Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
Moderna CEO Bancel’s Golden Parachute Soared by Hundreds of Millions Over the Pandemic
Moderna’s board of directors approved a golden parachute for CEO Stephane Bancel worth more than $926 million at the end of last year, up from $9.4 million in 2019 before COVID-19 upended the world order.
The value of Bancel’s so-called change-in-control package has varied as a bulk of it, $922.5 million, is in the biotech company’s stock, which has swung widely over the course of the pandemic along with the company’s progress in making a vaccine to fight it.
Bancel’s exit package also includes a cash severance payment of $1.5 million and a bonus of $2.5 million if the company is sold and he’s terminated.
New Vaccine Findings Pose Tough Questions for Parents of Young Children
For American parents, particularly those with young children, the last couple of months have been dizzying and beyond frustrating.
In early February, federal regulators announced that they would evaluate Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for the youngest children — only to scrap that plan 10 days later, citing doubts about the vaccine’s effectiveness in that age group.
Soon after, scientists reported that the vaccine was only weakly protective against infection with the Omicron variant among children aged 5 to 11 and that it appeared to offer little defense against moderate COVID illness among adolescents aged 12 to 17.
Fortunately, the coming weeks should bring some clarity. Both Pfizer and Moderna plan to report results from trials of their vaccines in young children. The results, if positive, should lead to a new round of regulatory review, perhaps as early as April, that may well allow vaccinations for tens of millions of youngsters.
Lawmakers Push Legislation to Protect Doctors Who Prescribe Ivermectin for COVID. Can They Do That?
USA TODAY via Yahoo!News reported:
As of Thursday, at least 26 states have proposed or passed legislation that would increase patient access to the drug ivermectin, according to a database created by the Federation of State Medical Boards.
Most of the bills attempt to protect doctors who prescribe ivermectin for COVID-19 against disciplinary action from state medical boards and hospitals. The Federation of State Medical Boards said in a statement sent to USA TODAY it opposes any legislation intended to limit a state board’s ability to protect patients.
Other proposed bills seek to make ivermectin available over the counter or by standing order, prohibit pharmacists from refusing to refill ivermectin prescriptions or prohibit medical professionals from providing information that would discourage patients from taking ivermectin for COVID-19.
Health, legal and political experts said states are well within their power to pass many of these bills into law; however, some pieces of legislation may be harder to pass than others.
Pfizer Planning to Submit Data on 4th COVID Shot Soon, While Working on Vaccine for All Variants
Pfizer plans to submit data to the Food and Drug Administration for a fourth COVID shot soon, and it’s working on a vaccine that protects against all coronavirus variants, CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC on Friday.
“I think we’re going to submit to FDA significant progress of data about the need for a fourth dose, and they need to make their own conclusions, of course, and then CDC also. It’s clear that there is a need in an environment of Omicron to boost the immune response,” Bourla said in an interview on “Squawk Box.”
“We are making a vaccine that covers Omicron and all the other variants. There are so many trials that are going right now, and a lot of them we’ll start reading by the end of the month,” he continued later, adding that he’s optimistic from the preliminary data he’s seen so far.
Vaccinating Kids Has Never Been Easy
Today, with COVID vaccinations stalled and rates in children particularly low, the COVID vaccination campaign has drawn comparisons, usually unfavorable, to that for polio.
But history has a way of flattening lengths of time. Vaccine uptake in children has never been immediately universal — not for polio, not for measles, chickenpox, HPV or any other childhood shot. In the past, vaccines have routinely taken years to go from FDA approval to being mandated in schools to high vaccination rates. COVID vaccines, meanwhile, have been available for kids under 16 for mere months, and only under emergency use.
In this time, the most enthusiastic have gotten their two shots, amounting to some 26% of children ages 5 to 11 and 57% of teens ages 12 to 17. These rates, which are so far below that of adults that they suggest many vaccinated parents aren’t vaccinating their kids yet, have already prompted much hand-wringing for being too low.
