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Mother Sues LAUSD, Claims Her Son Was Offered Pizza for a COVID Vaccination
CBS News Los Angeles reported:
A local mother claims her 13-year-old son was given a COVID-19 vaccination at school without her consent, according to a lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Maribel Duarte says her son Moises, who is a student at Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy, was offered a piece of pizza for receiving the vaccine. And not only was he vaccinated without her consent, she says Moises was made to forge her name on a consent form.
An image of a vaccine record released during a news conference shows two doses of the Pfizer vaccine were administered in October and November of last year.
Duarte says her son, whom she describes as having had breathing problems and asthma since he was a baby, has suffered side effects from the vaccination. Moises doesn’t sleep as well and is no longer physically able to exercise the way he used to, she said.
Biden Administration Expected to Soon Declare Monkeypox a Health Emergency
The Biden administration is expected to declare monkeypox a public health emergency in the coming days, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
The declaration, which is made by the Department of Health and Human Services, would follow a similar decision made last weekend by the World Health Organization. By designating the outbreak an emergency, HHS could then take a slew of actions, including accessing new money and appointing new personnel, according to the law that dictates how and when the federal government can declare such an emergency.
The people with knowledge of the matter said the declaration is expected as soon as the end of the week. But the decision is not yet final, and a spokesperson for HHS said the agency “is continuing to explore options.”
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra is scheduled to hold a press conference on monkeypox Thursday morning.
Pfizer Quarterly Sales Surge to Record High, Driven by COVID Vaccine and Antiviral Treatment Paxlovid
Pfizer’s second-quarter revenue and profit beat Wall Street expectations, driven by sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and its antiviral treatment Paxlovid.
Pfizer booked $27.7 billion in revenue, a 47% increase over the same period last year and its largest quarterly sales on record. The pharmaceutical company reported $9.9 billion in net income, a 78% increase over the second quarter of 2021.
Pfizer’s COVID vaccine brought in $8.8 billion in revenue for the second quarter, while sales of Paxlovid totaled $8.1 billion. The company maintained its 2022 sales guidance for the vaccine of $32 billion and is still expecting $22 billion for Paxlovid.
The company also reiterated its overall 2022 revenue and earnings guidance. Pfizer is expecting $98 billion to $102 billion in sales this year and earnings per share of $6.30 to $6.45.
Fauci Calls BA.5 a ‘Moving Target’ That May Subside by the Time Omicron Boosters Are Ready. Scientists Are Pushing for a Universal COVID Vaccine Instead
Vaccines made specifically to tackle the BA.5 subvariant of COVID should be ready by this fall, Dr. Anthony Fauci, U.S. President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, told The Hill this week.
But the vaccines could suffer from one major flaw — BA.5-specific vaccines may become less effective once the Omicron subvariant is replaced by another strain, a real possibility given that dominant strains have been replaced with more competitive forms of the virus roughly every six months during the course of the pandemic.
“You’re dealing with a moving target,” he said on The Hill’s Rising television show. “There’s always the possibility that you’re going to have the evolution of another variant…”
The White House and vaccine makers are already trying to head off a worse outcome by accelerating efforts to develop a universal COVID vaccine that would protect against multiple variants.
Biden Emerges From COVID Isolation, Tells Public: Get Shots
President Joe Biden ended his COVID-19 isolation on Wednesday, telling Americans they can “live without fear” of the pandemic if they take advantage of booster shots and treatments, the protections he credited with his swift recovery.
“You don’t need to be president to get these tools to be used for your defense,” he said in the Rose Garden. “In fact, the same booster shots, the same at-home test, the same treatment that I got is available to you.”
He talked more about treatment than prevention, a sign of how the pandemic and his approach have evolved.
Biden tested negative for the virus on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, allowing him to end his isolation.
Millions of U.S. Children Remain Unvaccinated as BA.5 Spreads and New School Year Looms
Millions of school-age children in the United States are still unvaccinated against COVID-19 as many prepare for a return to school.
A new CNN analysis finds that less than half of children and teens are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and only a tenth have been boosted.
“What I’ve seen throughout this pandemic is that for every person who wants to get vaccinated, there’s another one that does not,” said Gladys Cruz, district superintendent for Questar III in New York and president-elect of the School Superintendents Association.
Millions Still Without Sense of Smell or Taste After COVID
Still struggling with your sense of smell after a bout with COVID-19? You’re far from alone. About 5% of patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 — some 27 million people worldwide — are estimated to have suffered a long-lasting loss of smell or taste, a new analysis suggests.
In the analysis published Wednesday in The BMJ (the peer-reviewed medical journal of the British Medical Association), researchers evaluated 18 previous studies of smell and taste loss across several continents and in varying demographic groups. About three-quarters of those affected by the loss of taste or smell regained those senses within 30 days.
Rates of recovery improved over time, but about 5% of people reported “persistent dysfunction” six months after their infection with COVID-19.
The analysis suggests loss of smell and taste could be a prolonged concern that requires more research and health resources for patients struggling with long-term symptoms.
When Will COVID Really Be Over? Three Things That Will Mark the End of the Pandemic
The trouble is that epidemics do not have the sort of neat, objective endings we may imagine. A swift and decisive endpoint, achieved through the speedy application of scientific innovation — a magic bullet treatment — is usually wishful thinking. It is unlikely we will see anything like that with COVID-19.
Analyzing past epidemics shows us that actual endings are long, drawn-out and contested. Societies must grapple not just with the medical realities of the disease, harms and treatments, but the political and economic fallout from emergency measures, and disputes over who has the authority to declare an end and what should be measured to guide this process.
This is why there is so much uncertainty about the current state of COVID-19: different groups have vastly different experiences of the medical, political and social aspects of the epidemic, and different ideas of what an ending may look like.
House Passes Bill to Expand COVID-Era Telehealth Services
The House passed a bill Wednesday to expand telehealth services that were first introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The legislation, titled the Advancing Telehealth Beyond COVID-19 Act, passed in a 416-12 vote. Eleven Republicans and one Democrat objected to the measure. Two Republicans did not vote.
The measure seeks to continue a number of telehealth policies established under Medicare that were first implemented at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the provisions would continue through 2024.
Madhya Pradesh COVID: 30 India Students Vaccinated With One Syringe
A health official is being investigated for vaccinating 30 students with a single syringe in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The incident took place in a school in the Sagar district where children were being given COVID-19 vaccines.
Single-use disposable syringes are widely used in India to avoid the spread of deadly diseases like HIV. However, there have been multiple incidents in the past where a single syringe has been reused in hospitals due to a shortage of equipment.
Jitendra Rai, who was vaccinating the children, told the media that he was only given one syringe by the health department and he was just following orders.
Parents who had accompanied their children spotted the issue and reported it to the school authorities.
