Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
Florida to Recommend Against COVID Vaccines for Healthy Kids
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said Monday that the state will formally recommend against COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children.
Ladapo made the announcement at a roundtable event organized by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that featured a group of doctors who criticized coronavirus lockdowns and mandate policies. It was not immediately clear when the state would release its health guidance.
“The Florida Department of Health is going to be the first state to officially recommend against the COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children,” Ladapo said at the end of the roundtable discussion.
Late last month, Ladapo and DeSantis announced new virus policy recommendations that discouraged mask-wearing and directed physicians to exercise their own judgment when treating virus patients, including the use of emerging treatments and off-label medications.
CDC Director: Nobody Said COVID Vaccine Effectiveness Might Wane
When COVID-19 vaccines were first authorized in late 2020, the public wasn’t informed that the touted effectiveness might decline, a top U.S. health official said on Mar. 3.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recalled watching coverage of clinical trial results that indicated the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was 95% effective. “Nobody said ‘waning’; ‘Oh this vaccine is going to work, oh well, maybe it’ll wear off.’ Nobody said, ‘Well, what if the next variant, it’s not as [effective] against the next variant,” she added.
The vaccine effectiveness has dropped over time, and provides little protection against infection, according to data released after the Omicron virus variant became dominant in the country in late 2021.
Still, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Walensky and other U.S. officials continue to recommend virtually all Americans aged 5 years or older get a vaccine and get a booster, asserting the protection against severe disease, which is also waning, is reason enough.
Is COVID Over? No, but Global Health Funders Are Moving On
One night last month, a select group of the world’s most prominent health leaders — investors and directors of the largest nonprofits — sat around white linen-lined dinner tables.
Thomas Bollyky, the director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Ilona Kickbusch, one of the most renowned German global health policy leaders, hosted the dinner on the first night of the conference.
Bollyky had just published a year-long study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on ways to improve health responses in the next pandemic. Bill Gates, the co-chair of the foundation, was in attendance as were some of the biggest names in global health.
“We need to fund global surveillance, to see the next pathogen early. We need to fund [research and development] for better diagnostics, therapeutics,” Gates said in an interview in Munich.
COVID Deaths in California Among Vaccinated Rose Sharply With Omicron
During a 3-week stretch at the height of this winter’s devastating Omicron case surge, Santa Cruz County health officials lost 10 patients to COVID-19. All but 1 were vaccinated, and 5 had received booster shots.
As the Omicron wave recedes, California data reveal an unsettling trend. Compared to the Delta variant case surge last summer, deaths among the vaccinated rose sharply with Omicron, a variant said by many experts to cause milder illness.
More breakthrough infections, hospitalizations and deaths among the vaccinated have added to the challenges Santa Cruz County Deputy Health Officer Dr. David Ghilarducci and other public health officials face as they continue urging vaccination as the most effective defense against the virus, including variants like Omicron.
Public Health Experts Sketch a Roadmap to Get From the COVID Pandemic to the ‘Next Normal’
A new report released Monday charts a path for the transition out of the COVID-19 pandemic, one that outlines both how the country can deal with the challenge of endemic COVID disease and how to prepare for future biosecurity threats.
The report plots a course to what its authors call the “next normal” — living with the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a continuing threat that needs to be managed. Doing so will require improvements on a number of fronts, from better surveillance for COVID and other pathogens to keeping tabs on how taxed hospitals are; and from efforts to address the air quality in buildings to continued investment in antiviral drugs and better vaccines.
The authors also call for offering people sick with respiratory symptoms easy access to testing and, if they are positive for COVID or influenza, a quick prescription for the relevant antiviral drug.
Americans Significantly Less Worried About Contracting COVID: Gallup
A new Gallup poll shows that concerns about the pandemic have fallen, with just over a third of respondents saying they are now worried about contracting COVID-19.
Americans questioned in the survey released Monday are more optimistic about the state of the pandemic than they have been since June, before the pandemic’s Delta and Omicron variants contributed to a significant uptick in infections, according to the survey giant.
For example, just 34% of people said they are worried about contracting COVID-19, compared to 50% in January.
The latest results, however, are still quite far from the 89% of people who said the pandemic was improving in June.
‘Urgent’ COVID Funding Hangs in Balance Amid Partisan Fight
Funding for the next phase of the COVID-19 fight is hanging in the balance amid a showdown over new spending in Congress.
The White House is calling for $22.5 billion for “immediate” needs ahead of next week’s government funding deadline, but Republicans are resisting the request, saying the billions already provided to fight the virus should be spent first before Congress approves new money.
The administration, though, says the previous money is “nearly all” used up. Without approval of the request for new funding, the White House says critical steps to fight the virus and prepare for a future variant will have to stop.
Moderna Reaches Preliminary Agreement to Build COVID Vaccine Manufacturing Plant in Africa
Moderna has reached a memorandum of understanding with Kenya to build a COVID vaccine manufacturing plant in the East African nation, the company announced on Monday.
Moderna plans to invest $500 million to produce messenger RNA, the technology underlying its COVID vaccines, at the facility with the goal of manufacturing 500 million doses annually. Moderna could fill COVID vaccine doses at the Kenya facility as early as 2023 subject to demand, according to the company.
Moderna received U.S. taxpayer money under Operation Warp Speed to develop the vaccine. The company is currently locked in a patent dispute with the National Institutes of Health over the technology underlying the vaccine. White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a call with reporters last week, suggested that the NIH would license the technology globally if it wins the dispute with Moderna.
COVID Has Now Been Found in 29 Kinds of Animals, Which Has Scientists Concerned
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:
Scientists have now found the coronavirus in 29 kinds of animals, a list that has been steadily growing almost since the start of the pandemic and includes cats, dogs, ferrets, hamsters, tigers, mice, otters and hippos. In most cases, the animals have not been shown to transmit the virus back to humans.
But in at least two cases, it looks as if they can. Minks have spread the virus to people, and in a new Canadian study, scientists identified one person who tested positive after unspecified “close contact” with infected white-tailed deer.
This Treatment Can Protect Vulnerable People From COVID. But Many Don’t Know About It.
Leanne Cook was glum but unsurprised when the tests confirmed what she and her doctors had expected: Even after three shots of a vaccine, she had no antibodies to protect her against COVID-19.
Then Cook heard about something that could plug those missing antibodies into her system — a preventive pair of injections called Evusheld. But health officials cautioned that there was only so much to go around.
Oklahoma Moves Toward ‘Endemic’ Approach to COVID
Two years after officials announced the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Oklahoma, state officials say they are shifting their response efforts to an “endemic” approach to the coronavirus.
Interim health commissioner Keith Reed said last week the department is preparing to begin a transition “into the endemic phase of this pandemic,” The Oklahoman reported. A disease reaches the endemic stage when the virus still exists in a community but becomes manageable as immunity builds.
“I don’t know that I can say yet that COVID is endemic,” Dr. Dale Bratzler, chief COVID officer for the University of Oklahoma, said last week. “But I do think we have to learn to live with COVID.