COVID Was Declared a Pandemic Two Years Ago and Now We’re Finally Moving on — but Public Health Experts Say It’s Not Over
With war raging between Russia and Ukraine, the world’s battle against the coronavirus has been largely sidelined and the second anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization could easily pass us by.
Of course, the long-lasting impact on many individuals’ mental and physical health is yet to be fully measured or appreciated, with the effects of the virus — whether it be the malingering COVID symptoms or “long COVID” many people are experiencing, or its impact on the brain and body — still being investigated by scientists.
There are still many unanswered questions over COVID too, the biggest one being: Where did the virus come from?
While major global economies reopen and many nations are now learning to “live” with the virus, public health experts are keen to stress that the pandemic is not over yet.
Scientists Say We Need Universal Coronavirus Vaccines, but Will They Arrive in Time?
Over the last several months, the COVID pandemic has become an exercise of vaccination whack-a-mole.
A variant arises, and the vaccine manufacturers figure out how to tweak their product to address it — but not quickly enough. New variants keep arising, making the variant-specific shots outdated before we even get a chance to use them.
But what if scientists could develop one universal vaccine that could address all variants? That work is underway at academic labs and biotech firms, including several in Boston, and in recent months, progress has picked up speed.
Justice Dept. Names Prosecutor to Go After Pandemic Fraud
The Justice Department named a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud Thursday, following through on President Joe Biden’s State of the Union promise to go after criminals who stole billions in relief money.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Kevin Chambers, an associate deputy attorney general, will lead criminal and civil enforcement efforts targeting pandemic-related fraud. Monaco on Thursday convened the department’s COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which includes nearly 30 agencies that administer and oversee pandemic relief funding.
The Justice Department has already taken enforcement actions related to more than $8 billion in suspected pandemic fraud, Monaco and Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday. That includes bringing charges in more than 1,000 criminal cases involving losses in excess of $1.1 billion, opening civil cases against over 1,800 individuals and businesses for alleged fraud involving more than $6 billion in loans, and seizing more than $1.2 billion in relief funds.
Thirteen Governors Want the Federal Public Health Emergency Extended Beyond April
Thirteen Democratic state governors wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra this week, urging him to extend the country’s public health emergency declaration for at least another three months beyond its scheduled expiration in April.
The governors said Tuesday that they need much more time to prepare before the emergency ends. Their states have been providing a number of services and benefits during the pandemic that relies on federal resources, and those things “will take significant time to thoughtfully ramp down, phase out, or, in some cases, extend permanently,” the letter says.
How the Pandemic May Fundamentally Change the Healthcare System
Exactly two years ago, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic and much of American life began grinding to a halt.
That’s when the healthcare system, which has never been known for its quickness, sped up. The industry was forced to adapt, delivering virtual care and services outside of hospitals on the fly. Yet, the years-long pandemic has exposed decades-old cracks in the system, and galvanized efforts to fix them.
Today, as coronavirus cases plummet and President Biden says Americans can begin resuming their normal lives, we explore how the pandemic could fundamentally alter the healthcare system for good. What changes are here to stay — and what barriers are standing in the way?
Speculative and Misinformed: Govt on Lancet’s Report on High COVID Mortality in India
The Centre on Friday termed as “speculative and misinformed” a new study that claimed that India’s estimated cumulative excess COVID deaths between January 2020 and December 2021 was around eight times higher than reported.
The Lancet reported on Thursday that although excess mortality rates due to COVID among Indian states are not the highest in the world, because of India’s large population, the country accounted for around 22.3% of global excess deaths as of December 31, 2021.
The documented deaths due to COVID-19 in India over that period was around 489,000, the Lancet said in its paper entitled ‘Estimating excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of COVID-19-related mortality, 2020-21.’ It said India’s estimated cumulative excess deaths due to COVID-19 between the period were the highest in the world at 4.07 million.
The Union Health Ministry reacted strongly to the study and termed it “speculative and misinformed.” In a statement, the ministry said the study provided estimates of all-cause excess mortality for a number of countries based on a mathematical modeling exercise.
