrought by COVID-19.
In the early days of the pandemic, the Pentagon steamed hospital ships to New York City and Los Angeles, and set up massive hospital facilities in convention centers and parking lots, in response to pleas from state government leaders. The idea was to use them to treat non-COVID-19 patients, allowing hospitals to focus on the more acute pandemic cases.
But while images of the military ships were powerful, too often many beds went unused. Fewer patients needed non-coronavirus care than expected, and hospitals were still overwhelmed by the pandemic. A more agile approach emerged: having military medical personnel step in for exhausted hospital staff members or work alongside them in additional treatment areas in unused spaces.
Your Next COVID Vaccine Will Be Different
After deploying four COVID-19 shots in a little more than two years, the nation is absorbing a troubling realization: That’s a pace that’s impossible to sustain.
This past week, experts began charting a path to a future that is less perfect – but more practical. It means building a vaccine that targets more than one strain of the virus. It would reduce severe disease and death, but not prevent every infection. If the design is changed, all vaccines will be updated. Manufacturers will likely offer the same vaccine formulation to everyone, rather than a mélange of different products for different people on different schedules.
And the goal is to have it ready by next fall when the risk of illness is likely to soar. That’s a very tight deadline.
“If we settle down to one shot per year that combines COVID and flu, I think that will be sustainable,” said UC San Francisco infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong. “Nobody will want to get a vaccine every six months,” he said. “So we have to change the strategy.”
