Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
Fauci Urges Black Americans to Get COVID Booster Shots in Preparation for Fall Surge
Dr. Anthony Fauci has an important message for Black Americans: get a booster shot.
In a recent interview with TheGrio, Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged the Black community to get a COVID booster shot in preparation for the fall surge when the COVID infection rates are expected to rise.
He said that the Food and Drug Administration will soon authorize an updated booster shot, known as the bivalent BA.5 vaccine, which is a closer match to the circulating Omicron variants of COVID.
He also noted that COVID infection rates continue to disproportionately affect Black Americans because of two key factors: their occupations and underlying health conditions.
Researchers Are Working on a New Rapid COVID Immunity Test
As SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, knowing your immunity status — both from vaccines and from infections — will become increasingly important.
COVID-19 antibodies are the best proxy for disease immunity. But they currently require a healthcare provider to order the test, which has to be performed at a pharmacy or doctor’s office. The sample is then sent to a lab to analyze — all of which takes time, making the process inconvenient and too burdensome for most people.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have found a way to potentially make antibody testing much more accessible. They developed a method to use widely available and relatively inexpensive glucometers — small devices that read blood sugar levels from a finger prick — to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
Canada OKs Pfizer COVID Booster for Kids 5 to 11, Sees Monkeypox Cases Slow
Canada’s health ministry on Friday said it had authorized the use of Pfizer Inc.’s (PFE.N) and BioNTech’s (22UAy.DE) COVID-19 vaccine as a booster for children five to 11 years old at least six months after receiving their initial two doses.
Canada is witnessing a decrease in COVID-19 cases but citizens must prepare for the potential emergence of new variants of the virus in the months ahead, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, told a news conference.
Canada has reported 1,168 confirmed cases of monkeypox, including 30 hospitalizations, Tam said, adding there has “been a slowing trend in the increase in new cases reported in recent weeks.”
Has the Latest COVID Wave in the U.S. Peaked?
U.S. News & World Report reported:
The latest coronavirus wave in the U.S. appears to be receding after a relentless plateau that lasted most of the summer months.
The latest wave, which was fueled by several Omicron subvariants, including BA.2.12.1 and BA.5, brought a steady onslaught of new infections, including among President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, as well as increasing reinfections.
While the wave looks to have crested, the numbers remain elevated with few mitigation measures in widespread use, begging the question: Is this the country’s “new normal?”
What Will the Next Generation of COVID Vaccines Look Like?
As the coronavirus continues to evolve into newer and more contagious variants — capable of evading immunity from infection or vaccination — public health experts are trying to develop the next generation of vaccines that can outsmart the novel virus.
New infections give the virus the opportunity to mutate, and thus, COVID-19 vaccines can wane in efficacy. That’s why during a White House summit last month, federal health officials, public health experts and vaccine manufacturers stressed the need to develop innovative new vaccines to help induce broad and durable protection against coronaviruses.
Here are some of the next-generation vaccines under development:
‘Most Have Thrown Their Hands up’: Has the U.S. Forgotten About COVID?
Have we simply forgotten about COVID-19? Data obtained earlier this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that the rate of new infections has been decreasing, with the country reporting an average of 107,000 new cases a day. This marks a 12% decrease compared to infection rates two weeks ago.
The majority of the recent infections come from BA.4 and BA.5, subvariants of Omicron whose original strain first emerged over eight months ago. According to the CDC, the two variants appear to represent over 80% of the U.S. cases.
With the virus continuing to mutate, breakthrough and rebound infections are becoming increasingly common, especially with the BA.5 variant. New data published in June by Harvard Medical School researchers reveal that the BA.4 and BA.5 appear to evade antibody responses from people who have been fully vaccinated and boosted and those who have previously gotten COVID-19.
More recently, reports have been emerging of another Omicron subvariant, BA.4.6, which is Omicron’s seventh major subvariant since the variant first appeared in Africa last November. According to health experts, BA.4.6 possesses a certain mutation that gives it an increased ability to avoid antibodies.
‘Paxlovid Mouth’: Internet Remedies to Fight Earwax and Dirty Pennies Taste
“Paxlovid mouth” has become a new topic of discussion on social media in recent days, as many people have complained about an unpleasant taste in their mouths after they’ve taken Pfizer‘s Paxlovid to treat COVID-19.
Twitter users have compared the taste left behind by the antiviral drug to earwax, “dirty pennies,” a “horrible rotted placenta” and “satan’s ashtray.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has acknowledged that an “altered or impaired sense to taste” known as dysgeusia is a possible side effect of Paxlovid, while Pfizer‘s clinical trial of the drug conducted before it was granted emergency use authorization from the FDA said dysgeusia only showed up as a symptom in 5.6% of the people in a study.
‘Window of Opportunity’ to Stop Monkeypox Spread Could Be Closing as Vaccine Rollouts Stall
Concerns are mounting that the window of opportunity for containing the escalating monkeypox outbreak may be closing, with vaccine shortages leaving some at-risk groups waiting weeks to get jabbed.
Health professionals have warned that a failure to get the outbreak under control could see it spill over into other populations or species.
The U.K. Health Security Agency has said that it expects to run out of its initial batch of 50,000 vaccines within the next two weeks, and may not receive further doses until September. Meanwhile, other high-case countries are considering new inoculation methods amid dwindling supplies.
Wastewater Testing, Vital in COVID Tracking, Could Help Identify Monkeypox Spread
As wastewater testing continues to prove useful in estimating the spread of the coronavirus, scientists again are using sewage to track the latest public health emergency: monkeypox.
In late June — about a month after the first California case was confirmed — monkeypox DNA was detected in wastewater in San Francisco, according to the WastewaterSCAN coalition, a group of scientists who have been testing sewage for the coronavirus since 2020.
The group recently confirmed the presence of the monkeypox virus in Los Angeles County waste.
“It helps understand how widespread this is,” said Stanford civil and environmental engineering professor Alexandria Boehm, one of the lead researchers on the WastewaterSCAN team.
Lyme Disease Becomes Latest Infection for New Vaccine Trials
Pharmaceutical companies are trying to launch a new vaccine against Lyme disease after cases recently increased almost five-fold in 15 years.
Pfizer and Valneva announced in a statement last week that they are conducting later-stage studies into what could be the first vaccine to fight the disease in decades.
Current studies are meant to “investigate the efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of their investigational Lyme disease vaccine candidate, VLA15,” according to researchers.
