Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
House GOP to Embark on Sweeping Probe of COVID Origin, U.S. Response
House Republicans on Monday commissioned a special investigative panel focused on the coronavirus pandemic, hoping to leverage their new, powerful majority to press scientists and federal officials about the origin of the public health crisis and the government’s response to it.
Party lawmakers officially chartered the new effort in a sprawling package setting the chamber’s rules for the next two years, awarding it a sweeping mandate — from looking into vaccine development, school closures and other mitigation measures to examining the roughly $5 trillion in emergency federal aid approved since early 2020.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is set to chair the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, under whose umbrella the COVID panel will do its work, said that congressional investigators would “talk to the researchers,” including “all of the people that were involved” at the National Institutes of Health around the development of vaccines.
In December, the congressman joined with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who is set to oversee other investigations of the Biden administration, to demand Anthony S. Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and NIH retain records involving “the origins of COVID-19, the [Chinese government’s] efforts to cover it up and all related national security risks.”
The official charter for the 12-member subcommittee tasks it with exploring the origin of the pandemic as well as federal funding for “gain-of-function research.” The term refers to scientific efforts to create novel versions of pathogens to better understand how they work and, potentially, to combat them.
Moderna Considers Pricing COVID Vaccine at $110-$130 — WSJ
Moderna Inc. (MRNA.O) is considering pricing its COVID-19 shot at $110 to $130 per dose in the United States when it shifts from government contracting to commercial distribution of the shots, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Stephane Bancel told the Wall Street Journal on Monday.
“I would think this type of pricing is consistent with the value,” said Bancel, according to the WSJ report, adding the company was in discussions with hospital systems, pharmacies and pharmacy-benefit managers to line up distribution of its vaccine ahead of a potential fall booster shot campaign.
Moderna had previously estimated the commercial price expectations in a range of $64 to $100 a shot.
Australian Authorities to Stop Reporting Vaccination Status of Hospitalizations, Deaths
Authorities in Australia’s largest state are saying they’re going to stop reporting the vaccination status of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 after their latest report showed zero unvaccinated patients. “Vaccination status of cases admitted to hospital, admitted to ICU and those who die will no longer be reported,” the New South Wales government said in a recent overview of surveillance data from the two weeks through Dec. 31, 2022.
The report showed that of the 1,779 patients admitted to hospitals with a COVID-19 diagnosis during the two weeks, 79.5% were confirmed as receiving at least one vaccine dose and zero were confirmed as unvaccinated.
Some data and studies from elsewhere indicate that vaccines still provide some level of protection against severe illness along with virtually no shielding against infection, but others indicate that more doses increase the risk of illness.
That includes data from U.S. states that showed boosted people were more likely to get infected, hospitalized and/or die when compared to people who were vaccinated but have not received a booster, and a paper from the Cleveland Clinic that showed each successive dose heightened the chance of a person testing positive.
British Scientists Plan to Expand Genomic Sequencing From COVID to Flu
Genomic sequencing allowed the world to track new coronavirus variants throughout the pandemic. Now British researchers plan to use it to better understand a host of other respiratory pathogens, from influenza to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
The work is aimed at shedding more light on known threats and, potentially, emerging ones, said the team at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, working with the U.K. Health Security Agency.
“We hope that by expanding our ability to sequence these viruses routinely, we can build upon the work that’s going on COVID, and hopefully supercharge research efforts to understand the transmission of these viruses, but also to help develop new treatments and vaccines,” Ewan Harrison, head of the new Respiratory Virus and Microbiome Initiative, said.
The work will begin later this year by using leftover material from swabs taken for COVID-19 diagnostic purposes, sequencing SARS-CoV-2, influenza, RSV and other common respiratory viruses in a combined process.
Biden Team Eyes End of COVID Emergency Declaration and Shift in COVID Team
When the Biden administration renews the COVID public health emergency this week, it will mark the 11th time since the coronavirus arrived that the government declared its presence a national crisis. It may also be the last.
