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Quadruple-Vaccinated Pfizer CEO Tests Positive for COVID
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla announced Monday that he has tested positive for COVID despite receiving four doses of his company’s vaccine.
Bourla shared the news in a Twitter post on Monday morning and in a statement on Pfizer’s website.
“I would like to let you know that I have tested positive for #COVID19. I am thankful to have received four doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and I am feeling well while experiencing very mild symptoms,” Bourla tweeted. “I am isolating and have started a course of Paxlovid.”
Nurses Who Left the Healthcare System to Focus on Early Treatment Describe ‘Brutal’ COVID Treatment Protocols
Nurses who witnessed “brutal” hospital COVID-19 treatment protocols kill patients paint a bleak picture of what is taking place in state and federally-funded healthcare systems.
“They’re horrific, and they’re all in lockstep,” Staci Kay, a nurse practitioner with the North Carolina Physicians for Freedom who left the hospital system to start her own early treatment private practice, told The Epoch Times. “They will not consider protocols outside of what’s given to them by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Health (NIH). And nobody is asking why.”
Fueled by cognitive dissonance amid an array of red flags, Kay said hospital staff is ignoring blatantly problematic treatments that performed poorly in clinical trials, such as remdesivir, and protocols such as keeping the patient isolated, just to adhere to the federal canon.
As a former nurse in intensive care, Kay said she had seen her share of tragedy, but how she saw COVID patients being treated “had me waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with chest pains.”
U.K. Becomes First Country to Approve Updated Moderna Vaccine Targeting Omicron
The United Kingdom on Monday became the first country to approve an updated COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna targeting the Omicron variant and the original strain of the virus.
The United States is also working on updated vaccines for a possible fall booster campaign, though the shots might be slightly different. The vaccine approved by the U.K. targets the first version of the Omicron variant, known as BA.1, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has instructed vaccine makers to target the more recent subvariants of Omicron, known as BA.4 and BA.5.
The U.K. regulator on Monday said the updated Moderna vaccine was shown to provide a “strong immune response” against BA.1 as well as BA.4 and BA.5.
Novavax Seeks U.S. Authorization for COVID Vaccine Booster
Novavax Inc. (NVAX.O) said on Monday it had filed for U.S. authorization for the use of its COVID-19 vaccine as a booster dose in people who had either received its shots or a different vaccine.
The application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration comes in the face of a slow rollout in the United States, where the Novavax vaccine was authorized in July, despite expectations that it would convince vaccine skeptics to get inoculated.
100-Year-Old Tuberculosis Vaccine May Protect Against COVID
A small study from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital suggests that a widely used, 100-year-old vaccine for tuberculosis also may offer protection from COVID-19.
The findings, published in Cell Reports Medicine on Monday and conducted on volunteers with Type 1 diabetes, found that the BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) vaccine was 92% effective versus placebo in protecting against infections.
Patients already had been enrolled in a study looking at BCG in Type 1 diabetes when COVID began circulating in early 2020. Researchers quickly established a parallel trial with the same patients to see how effective BCG was in protecting against the new virus.
Can COVID Cause Hair Loss? — Shedding May Be Induced by COVID-Related Stress, but Hair Will Grow Back, Experts Say
Clinicians are seeing an influx of patients who have an unsettling side effect after COVID: losing their hair.
Although more patients are clearly reporting hair loss after COVID, there aren’t robust data describing how many patients experience this phenomenon or what factors put someone at risk.
While there are still many unanswered questions about COVID-related hair loss, experts say the good news is that it appears to be temporary and clinicians should reassure patients that their hair will very likely grow back.
‘Left to Rot’: The Lonely Plight of Long-COVID Sufferers
Thousands of long-COVID patients across the globe are urging their governments to provide more help for the growing number of people facing lingering symptoms after infection.
At least 90 long-COVID groups exist around the world in 34 countries. Most are pushing for more research, improved clinical treatments and increased access to disability benefits, while others offer support and advice.
The growing effort comes as new research suggests there are hundreds of millions of people likely suffering from long COVID and as some experts warn of potentially severe long-term economic and public health impacts of a condition that is still poorly understood.
“We are just left to rot,” said Chantal Britt, founder and president of Long COVID Switzerland. “That’s why all those organizations are popping up: There is no official help.”
Workers Forced to Take Time off Because of COVID Have Lost $28 Billion in Wages
Working through a pandemic took its toll on many Americans — and a new study shows just how much of an economic hit the lowest-paid workers bore.
In fact, as workers dealt with unpaid absences from work for being sick, or having to deal with childcare and other personal obligations, it may have cost them $28 billion.
COVID Sites in NYC Transition to Respond to Monkeypox Virus
New York City will transition some of its COVID-19 vaccination sites for children under the age of 5 next week. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene cited a recent decrease in demand for the sites, as well as greater access to coronavirus vaccines.
“Due to the ongoing monkeypox emergency, we transitioned some of these sites to administer monkeypox vaccine,” he said.
Monkeypox May Be Here to Stay
It may be too late to stop monkeypox from circulating in the U.S. permanently. The Biden administration was caught off-guard when the CDC confirmed monkeypox in a Massachusetts man on May 18. It was part of the first major outbreak outside parts of Africa where the virus is endemic, an unusual event that quickly spun into a global health crisis.
U.S. public health officials tracked the early cases around the country that followed. But a series of setbacks in the administration’s response — including clunky early testing protocols, slow vaccine distribution, a lack of federal funding to help state and local governments respond to the outbreak, and patchy communication with communities most affected by the virus — allowed the disease to gain a foothold among men who have sex with men, particularly those who have had multiple partners in a short period of time.
Epidemiologists, public health officials and doctors now fear the government cannot eliminate the disease in that community, and they’re warning that they are running out of time to stop the virus from spreading in the U.S. population more broadly.
Smallpox Vaccines May Not Protect Against Monkeypox for Life
Smallpox vaccinations may not protect against monkeypox for life, research suggests, with experts saying HIV may play a role in eroding protection from the jab over time. Vaccination with a jab initially developed to protect against smallpox, a related but more serious disease is among the measures being taken to control infections.
However, while experts stress that it is important for those at risk of monkeypox to take up the offer of vaccination, as it reduces the chance of symptomatic infection and severe illness, the protection offered by a smallpox jab may decline over time. A study into monkeypox cases in Spain revealed that 32 of the 181 patients had previously received a childhood vaccination against smallpox.
Another possibility, said Jimmy Whitworth, professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, is that HIV may play a role. According to the study, 40% of the monkeypox cases were in people who were HIV positive. Dr. Oriol Mitja, the co-author of the research, said the figure was 60% among those who had childhood smallpox vaccination but still got monkeypox.
“[People with HIV] may have had some immunodeficiency, eroding away the protection from the vaccine,” said Whitworth.
Colleges Warn Students About Monkeypox Risk as Fall Term Approaches
One by one, cases of the painful viral infection popped up this summer at George Washington, Georgetown and American universities. Now, these schools in the nation’s capital and others across the country are warning their communities to be on guard against the potential spread of monkeypox in the coming weeks when students return to campus for the fall term.
The public health campaigns centered on monkeypox come as colleges and universities are managing the third back-to-school season shadowed by the coronavirus pandemic. Students and educators are eager for normalcy after the disruptions of the previous two years.
That could complicate efforts to combat a threat much different from COVID-19. Health authorities say monkeypox spreads through intimate contact, often skin to skin, including but not limited to sexual encounters. Authorities also warn of possible spread through respiratory secretions or touching the bedding or towels used by someone who is infected.
