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We Need a COVID Commission
When an airplane crashes, the Federal Aviation Administration conducts a detailed and thorough investigation. The purpose is not to find a scapegoat, but to ensure the same problem never resurfaces again. Our collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic constituted history’s biggest public health mistake. We did not properly protect older high-risk Americans, while many ineffective COVID restrictions have generated long-term collateral public health damage that is now upon us. Both have yielded excess deaths. Public health crashed.
It is now imperative to form a commission to conduct a thorough and open-minded COVID inquiry. To help such a commission, we have produced an 80-page blueprint with essential questions that such a commission should ask. We wrote this document with six colleagues with expertise in infectious disease, epidemiology, immunology, health policy and public health. We call ourselves the Norfolk Group.
While few public health scientists dared to speak out against COVID restrictions promoted by Dr. Anthony Fauci, many of the scientists who did speak out are politically on the Left, including several members of our Norfolk Group. We must skip the politics and simply figure out what went wrong, so that it never happens again.
There is one question about the pandemic that we did not ask in the 80-page document, and which we hope we will never have to ask: “Why did the government not form a COVID Commission to evaluate our pandemic response?”
There Are at Least 500 Coronaviruses. We Must Develop Next-Gen Vaccines Now, Experts Say.
The virus that causes COVID-19 is highly contagious but not as lethal as others in its coronavirus family. The initial SARS virus killed roughly 1 in 10 of those infected; a relative called Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, still kills 1 in 3.
But we may not always be so lucky. With animals, including bats, colonized by hundreds of coronaviruses, another one might come along with the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 and the death rate of MERS. Hoping to prevent that, scientists on Tuesday unveiled a “road map” for developing a new vaccine that would be broadly protective against all coronaviruses.
If given ahead of time, such a vaccine could ideally avoid a future pandemic from this kind of virus, said Michael Osterholm, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, which is helping lead the effort.
The Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute and the Gates Foundation are partners in the initiative with Osterholm’s center, which has helped develop similar road maps for influenza, Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and Zika viruses.
Exclusive: Senator Accuses FAA of Ignoring Potential Vaccine Dangers to Pilots
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is expressing dismay over how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) responded to his questions about the agency’s handling of pilot health issues.
In his Jan. 27 letter to the FAA, Johnson provided specific information about five named pilots with suspected COVID-19 vaccine ill effects; one of the pilots died 17 days after being vaccinated. Numerous other accounts of pilots with suspected vaccine injuries are included in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, as The Epoch Times reported previously.
Johnson wanted to know what steps the FAA has taken or planned to take to investigate whether the five named pilots and others had suffered adverse effects after COVID-19 shots.
Susan Northrup, the FAA’s federal air surgeon, wrote that her agency isn’t in charge of that. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the responsible agency for tracking and follow up of suspected vaccine adverse events,” she wrote.
‘There May Still Be Surprises’: Jeremy Farrar Warns of Pandemic Perils Ahead
Masks are a rarity now on streets and trains. We don’t leave empty seats in theatres or limit how many people browse in our shops. It seems like it’s all over — but Prof Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome, once a key member of the government’s scientific advisory body Sage and an enormously influential figure in global health, says the COVID pandemic could still have unpleasant surprises in store.
Farrar is not a doom-monger. But from where he is sitting, with long experience of epidemics from flu to SARS to Ebola, we are still in a risky place. We need to be ready for what this — or quite possibly another — bug could do to us.
We need new vaccines that actually stop infection, he says. “We are not in a good enough position to be sure this is not coming back until we can get transmission-blocking vaccines. And I don’t know if they’re possible, but I think the ambition should be there by the end of this decade or as soon as possible.”
And, he warns, “this COVID pandemic doesn’t stop any other virus emerging.” What comes next may not be a twist in the coronavirus tail. “The current pandemic of avian H5N1 is a really concerning issue,” says Farrar.
U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses Tyson Foods’ Petition in COVID Death Cases
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Tyson Foods’ arguments about why federal judges should oversee lawsuits tied to the COVID-19 deaths of workers at its plants, including its nearly 2,800-worker pork processing plant in Waterloo.
The court on Tuesday denied Tyson’s petition to review the decision of lower court judges, who ruled in multiple cases that Tyson employees can sue the company in state-level courts.
The meatpacking giant argued that those cases should go before federal courts instead of local judges and juries because President Donald Trump’s administration ordered food processing plants to stay open in the first months of the pandemic.
U.K. Grants Full Marketing Authorization to COVID Vaccine Janssen
The U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has granted the one-dose Janssen COVID-19 vaccine full marketing authorization (MA).
On Wednesday, February 22, the U.K.’s MHRA converted the COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen to a full GB Marketing Authorization (MA).
The update made to the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) and Patient Information Leaflet (PIL) was to reflect the COVID-19 Janssen vaccine being converted to a full marketing authorization as of February 20, 2023, the U.K. government announced. The original Conditional Marketing Authorization (CMA) granted by the MHRA was approved via the European Commission (EC) Decision Reliance Route.
COVID’s ‘Legacy of Weirdness’: Layoffs Spread, but Some Employers Can’t Hire Fast Enough
Job cuts are rising at some of the biggest U.S. companies, but others are still scrambling to hire workers, the result of wild swings in consumer priorities since the COVID pandemic began three years ago.
Tech giants Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, along with companies ranging from Disney to Zoom, have announced job cuts over the past few weeks. In total, U.S.-based employers cut nearly 103,000 jobs in January, the most since September 2020, according to a report released earlier this month from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Meanwhile, employers added 517,000 jobs last month, nearly three times the number analysts expected. This points to a labor market that’s still tight, particularly in service sectors that were hit hard earlier in the pandemic, such as restaurants and hotels.
All of it is part of the COVID pandemic’s “legacy of weirdness,” said David Kelly, global chief strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
California Says It Can No Longer Afford Aid for COVID Testing, Vaccinations for Migrants
All day and sometimes into the night, buses and vans pull up to three state-funded medical screening centers near California’s southern border with Mexico. Federal immigration officers unload migrants predominantly from Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Peru, most of whom await asylum hearings in the United States.
Once inside, coordinators say, migrants are given face masks to guard against the spread of infectious diseases, along with water and food. Medical providers test them for the coronavirus, offer them vaccines, and isolate those who test positive for the virus. Asylum-seekers are treated for injuries they may have suffered during their journey and checked for chronic health issues, such as diabetes or high blood pressure.
But now, as the liberal-leaning state confronts a projected $22.5 billion deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state can no longer afford to contribute to the centers, which also receive federal and local grants. The Democratic governor in January proposed phasing out state aid for some medical services in the next few months, and eventually scaling back the migrant assistance program unless President Joe Biden and Congress step in with help.
