Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
Heart Inflammation More Prevalent Among Vaccinated Than Unvaccinated: Study
Heart inflammation requiring hospital care was more common among people who received COVID-19 vaccines than those who did not, according to a new study of tens of millions of Europeans.
Rates of myocarditis or pericarditis, two types of heart inflammation, are above the levels in an unvaccinated cohort, pegged at 38 per 100,000 after receipt of a second dose of a vaccine built on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology in males aged 16 to 24 — the group studies have shown are most at risk of the post-vaccination condition — researchers with health agencies in Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway found.
“These extra cases among men aged 16–24 correspond to a 5 times increased risk after Comirnaty and 15 times increased risk after Spikevax compared to unvaccinated,” Dr. Rickard Ljung, a professor and physician at the Swedish Medical Products Agency and one of the principal investigators of the study, told The Epoch Times in an email. Comirnaty is the brand name for Pfizer’s vaccine while Spikevax is the brand name for Moderna’s jab.
Rates were also higher among the age group for those who received any dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, both of which utilize mRNA technology. And rates were elevated among vaccinated males of all ages after the first or second dose, except for the first dose of Moderna’s shot for those 40 or older, and females 12- to 15-years-old.
The World’s Biggest Vaccine Manufacturer Has Stopped Making COVID Jabs Amid a 200 Million Dose Glut
Serum Institute of India Ltd., the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer and a key supplier of COVID-19 inoculations to developing countries, has stopped making fresh batches of shots after its stockpile grew to 200 million doses amid a global supply glut.
“We have got 200 million doses of stock. We had to shut down production in December,” Serum’s chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla said at the India Economic Conclave organized by Times Network on Friday, saying he was worried about wastage if the shots expired. “I have even offered to give free donations to whoever wanted to take it.”
Serum’s predicament underscores the vaccine oversupply that has crept up across a world once desperate for immunization against the coronavirus. Vaccine makers invested in massive production capacity over the past year and some of that has come online only after most countries covered much of their populations with two doses. The global adjustment to living with the virus — with the exception of COVID Zero-practicing China and Hong Kong — has also diluted the urgency for booster shots.
A Puzzling Phenomenon: Patients Report a Rebound of COVID Symptoms After Taking the Antiviral Paxlovid
When it first hit the market in December, the COVID-19 antiviral treatment, Paxlovid, was hailed as a game-changer, an effective medicine that kept at-risk people out of the hospital. But now some patients are reporting on social media an unusual and unnerving phenomenon: their COVID symptoms appear to rebound after taking the medication.
And it’s not just their symptoms that reappear. Many report that after finishing their five-day course of treatment, feeling better and testing negative on an at-home rapid test, they then test positive again a few days later.
The issue has captured the attention of at least two teams of Boston-area scientists, who are trying to understand what might be fueling the problem. Resistance to the drug? Patients being quickly reinfected? Or maybe some people just need to take the medicine longer to mount a more effective immune response.
Ohio Bill Encourages Use of Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine for COVID Patients
A bill promoting the use of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and other “alternative” COVID-19 treatment drugs was introduced Thursday at the Statehouse.
Introduced by Rep. Kris Jordan (R-Ostrander) in the late hours of Thursday, House Bill 631 protects and encourages the use of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and other drugs not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat COVID-19 patients, according to the bill’s text.
So long as a patient or a patient’s representative consents to the treatment — and a healthcare provider deems its use appropriate — Ohioans diagnosed with COVID-19 are eligible to receive drugs like ivermectin or other “alternative treatments,” Jordan’s bill reads.
Why Have Some People Never Gotten COVID?
U.S. News & World Report reported:
It’s a story many have heard before. COVID-19 enters a household whether through a spouse, parent, sibling or caretaker — but despite extensive exposure, not everyone gets sick.
And it could be a more common occurrence than some think. The U.S. reports more than 80 million coronavirus cases, which is likely a significant undercount. Experts estimate that more than half of Americans have yet to get the coronavirus. There’s also people who have actually had COVID-19 without knowing it, whether the case was asymptomatic or so mild it didn’t prompt testing.
But then there are others who have had repeated exposure to the virus who never contracted it, and researchers want to know why. Many studies are underway to test different hypotheses about why some people just haven’t gotten the coronavirus. Could they have better immune systems or maybe a genetic difference that protects them from COVID-19?
Scientists to FDA: Don’t Forget About T Cells
The Boston Globe via MSN reported:
A group of nearly 70 academic scientists, doctors and biotech leaders sent a letter with an unusual request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday: Please pay more attention to T cells, an overlooked part of the immune system that helps clear up viral infections.
For much of the pandemic, COVID-19 vaccine developers and researchers have largely focused on studying antibodies induced by the shots. Neutralizing antibodies, which many labs are skilled at measuring, are essential for preventing the coronavirus from infecting our cells in the first place.
“Short-term neutralizing antibody responses are certainly important but not the entire picture, and they may not always be the most relevant immune parameter in protection against COVID-19,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, one of the scientists who signed the letter to the FDA, and director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Fauci Says People Don’t Like His Integrity: ‘Alienated a Lot of People’
Dr. Anthony Fauci has told an interviewer that his integrity and responsibility to be honest with the public have alienated a lot of people.
Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, reflected on his unpopularity among certain groups in a conversation with CNN‘s Kasie Hunt, which was broadcast on Jake Tapper’s Thursday night show.
Fauci has previously discussed the animosity he has faced from some politicians since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The CDC Finally Has a Simple Interactive Tool That Tells You When to Test Yourself and How Long to Quarantine if You’re Exposed to COVID. Here’s How It Works.
After two years of confusing guidance on when to isolate or quarantine for COVID-19, how to test, when to re-emerge into society and how long to keep masking afterward, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has at long last designed a simple, 3-to-4-click tool for determining exactly how long to isolate and/or wear a mask around other people, if you have: been exposed to someone who has COVID-19 or tested positive for COVID-19 yourself.
The tool — similar to an online quiz — is a more personalized, straightforward approach than the fine-print-laden guidelines the CDC came up with last winter.
Here’s a quick primer on how to use the helpful new tool.
California Will Keep Workplace Pandemic Rules Through 2022
California workplace regulators on Thursday extended mandatory pay for workers affected by the coronavirus through the end of 2022, acting more than two months after state lawmakers restored similar benefits through September.
The decision again pitted management against labor as the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board renewed revised workplace safety rules that would otherwise have expired in early May.
U.S. Spending on Pharmaceuticals Jumped 12% in 2021, Fueled by Costs of COVID Vaccines and Therapies
Thanks to COVID-19 vaccines and therapies, U.S. spending on pharmaceuticals rose 12% in 2021 as use reached record levels and new prescriptions for acute and chronic care largely recovered from the slowdown seen during the pandemic, according to a new analysis.
Meanwhile, out-of-pocket costs paid by patients hit $79 billion, a $4 billion rise from the year before and the same level seen in 2018 after two years of declining costs. Overall, these costs were relatively low — less than $20 per prescription — but about 1% of all prescriptions filled, or 64 million, ran patients $125, underscoring ongoing barriers to affordability. In fact, 81 million prescriptions were not filled last year.
7 in 10 People in England Have Had COVID, Research Shows
More than seven in 10 people in England have been infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The estimate, the most detailed analysis to date, suggests 71% of people in England had caught COVID between April 27, 2020 and Feb. 11, 2022. The proportion is likely to have risen further in the most recent Omicron wave, during which there was the highest prevalence at any time in the pandemic, including in older age groups that had previously had relatively low rates of infection.
