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White House Attempts to Use Biden’s COVID Diagnosis as ‘Teachable Moment’
For more than a year, Joe Biden’s ability to avoid the coronavirus seemed to defy the odds. When he finally did test positive, the White House was ready. It set out to turn the diagnosis into a “teachable moment” and dispel any notion of a crisis.
“The president does what every other person in America does every day, which is he takes reasonable precautions against COVID but does his job,” the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, told MSNBC late in the afternoon on Thursday.
The White House has issued repeated assurances that the president was hard at work while isolating in the residential areas of the White House with “very mild symptoms” including a runny nose, dry cough and fatigue.
It was all part of an administration effort to shift the narrative from a health scare to a display of Biden as the personification of the idea that most Americans can get COVID and recover without too much suffering and disruption if they’ve gotten their shots and taken other important steps to protect themselves.
Novavax CEO Eyes Next Batch of COVID Vaccines After CDC Approval
Novavax (NVAX) finally passed all four necessary steps for its COVID-19 vaccine to be available for adults in the U.S. next week, with the final green light coming from the CDC.
The 3.2 million doses purchased by the U.S. government as part of contracts with the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed and U.S. Department of Defense have been released to the government’s distribution sites. They are slated to arrive Friday, according to Novavax senior vice president Silvia Taylor.
Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine is the biotechnology company’s first commercial product, and it has given the company leverage to pursue a flu vaccine and combination flu/COVID vaccine. Experts believe that annual boosters to protect against COVID could be necessary for the foreseeable future.
Novavax now has its sights set on making its vaccine eligible for younger age groups and is working with the FDA toward booster authorization after submitting data from its Phase 3 trial.
New York Family Gave Hochul $300K, State Paid Their Company $637M for COVID Tests
A New York City family has given Governor Kathy Hochul‘s campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, while the state has paid the family’s company more than half a billion dollars.
Entrepreneur Charlie Tebele’s family donated close to $300,000 to Hochul’s campaign, according to an investigative report by the Times Union published Tuesday.
Meanwhile, New York paid hundreds of millions for COVID tests to Tebele’s company, Digital Gadgets. Since December, the New York Health Department has paid Digital Gadgets $637 million in taxpayer funds for COVID test kits, records show.
The health department reportedly did not conduct any competitive bidding before ordering the COVID tests from the company and paying it the enormous sum.
Hochul signed a state of emergency executive order back in November for COVID-related purchases, suspending competitive bidding as well as the contract review and approval process for some spending.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Partly Funded an Omicron Variant Study With a Surprising Conclusion About Boosters
The latest Omicron subvariant may be a master at evading the immune response our bodies produce from the vaccine or previous COVID-19 infection, but a new study suggests existing booster shots will still help.
The researchers ultimately determined that BA.5 will be the most immune-evasive COVID-19 variant to date, but that doesn’t mean our previous boosters can no longer restore protection.
The research effort was an international collaboration between infectious disease research physicians and scientists from UW Medicine, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, and institutes in California, Argentina, Italy, Pakistan and Switzerland.
It received funding from a plethora of sources, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Oral Vaccine Shows Promise; Hypertension Ups COVID Hospitalization Risk
An experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the form of an oral tablet has shown promising immune responses in a small preliminary trial designed mainly to evaluate its safety, according to drug manufacturer Vaxart Inc (VXRT.O).
The South San Francisco, California-based company had earlier said the tablet was well tolerated, with no one dropping out of the study because of adverse effects. On Tuesday, they reported on immune responses in the 35 healthy volunteers who received the tablet.
While the currently approved vaccines induce antibodies in the blood, the tablet induced antibodies in the mucosa — the tissues lining the nose and airways that are the first line of defense against the virus, according to a report posted on the medical website medRxiv ahead of peer review.
High blood pressure more than doubles the risk of hospitalization during COVID-19 infections with the coronavirus Omicron variant, even in people who are fully vaccinated and boosted, a U.S. study showed.
As BA.5 Dominates U.S., Is Omicron Subvariant BA.2.75 on the Horizon?
U.S. News & World Report reported:
So, what comes next? It’s a guessing game that is baffling experts — many of whom have been humbled by a virus that has rendered predictions a losing battle.
The FDA is asking vaccine manufacturers to update their shots to match circulating variants in the hopes of providing more efficient boosters in the fall. However, concern is growing that the rapid pace at which variants are turning over means vaccine makers are already falling behind.
Just the latest example of this is BA.2.75, which was first reported in India. More than 20 cases have been documented across nine states in the U.S. However, the subvariant is not yet at a high enough threshold to make it onto the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s variant tracker as of last week.
While WHO is the official body that names coronavirus variants, several news reports have deemed Omicron subvariant BA.2.75 “Centaurus” after one Twitter user posted the name on July 1.
First U.S. Polio Case Detected in Close to a Decade — Vaccine Clinics to Be Set up Just North of New York City
The first known case of polio in the U.S. since 2013 has turned up in the New York City metropolitan area, and healthcare workers are being advised to be “vigilant” for more potential cases.
New York health officials said the affected individual is a Rockland County resident with revertant polio Sabin type 2 virus confirmed in laboratory sequencing and by the CDC.
“This is indicative of a transmission chain from an individual who received the oral polio vaccine (OPV),” according to a statement from the New York State Department of Health. “This suggests that the virus may have originated in a location outside of the U.S. where OPV is administered since revertant strains cannot emerge from inactivated vaccines.”
OPV is no longer authorized in the U.S., and since 2000 only the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) is administered.
White House Announces $140 Million for Monkeypox Research Priorities
The White House announced Thursday a $140 million, 22-target research agenda for monkeypox to better understand and handle rising case counts across the country.
The agenda aims to improve data on transmission, testing, vaccines, equitable treatments and environmental factors.
The questions to be considered include the best use of vaccines and other therapeutics — as well as details about the length and severity of the disease.
The government also hopes to gather better data about how the virus may be changing, why there is so much spread in non-endemic countries and how to best communicate with the public about the outbreak.
EU Drug Regulator Recommends Clearing Vaccine for Monkeypox
The European Medicines Agency said Friday that the smallpox vaccine made by Bavarian Nordic should also be authorized against monkeypox, as the outbreak of the once-rare disease continues to sicken people across the continent.
The European Union drug regulator said its recommendation was based on animal studies that suggest the vaccine protects non-human primates from monkeypox. It is up to the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, to formally approve the vaccine based on the EMA’s recommendation.
The vaccine, known as Imvanex in Europe but sold as Jynneos in the United States, was already cleared for use against monkeypox by American regulators.
Of the more than 15,000 monkeypox cases reported worldwide, nearly 70% are in Europe, with more than 30 countries across the continent affected.
