Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.

Here’s Why Herd Immunity From COVID Is ‘Mythical’ With the Delta Variant

CNBC reported:

Achieving herd immunity with COVID vaccines when the highly infectious Delta variant is spreading is “not a possibility,” a leading epidemiologist said.

Experts agree on several reasons why such a goal — where overall immunity in a population is reached and the spread of the virus is stopped — is not likely.

Sir Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told British lawmakers Tuesday that as Covid vaccines did not stop the spread of the virus entirely — with vaccinated people still able to be infected and transmit the virus — the idea of achieving herd immunity was “mythical.”

Heart Inflammation More Common After COVID Vaccines Than CDC Claims, New Research Shows

The Defender reported:

U.S. public health officials claim cases of myocarditis and pericarditis following COVID vaccination are rare — but new research published online in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) shows they may happen more often than reported.

Post-vaccine myocarditis and pericarditis also appear to represent two “distinct syndromes,” Dr. George Diaz, with the Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, told Medscape Cardiology.

Diaz and colleagues reviewed 2,000,287 electronic medical records (EMR) of people who received at least one COVID vaccination.

The records, obtained from 40 hospitals in Washington, Oregon, Montana and California, showed 20 people had vaccine-related myocarditis (1.0 per 100,000) and 37 had pericarditis (1.8 per 100,000).

We’ve Never Seen Vaccine Injuries on This Scale — Why Are Regulatory Agencies Hiding COVID Vaccine Safety Data?

The Defender reported:

A few months before the first COVID-19 vaccines received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in late 2020, a global vaccine safety expert cautioned the rushed circumstances made it essential to “get [safety monitoring] right” by “intensively” and “robustly” scrutinizing adverse events following the experimental rollout.

As this expert stated, “Deploying any new vaccine based on data from expedited clinical trials into a population without a functioning safety monitoring system in place is reckless and irresponsible given the tools that are available.”

Moreover, she added, any investments needed to beef up safety monitoring would be “inexpensive in comparison” to the massive funding allocated to COVID-19 vaccine development and scale-up.

Rising Kids’ Hospital Admissions Stir Alarm Ahead of School Year

Fox News reported:

Growing numbers of pediatric hospital admissions are stirring alarm as respiratory illnesses coincide and younger children remain ineligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines amid the start of the school year.

Hospital admissions among kids have seen an approximate four-fold increase over the last month, federal data suggests.

Third COVID Vaccine Booster Shot For Immunocompromised People Expected to Be Approved by FDA

CBS Boston reported:

The FDA is expected to authorize a booster shot Thursday for immunocompromised people for whom two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine might not be enough protection, according to CBS News.

“It is imminent that we will be giving it to immune compromised,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, told CBS This Morning.

The third dose would be for people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.

This Week’ With Mary + Polly: ‘Healthy Babies Don’t Just Die’ + More

The Defender reported:

This week, Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) president, and Polly Tommey, co-producer of “Vaxxed,” cover the latest COVID headlines, including a physician’s push for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to speed up full approval of COVID vaccines, and the FDA’s plan to expedite its timetable to approve Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.

Also on tap this week is the Pentagon’s decision to require all military troops to get vaccinated for COVID by Sept. 15 or sooner, and United Airlines’ move to mandate COVID shots for all its American employees by October.

Wuhan Lab Worker Bat Infection a Probable COVID Origin Theory — WHO Official

Newsweek reported:

COVID potentially started when a Wuhan laboratory researcher got infected by a bat, according to World Health Organization (WHO) official Peter Embarek.

Embarek, who led the WHO’s COVID origins investigation mission to China earlier this year, has now told Danish news broadcaster TV 2 that the bat infection scenario is a probable theory.

Embarek said: “An employee who was infected in the field by taking samples falls under one of the probable hypotheses.”

As U.S. Battles Delta Variant, Tens of Thousands of Vaccine Doses Are Set To Expire

ABC News reported:

As the Delta variant continues to drive the nation’s latest coronavirus surge, tens of thousands of vaccines are set to expire in the coming weeks — with several states already reporting thousands of “wasted” doses.

While the full extent of COVID-19 vaccine waste in the U.S. remains unknown due to data reporting disparities between the states, research by ABC News reveals that several states have thousands of vaccines expiring as soon as next week, and tens of thousands more expiring by the end of August.

‘Act Now’ on Global Vaccines To Stop More Dangerous Variants, Experts Warn Biden

The Washington Post via The Seattle Times reported:

More than 175 public health experts, scientists and activists on Tuesday demanded that President Joe Biden take urgent steps to confront the global spread of the coronavirus, warning that without immediate action to inoculate the rest of the world, newer variants are likely to emerge — including ones that may evade vaccines’ protection.

“We urge you to act now,” the experts wrote in a joint letter to senior White House officials Tuesday and shared with The Washington Post. “Announcing within the next 30 days an ambitious global vaccine manufacturing program is the only way to control this pandemic, protect the precious gains made to date, and build vaccine infrastructure for the future.”

Teen Boys Are 14 Times More Likely to Experience Rare Heart Inflammation After Receiving the COVID-19 Vaccine Than Girls

The Daily Mail reported:

Teenage boys are much more likely to experience a rare form of heart inflammation  after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine compared to girls, a new study finds.

Doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital studied a small group of patients under age 19 who had myocarditis after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Among 15 patients in the study, 14 were boys.