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COVID Vaccine Scheme for Poorest Has $2.6 Billion Left to Spend as Pandemic Recedes
Several billions of dollars left in a scheme to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the world’s poorest could be diverted to prepare for other pandemics or to support vaccine manufacturing in Africa, the scheme’s partners said.
The COVAX initiative, run by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), has $2.6 billion left in its coffers as the emergency phase of the pandemic draws to a close, according to documents seen by Reuters and two sources close to the scheme.
The initiative is set to wind up at the end of this year, although some of its work will continue. With demand for COVID-19 vaccines dwindling, the partners are now working out how best to use the remaining cash — a significant sum in global health — alongside the donors who originally pledged it.
Around $600 million was given as part of a “contingency” fund in case the pandemic escalated again. The remaining $2 billion has come back to COVAX after drugmakers agreed to refund deals agreed for vaccines at the height of the pandemic.
Around $700 million is likely to be used for an ongoing COVID-19 vaccination program in countries supported by Gavi, for 2024 and 2025. This option will be discussed by Gavi’s board this week. Another portion of the money will be used for booster shots this year and next.
Cory Franklin and Robert Weinstein: If a Lab Leak Led to COVID, There Are Truths We Must Not Ignore
In the past year as the pandemic wound down, the “very likely” theory of an animal vector has been met with increasing skepticism. Many in the scientific community, as well as some in U.S. intelligence circles, do not buy the remarkable coincidence that the first COVID-19 cases just happened to appear in Wuhan, China, the site of the Chinese government-run Wuhan Institute of Virology. FBI Director Christopher Wray has said that the bureau believes COVID-19 most likely originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab.
Now out is a comprehensive investigation of the virus origin by the Sunday Times of London, compiled with extensive sourcing including interviews with U.S. State Department special investigators who have been studying the origin of COVID-19 and have amassed secret intelligence on events in China before COVID-19 emerged.
The conclusion of Times reporters was startling. “Scientists in Wuhan working alongside the Chinese military were combining the world’s most deadly coronaviruses to create a new mutant virus just as the pandemic began. Investigators who scrutinized top-secret intercepted communications and scientific research believe Chinese scientists were running a covert project of dangerous experiments, which caused a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and started the COVID-19 outbreak.
The U.S. investigators say one of the reasons there is no published information on the work is because it was done in collaboration with researchers from the Chinese military, which was funding it and which, they say, was pursuing bioweapons.” Moreover, scientists from the Chinese military working at the Wuhan Institute were coincidentally involved in vaccine development just before the international outbreak.
U.S. Intelligence Report on COVID Origins Rejects Some Points Raised by Lab Leak Theory Proponents
U.S. officials released an intelligence report Friday that rejected some points raised by those who argue COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab, instead reiterating that American spy agencies remain divided over how the pandemic began. The report was issued at the behest of Congress, which in March passed a bill giving U.S. intelligence 90 days to declassify intelligence related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The newest report angered some Republicans who have argued the administration is wrongly withholding classified information and researchers who accuse the U.S. of not being forthcoming.
But Alina Chan, a molecular biologist who has long argued the virus may have originated in the Wuhan lab, noted the public version of the report did not include the names of researchers who fell sick or other details mandated by Congress. The bill requiring the review allowed intelligence officials to redact information publicly to protect agency sources and methods.
“It’s getting very difficult to believe that the government is not trying to hide what they know about #OriginOfCOVID when you see a report like this that contains none of the requested info,” Chan tweeted.
Pfizer/BioNTech Initiate Application With EU Regulator for Updated COVID Vaccine
Pfizer (PFE.N) and partner BioNTech (22UAy.DE) said on Friday they had initiated an application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for authorization of updated COVID-19 vaccine targeting Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5.
Earlier in June, Europe’s medicine regulators backed the World Health Organization’s recommendation to update the antigen composition of COVID shots to target one of the currently dominant XBB variants ahead of the upcoming autumn vaccination campaign.
Pfizer/BioNTech said they expect to be ready to ship XBB.1.5-adapted monovalent vaccines to member states of the European Union immediately following regulatory approval.
The companies added they also plan to file an application with the U.S. drug regulator in the coming days.
Fauci, Former Face of U.S. COVID Response, to Join Georgetown Faculty
Anthony S. Fauci, who retired from the National Institutes of Health in December after helping two presidents navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, plans to join the faculty at Georgetown University on July 1, according to the university.
Fauci declined to comment, through his attorney, Robert Barnett.
Fauci has deep ties to the 234-year Jesuit institution. He and his wife, Christine Grady, a Georgetown alumna and head of NIH Clinical Center’s Department of Bioethics, were married in the campus’s Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart. Their three daughters were born at Georgetown University Hospital. Fauci attended New York City’s Regis High School and the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., both Jesuit institutions.
CDC Tracking New COVID Variant EU.1.1
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now separately tracking several new COVID-19 variants, the agency announced Friday, adding more Omicron descendants to an increasingly complex list of new strains that are competing nationwide.
Among the new variants now being tracked by the CDC is EU.1.1, a strain first designated by scientists earlier this year over its rapid ascent in some European countries.
The variant is a more distant descendant of the XBB.1.5 variant that had surged earlier this year, with a handful of more mutations to its spike protein that may be driving its spread.
The CDC estimates that EU.1.1 is now 1.7% of U.S. cases nationwide, but may have already reached as much as 8.7% of cases in the region spanning Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
Fed Gov’t Study Showed Canadians Hid COVID Vaccination Status
According to an internal memo from the Privy Council Office, Canadians concealed their vaccination status when questioned by federal pollsters.
Researchers attributed this behavior to the “social desirability” of claiming full compliance with public health orders, especially during a period when unvaccinated individuals faced restrictions on public services and the risk of potential job losses.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, federal pollsters discovered 68% of Canadians reported receiving a booster shot, while the Department of Health figures indicated the actual rate was 55%.
According to researchers, a consistent trend existed for people to “overstate” their vaccination status. Pollsters “observed a similar trend during the initial rollout of vaccines in the spring of 2021 where the proportion of respondents who indicated they had received a vaccine was roughly 20 points too high,” said the memo.
CDC Director Concerned About ‘Breakthrough’ Cases Weeks After COVID Vaccine Rollout: Email
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and several other top officials knew in early 2021 that vaccinated people were becoming infected with COVID-19, according to an email obtained by The Epoch Times. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told colleagues in the Jan. 30, 2021, missive that she had spoken with Dr. Francis Collins that morning “and one of the issues we discussed was that of vaccine breakthroughs.”
The email was included in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Requests for records from roughly the same time seeking what top U.S. officials were saying about breakthrough cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are pending.
Walensky didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment that also asked for an unredacted version of the email. Dr. Francis Collins didn’t return an inquiry. Dr. Anthony Fauci couldn’t be reached. The CDC stated that it was looking into it when it first became aware of breakthrough cases.
A few months after the email, Walensky went on MSNBC and claimed that data from the CDC and clinical trials “suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus” and “don’t get sick.”