Senior Biden officials are targeting an end to the emergency designation for COVID as soon as the spring, after debating doing so last summer and taking a pass, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO. Should they do so, such a move would represent a major pivot point in the country’s battle with the pandemic.
The decision, which has not yet been finalized amid more immediate efforts to manage a recent spike in COVID cases, would trigger a complex restructuring of major elements of the federal response — and set the stage for the eventual shifting of greater responsibility for vaccines and treatments to the private market. It would kickstart a transition away from the White House-led crisis operation and toward treating the virus as a continuous long-term threat.
Under the current tentative plan, health officials will quietly renew the emergency declaration for another 90 days before its scheduled expiration on Wednesday. That would give the administration until early February to alert states and health industry representatives that it plans to end the designation.
Moderna CEO Says COVID Moving Into Endemic Stage
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said coronavirus is transitioning from a pandemic to an endemic. “It’s tough to look precisely because none of us managed a transition from a pandemic to an endemic before. But we really think now that we’re moving into an endemic setting,” he told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo in an exclusive interview that aired on “Mornings with Maria” Tuesday.
Bancel went on to say the Omicron booster resulted in “very good” clinical data in terms of vaccine efficacy. “I think we are now getting ready for yet another update in the fall, and we are going to move most probably to annual boosters for people at high risk.”
In 2022, Moderna generated a whopping $18.4 billion, but now analysts are lowering estimates for 2023 to a mere $5 billion. Bancel said that the projected $5 billion is a “flaw” in terms of sales and that the company sees that as a bare “minimum.”
“But $5 billion, we see it as a flaw, meaning those are things where we already have contracts placed like with Canada and the U.K. This $5 billion assumes no sales in the U.S. And of course, we are currently talking to pharmacies and hospital network and doctors to have the new boosters available in the fall of 23′. So, I think that this is what we see as a minimum, as a flaw in terms of sales,” the CEO explained.
COVID Vaccines: From Nasal Drops to a Redesign, What 2023 Could Have in Store
Several vaccine companies say they are expecting breakthroughs as early as this year as they pursue new ways to protect people against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The Food and Drug Administration is set to convene a panel of its outside vaccine advisers later this month to weigh key issues over the future of COVID-19 vaccines, including when and how to greenlight new boosters and changes to which strain the vaccines target.
Several companies have been pursuing approaches that could offer better protection against infections themselves, instead of merely blunting the severity of the disease. Potential vaccines to build this kind of “mucosal immunity” aim to bring antibodies to fend off the virus at the sites where it first enters the body, through vaccines that could be taken through drops, sprays or pills.
Novavax and Moderna, as well as Pfizer and BioNTech, say they are pursuing clinical trials of versions of their COVID-19 vaccines blended with components designed to trigger immunity against influenza or RSV in a single shot.
WHO Meeting to Decide on COVID Emergency Set for Jan. 27
A World Health Organization committee will meet on Jan. 27 to consider whether the COVID-19 pandemic still represents a global emergency, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, three years after it was first declared.
WHO spokesperson Carla Drysdale confirmed the timing of the meeting at a Geneva press briefing. The Emergency Committee advises WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who makes the ultimate call on whether an outbreak represents a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern which is the U.N. agency’s highest level of alert.
Several leading scientists and WHO advisers say it may be too early to declare the end of the COVID-19 pandemic emergency phase because of high levels of infections in China which dismantled its zero-COVID policy last month.
Pfizer CEO Rules Out Generic COVID Drug Paxlovid for China
Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N) is not in talks with Chinese authorities to license a generic version of its COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid for use there, but is in discussions about a price for the branded product, Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on Monday.
Reuters reported on Friday that China was in talks with Pfizer to secure a license that will allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of the U.S. firm’s COVID-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid in China.
Referring to that report, Bourla, speaking at J.P. Morgan’s healthcare conference in San Francisco, said “We are not in discussions. We have an agreement already for local manufacturing of Paxlovid in China. So we have a local partner that will make Paxlovid for us, and then we will sell it to the Chinese market.”
