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Pfizer Predicts COVID Vaccines Will Remain ‘Multi-Billion-Dollar Revenue Generators’
Pfizer has raised its forecast for annual sales of its COVID-19 vaccine by $2 billion to $34 billion on demand for Omicron-targeted boosters, helping allay some investor worries over growth for the vaccinations.
The U.S. drugmaker’s shares rose over 2.5% at one stage in the session as its third-quarter profit beat estimates, mainly due to better-than-expected sales of the vaccine. The upbeat earnings also sent shares of rival COVID-19 vaccine makers higher. Shares in Novavax and Moderna gained.
Sales of the COVID-19 vaccine have eased from pandemic highs on soft demand for the original shots, sparking concerns over demand over the next few years.
In response, Pfizer plans to roughly quadruple the price of the vaccine, which it sells with German partner BioNTech in the U.S. once the U.S. government stops buying doses and shifts to a private market.
CDC Director’s COVID Returns as Study Finds Such Rebounds Shockingly Common
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has experienced a COVID-19 rebound — a return of mild symptoms and positive tests after completing a course of the antiviral drug Paxlovid and testing negative — the CDC announced today.
Walensky first tested positive on Oct. 21 and experienced mild symptoms. She completed a five-day course of Paxlovid, recovered and tested negative. But on Sunday, Oct. 30, her mild symptoms returned, and she once again tested positive, the agency reported.
Walensky now joins the ever-growing ranks of people reporting rebounds after Paxlovid, including high-profile rebounders such as President Biden and top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci. But, according to a small study published in JAMA Network Open last week, rebounds may be surprisingly common in all COVID-19 cases — even those not treated with Paxlovid.
The study looked more closely at daily symptom data from 158 untreated people with COVID-19, who acted as a placebo group in a drug trial. They were followed for 28 days after their COVID-19 cases began. In that time frame, 108 of the 158 people — 68% — reported a recovery in which their symptoms fully resolved for at least two days. But, of those 108 people, 48 people — 44% — reported a return of symptoms before the end of the 28-day follow-up period.
‘Nothing but a Lie’: Beijing Responds to COVID Lab Leak Allegations, Blaming Them on ‘Anti-China Forces’
Just days after a Senate report was published outlining how the origins of COVID were more likely than not the result of a “research-related incident,” Beijing has gone on the defensive, blaming the lab-leak theory on “anti-China forces,” Bloomberg reported this weekend.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Monday that the idea that COVID leaked from a lab in Wuhan is “nothing but a lie.” According to Bloomberg, Zhao also said that China has maintained a consistent position on the origins of the virus, seemingly alluding to the idea that the virus originated in a Wuhan wet market.
Recall, just days ago, a Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions interim report from Oct. 27, 2022, titled “An Analysis of the Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic” revealed that the origins of COVID were more likely based in a lab as part of a “research-related incident” and not zoonotic.
This report came weeks after Dr. Richard Ebright of Rutgers University posted a damning chronology of circumstantial evidence that seemed to back up the lab-leak theory.
COVID Uses Our Proteins Against Us. A New Strategy Seeks to Block That.
With the United States headed into its third full winter of the pandemic amid fears that new variants will evade immunity from vaccines and prior infections, some scientists are seeking ways to blunt the coronavirus’s slippery evolution by blocking the human proteins it uses against us.
If the strategy works, it has the potential to address several shortcomings of current treatments and vaccines, including their inability to prevent infections and maintain effectiveness in the face of a changing virus. The approach could also protect people with immune systems too weak to tolerate vaccines.
The virus depends on our proteins to make copies of itself and perform other functions. Shutting off its access to a crucial protein would be like depriving a predator of food or oxygen. Moreover, since some human proteins are hijacked by multiple viruses, a single treatment could be used to fight a broad spectrum of illnesses.
In the past month alone, two studies have appeared supporting the promise of targeting human proteins in treating COVID-19 ― one published Tuesday in the journal Science Signaling, the other, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, posted on the science website bioRxiv.
No, It’s Not Just Like the Flu Vaccine
Dr. Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco, detailed 11 reasons why the COVID-19 boosters are not like annual flu vaccines.
Among them is the way each immunization is manufactured. Flu vaccines change yearly, based on expert predictions of what viral strains will be in circulation in North America. This is based on testing of the strains in circulation in Australia and other countries that have winter when it is summertime in North America.
