Booster Confusion Takes Hold as Biden Announces Expanded Eligibility + More
Booster Confusion Takes Hold as Biden Announces Expanded Eligibility
President Joe Biden said his administration will begin to deliver booster shots this week after the nation’s two leading health agencies endorsed a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine for individuals older than 65 and people at high risk.
“We have the tools to beat COVID if we come together as a country and use the tools we have,” Biden said in a speech Friday. “This week we took a step in protecting the vaccinated with booster shots. I’ve made clear all along…the decision of which booster shot to give and who will get them is left to the scientists and the doctors.”
A Daily Pill to Treat COVID Could Be Just Months Away, Scientists Say
The Kellys, who live in Seattle, had agreed just after their diagnoses to join a clinical trial at the nearby Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that’s part of an international effort to test an antiviral treatment that could halt COVID early in its course.
By the next day, the couple were taking four pills, twice a day. Although they weren’t told whether they had received an active medication or a placebo, within a week, they said, their symptoms were better. Within two weeks, they had recovered.
The Kellys have a role in developing what could be the world’s next chance to thwart COVID: a short-term regimen of daily pills that can fight the virus early after diagnosis and conceivably prevent symptoms from developing after exposure.
Which Treatments Are Effective for Kids Hospitalized With COVID-19?
Dr. Meena Iyer, the chief medical officer at Dell Children’s Medical Center and vice-chair of clinical affairs at UT Austin Dell Medical School, says that most kids hospitalized with COVID-19 at Dell Children’s are 13 and older. She says about 90% of those kids are unvaccinated, even though they are old enough to receive the vaccine. Iyer says most in that group either are obese, have hypertension or have other underlying health issues.
She said most kids coming in are just in need of a small amount of oxygen, but if kids are hospitalized with more severe symptoms, the hospital has found multiple treatments to be effective. That includes remdesivir, blood thinners, steroids and immunomodulators.
If a child is not hospitalized but has COVID-19 symptoms and underlying health issues, they may qualify to receive monoclonal antibody treatments. These treatments have been shown to help keep people out of the hospital.
Colorado Clinic Fined $40K for Marketing Ivermectin as Cure for COVID
A medical clinic in Colorado has been fined $40,000 for continuing to market ivermectin and other IV therapies to cure COVID-19 even after the Colorado Department of Law issued a cease-and-desist order.
On Thursday, Colorado Attorney General Phil Wesier announced that Siegfried Emme, the owner of Loveland Medical Clinic, would be fined for failing “to stop illegally marketing and overstating the effectiveness of alleged cures for COVID-19.”
The Leader of CDC Just Made a Rare Call to Allow COVID Booster Shots for More People
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overruled an advisory panel Friday by approving the distribution of Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 booster shots to a wide array of workers across the U.S.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on a series of recommendations from the panel, including distributing the shots to older Americans and adults with underlying medical conditions at least six months after their first series of shots.
But she broke from the panel by also clearing boosters for those in high-risk occupational and institutional settings in an unusual decision that’s likely to stoke protests from anti-vaccine advocates.
DNA Sensor Can Spot When COVID Is Contagious
U.S. News & World Report reported:
A new DNA sensor can detect viruses and tell if they are infectious or not in minutes, a new study finds.
The sensor was developed by using DNA technology, and does not require the need to pretreat test samples. Researchers demonstrated this technique with the human adenovirus (which causes colds and flu) and the virus that causes COVID-19.
“The infectivity status is very important information that can tell us if patients are contagious or if an environmental disinfection method works,” said researcher Ana Peinetti, who did the work while a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
WHO Recommends Antibody Treatment for Some COVID-19 Patients
The World Health Organization has recommended that an antibody treatment be used for some COVID-19 patients in an update to its coronavirus treatment guidelines.
The recommendation, issued on Friday and based off of experimental trials, encourages the two antibodies produced by Regeneron — casirivimab and imdevimab — be used on COVID-19 patients “who are non-severe and at higher risk for hospitalization.”
In the United States, the antibody treatment is recommended for use on patients with mild-to-moderate coronavirus cases to prevent a need for hospitalization.
I Got Moderna. Can I Boost With Pfizer? — ‘There’s All Sorts of Anarchy Going On’
With FDA authorizing boosters for Pfizer‘s COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) for certain groups, recipients of the Moderna vaccine are wondering if they can crossover to Pfizer for a third dose.
Experts are quick to point out that there are no data to guide that decision—and that no federal health agency explicitly recommends doing so. Nonetheless, people already have been taking matters into their own hands, said John Moore, PhD, a virologist and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.
“It’s anarchy,” Moore told MedPage Today. “People are getting a third dose on the grounds that they can, not that they need to. They’re just wandering into Walgreens and wandering out with an armful of vaccine.”
Local Hospitals Providing Monoclonal Antibody Treatments to Help Fight COVID-19
As hospitals continue to come near or reach capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic, local medical professionals say there’s a drug that can help with that problem.
Local hospitals such as Mountain View, Idaho Falls Community and Madison Memorial offer outpatient monoclonal antibody treatments. The treatment was designed to keep people from “progressing to severe COVID and getting admitted to the hospital,” according to Jacob Cooley, Assistant Director of Pharmacy Outpatient Services who’s over Mountain View infusions.
“This is the same kind of an antibody your body would make to the virus, but this one was made in a lab,” Mountain View Hospital’s Director of Pharmacy Whitney Cooley explained. “In a lab, they were able to identify very good targets for antibodies to the coronavirus. This has two different antibody types in it … to try and help us make sure we’re covering the variants that have come out.”
Records From DC COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic Stolen in Car Break-In
The paper vaccination records of more than 100 people were stolen after a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.
The documents are not vaccine cards but internal records confirming the person received the first dose of the vaccine.
Efforts are underway to notify people who attended the COVID-19 vaccination clinic at the Fort Stanton Recreation Center on Erie Street SE on Sept. 2, 4 or 7 before their next dose is due.
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