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Woman Died of Myocarditis That Was Likely Linked to COVID Vaccine Booster She Received 4 Days Earlier: Coroner
A 43-year-old woman who received a COVID-19 vaccine booster died about four days later, a coroner’s court heard on Friday (Apr. 14). The cause of Madam Ontal Charlene Vargas’ death was determined to be myocarditis or inflammation of the heart.
State Coroner Adam Nakhoda said on Friday it was likely that the myocarditis was related to the COVID-19 booster vaccine that Mdm Vargas had received, and ruled that her death was a medical misadventure.
Mdm Vargas, a Filipina maid, received her Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty booster shot on Dec 9, 2021. During the 42 minutes of observation at the clinic, she did not exhibit any adverse effects. However, she grew unwell the next morning, feeling tired and breathless. She called her husband and told him she found it difficult to breathe.
Her condition worsened on Dec 12, 2021, and she suddenly became unresponsive. Despite receiving appropriate medical care, her condition deteriorated rapidly and she died on Dec 13, 2021.
She developed symptoms soon after receiving the vaccine, the court heard. It is reported in the medical literature that myocarditis is a known adverse side effect of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, said the coroner.
The Biden Administration Will Hang On to Some COVID Pandemic Emergency Powers
Even though the Biden administration is ending its highest-profile COVID-19 emergency declaration next month, it’s still going to hold on to some pandemic-era powers. The Department of Health and Human Services gave governors a heads-up on Friday that it is planning to keep pharmacists’ ability to administer COVID-19 and flu vaccines past the end of the public health emergency.
The legal definition of the COVID-19 emergency is a complex web of different laws that control different areas of the pandemic response. The White House and HHS are in the process of winding those powers down, but they all operate separately from one another.
While the COVID-19 public health emergency will end on May 11, HHS is choosing to extend some powers related to a separate law called the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, which offers extra protections to companies and providers making, distributing, and administering medicines and vaccines in times of emergency.
The rules that let pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy interns give COVID-19 vaccines and tests and seasonal flu vaccines will stay in place through December 2024, the letter says. The White House’s “Test to Treat” program that allows pharmacists to test people for COVID-19 and prescribe the antiviral Paxlovid will also continue.
World Has 28% Risk of New COVID-Like Pandemic Within 10 Years
There’s a 27.5% chance a pandemic as deadly as COVID-19 could take place in the next decade as viruses emerge more frequently, with rapid vaccine rollout the key to reducing fatalities, according to a predictive health analytics firm.
Climate change, growth in international travel, increasing populations and the threat posed by zoonotic diseases contribute to the risk, according to London-based Airfinity Ltd. But if effective vaccines are rolled out 100 days after the discovery of a new pathogen, the likelihood of a deadly pandemic drops to 8.1%, according to the firm’s modeling.
In a worst-case scenario, a bird flu-type virus that mutates to allow human-to-human transmission could kill as many as 15,000 people in the U.K. in a single day, Airfinity said.
The rapid spread of the H5N1 bird flu strain is already stoking concerns. While so far just a small number of people have been infected and there are no signs of it having made the jump to human-to-human transmission, skyrocketing rates in birds and increasing incursions in mammals have led to concern among scientists and governments that the virus may be mutating in ways that could make it easier to spread.
Study Shows 4.2% of Pfizer COVID Vaccine Batches Made Up Most Adverse Events, Raising Serious Concerns
In Denmark, 4.2% of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine batches accounted for 71% of suspected adverse events (SAEs), according to Danish researchers in a recent study published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation on March 30.
The study has raised serious concerns about the inconsistencies in the quality of different vaccine batches and the implications for vaccine recipients. Danish researchers studied the rates of SAEs between different batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, BNT162b2, which was administered in Denmark from December 27, 2020–January 11, 2022.
There were approximately 7.8 million doses administered to 3.7 million people from 52 different Pfizer vaccine batches during that time period. “Unexpectedly, rates of SAEs per 1000 doses varied considerably between vaccine batches,” the researchers wrote in the publication.
“These are critically important results,” said Dr. Peter McCullough on Substack. McCullough is a renowned internist, cardiologist and epidemiologist, as well as a contributor to The Epoch Times.