The predictive nature of these vaccines is the reason why efficacy rates vary from year to year. When the vaccine is a good match (meaning it provokes immune responses to the strains that come to the United States), the efficacy rates can be quite high. Some years, however, the influenza vaccines try to offer protection against strains that do not circulate in the United States. In those years, flu vaccine efficacy is lower.
But, Prasad said, the situation with these COVID-19 boosters is quite different. The COVID-19 vaccines are not predictive. Rather, they are “built on strains that have already been to North America … It’s a fundamental difference,” he said. “So it’s not about what’s coming in the future, it’s about what’s been here in the past.”
In addition, the COVID-19 vaccine “is far more reactogenic,” Prasad said. Indeed, a quick look at both government data and peer-reviewed science shows that COVID-19 vaccines have much higher rates of adverse events than the flu vaccine.
Long COVID Is Affecting Women More Than Men, National Survey Finds
Long COVID is more common among women than men, according to federal data.
More than 17% of women have had long COVID at some point during the pandemic, compared with 11% of men, according to data from U.S. Census Bureau and National Center for Health Statistics published this month.
Long COVID was defined as experiencing symptoms for three months or more after infection. The most recent data was collected through an online survey of more than 41,000 adults during the two weeks ending Oct. 17.
Women were also more likely to suffer from more severe long COVID, the survey found. Some 2.4% of all women had symptoms that significantly limited their normal activities, compared with 1.3% of men, according to the data.
Could a Nose Spray a Day Keep COVID Away?
Anne Moscona, a molecular virologist, at Columbia University in New York City, and her colleagues have homed in on a compound that might foil SARS-CoV-2. Even better, it’s simply sprayed up the nose — no needle required.
The spritz developed by Moscona’s team is one of a raft of proposed nasal sprays to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection. The sprays would be fast-acting and would be applied frequently, perhaps once or twice a day, to the site where the virus first takes hold — the nasal lining and throat.
Unlike vaccines, which train the recipient’s immune system to build long-lasting protection, the sprays are short-lived compounds that would directly block the virus’s ability to enter cells. Multiple research teams have shown that such sprays are effective at warding off SARS-CoV-2 infection in animals.
If effective in humans, these compounds would be a welcome addition to the limited arsenal that researchers have developed against the virus, says Donna Farber, an immunologist at Columbia University in New York City.
FDA Advisers Meet on Racial Disparities in Pulse Oximeters
The clip-on devices that use light to measure oxygen levels in the blood are getting a closer look from U.S. regulators after recent studies suggest they don’t work as well for patients of color. The clip-on devices that use light to measure oxygen levels in the blood are getting a closer look from U.S. regulators after recent studies suggest they don’t work as well for patients of color.
The devices, called pulse oximeters, usually snap onto a finger and are widely used in hospitals across the globe to help guide treatment. At-home versions became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But several recent studies have raised concerns that the pigmentation in people’s skin can throw off the readings. In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about possible inaccuracies after a study found the devices tended to overestimate Black patients’ oxygen levels.
The FDA has convened a panel of experts to meet Tuesday to discuss “ongoing concerns” about the devices, recommendations for patients and doctors and ways to gauge accuracy.
Japan Approves Moderna’s COVID Vaccine for BA.5 Subvariant
Japan’s health ministry granted fast-track approval Tuesday for U.S. pharmaceutical company Moderna Inc.’s coronavirus vaccine tailored for the BA.5 subvariant now prevalent in the country.
It is the second bivalent vaccine approved in Japan for the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, after the approval of Pfizer Inc.’s BA.5-tailored COVID-19 vaccine in October.
The health ministry plans to start delivering a total of around 3 million doses to municipalities in the final week of November.
In preparation for a projected eighth pandemic wave, the ministry plans to deliver a total of 102 million Omicron-tailored doses by the end of the year. Around 100 million people are eligible to receive them.
Pfizer’s RSV Vaccine, Given During Pregnancy, Protects Infants From Severe Illness
Pfizer announced Tuesday that its maternal RSV vaccine, given during pregnancy, protected infants from developing severe symptoms during the first six months after birth — a critical window of vulnerability.
The company plans to apply for approval of the vaccine before year’s end, with the hope that the shot could be the first vaccine to help protect infants against RSV — respiratory syncytial virus — as soon as next winter.
The data was announced in a news release and has not yet been published or peer-reviewed.