Women Vaccinated for COVID Have Higher Risk for Heavier Menstrual Flow
News Medical Life Sciences reported:
A new international study finds that women vaccinated for COVID-19 have a slightly higher risk for a heavier period after vaccination.
The study, led by Oregon Health & Science University reproductive health services researcher Blair Darney, Ph.D., M.P.H., and physician-scientist Alison Edelman, M.D., M.P.H., was published today in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. These findings build on prior work from the same research team that first identified an association between COVID-19 vaccines and menstrual cycle changes.
While there is a growing body of evidence demonstrating that COVID-19 vaccination is associated with a small increase in cycle length, other disturbances such as bleeding quantity are less well known. This study aimed to estimate the effect of COVID-19 vaccination on menstrual bleeding quantity among individuals with normal menstrual cycles.
Cases of Vision-Threatening Clots Rare After COVID Shot, Study Finds — Incidence of Retinal Vascular Occlusion Similar Compared With Influenza, Tdap Vaccines
Retinal vascular occlusion (RVO) did not occur more frequently in the 3 weeks following administration of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine compared with influenza and tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) vaccines, a retrospective study showed.
In a propensity score-matched analysis using 3 million electronic health records (EHRs), a new diagnosis of RVO, a serious, potentially vision-threatening condition, occurred in 0.003% of patients within 21 days of COVID vaccination, reported Rishi P. Singh, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Cole Eye Institute in Ohio, and colleagues.
Of note, the relative risk for a new RVO diagnosis after the first dose of COVID vaccination was greater when compared with the second dose of COVID vaccine (RR 2.25, 95% CI 1.33-3.81).
They said that evaluating the incidence of RVO after COVID vaccination is difficult, and having done so through a comparison with the incidence after influenza and Tdap vaccination is “an ingenious approach.” However, they pointed out that this approach “does not provide a comparison with a group of people who did not receive any recent vaccination or especially those who did not receive COVID-19 vaccination.”
“Without a comparable group of people without mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, it is difficult to rule out an association,” Jampol and Maguire wrote, adding that “we should acknowledge that our understanding of retinal complications after any vaccination is incomplete.”
No Evidence yet Showing Which Animal COVID May Have Come From, Says Former Head of China CDC
There is no evidence yet showing which animal the COVID-causing virus may have come from, the former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday.
George Gao, who was speaking at a London summit on preparing for pandemics, was the head of the agency when COVID first emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019.
The origins of the COVID-19 pandemic remain unknown, with criticism that China has thwarted efforts to find out more. The Chinese government has said it has always supported all efforts to investigate the source.
The World Health Organization has said that all hypotheses for the origins of COVID-19 remain on the table, including that the virus is linked to a high-security laboratory for the study of dangerous pathogens in Wuhan. China denies any such link.
About 100k Nurses Left Workforce Amid COVID Burnout, Stress: Survey
About 100,000 nurses quit due to stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic and another 800,000 said they intend to leave by 2027, according to a new survey from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.
There are about 6.2 million registered nurses total in the U.S. according to the survey. One in five of those surveyed said they plan to leave the industry or retire in the next five years, it found.
A majority of nurses, 62%, said their workload increased during the pandemic and about 50% said they felt emotionally drained at work. Just under half said they felt fatigued or burnt out, 49 and 45%, respectively.
Long COVID Is Sticking Around. What’s Causing It?
U.S. News & World Report reported:
At least 65 million people across the world are suffering from long COVID. At this stage in the pandemic, health officials have mostly shifted their attention away from preventing coronavirus infections, instead focusing on stopping hospitalizations and deaths. The strategy means that people will continue to get infected and reinfected with the coronavirus as long as it is circulating.
Knowing the causes of long COVID would likely make both diagnosing and treating long COVID significantly easier, experts say. But the research into what causes long COVID also has another, possibly loftier goal: to help prevent the condition altogether.
There are some leading theories. One is that at least some of the virus lingers in the body post-infection. These so-called “viral reservoirs” could hide in tissue and later cause problems.
Studies have shown that the virus can linger in various parts of the human body, but research is underway to see if it can be directly tied to the symptoms of long COVID.
Another theory is that COVID-19 could reactivate other viruses that were dormant in people’s bodies, bringing new symptoms with it. Additionally, the coronavirus triggers inflammation in the body that for whatever reason persists in some people, causing an array of health problems.
