Moderna Founders Make Forbes List of Wealthiest U.S. People + More
Moderna Founders Make Forbes List of Wealthiest People in the U.S.
The Washington Examiner reported:
Two founders of Moderna and one top investor made it on Forbes’s list of the wealthiest people in the United States, following the company’s development of one of the initial COVID-19 vaccines distributed worldwide.
Moderna’s co-founder and chairman Noubar Afeyan, co-founder and board member Robert Langer, and Moderna investor Timothy Springer were featured on the prestigious Forbes 400 list .
Springer was placed in the 176th slot, with a net worth of $5.9 billion. Langer ranked 222nd, with a net worth of $4.9 billion, while Ageyan was 10 spaces above him in the 212th slot with a net worth of $5 billion.
Pfizer Submits Request to Authorize COVID Vaccine for Kids to FDA
Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE have submitted an application to U.S. regulators to administer their COVID-19 vaccine to children ages 5 to 11, bringing shots for school-age kids another step closer.
The companies announced the news Thursday in a tweet by Pfizer. The Food and Drug Administration had previously scheduled an advisory committee meeting to review clinical-trial data on the pediatric vaccine for Oct. 26.
Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s top adviser on COVID-19, has suggested that an emergency clearance could come by Halloween. On Thursday, White House COVID response coordinator Jeff Zients said the shots for children could begin before Thanksgiving.
How the Risk of COVID for Kids Compares to Other Dangers
There were reports this summer of more children under 18 falling ill with COVID-19, and some pediatric hospital wards filling up, leading many to believe that the pandemic is now a serious threat to children, too.
But experts maintain that the risks most children face from COVID-19 are low, even with the Delta variant. “The risk in children has not changed with the new variant as far as we can tell,” Betsy Herold, a pediatric infectious disease physician at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told me.
Herold estimates that less than 2 percent of children known to be infected by the coronavirus are hospitalized, and less than 0.03 percent of those infected die.
COVID Immunity Through Infection or Vaccination: Are They Equal?
Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a psychiatry professor at the University of California, Irvine, felt he didn’t need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 because he’d fallen ill with the disease in July 2020.
So, in August, he sued to stop the university system’s vaccination mandate, saying “natural” immunity had given him and millions of other people better protection than any vaccine could.
A judge last week dismissed Kheriaty’s request for an injunction against the university over its mandate, which took effect Sept. 3.
That having been said, evidence is growing that contracting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is generally as effective as vaccination at stimulating your immune system to prevent the disease. Yet federal officials have been reluctant to recognize any equivalency, citing the wide variation in COVID patients’ immune responses to infection.
Studies Confirm Waning Immunity From Pfizer’s COVID Vaccine
Two real-world studies published Wednesday confirm that the immune protection offered by two doses of Pfizer‘s COVID-19 vaccine drops off after two months or so, although protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death remains strong.
The studies, from Israel and from Qatar and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, support arguments that even fully vaccinated people need to maintain precautions against infection.
One study from Israel covered 4,800 healthcare workers and showed antibody levels wane rapidly after two doses of vaccine “especially among men, among persons 65 years of age or older, and among persons with immunosuppression.”
76% of September COVID Deaths in Vermont Are Vax Breakthroughs
Vermont Daily Chronicle reported:
Just eight of the 33 Vermonters who died of COVID-19 in September were unvaccinated, the Vermont Department of Heath said Wednesday.
Health Department spokesperson Ben Truman said most of the vaccine ‘breakthrough’ COVID-19 fatalities were elderly. Because they were among the first vaccinated, Vermont’s elderly “have had more time to potentially become a vaccine breakthrough case,” he said.
Expressed in percentages, 76% of Vermont COVID-19 fatalities were breakthrough cases. As of Tuesday, 88 percent of all eligible Vermonters (age 12 and over) had been vaccinated with at least one shot.
Israeli Data Favor Higher Estimates of Post-Vax Myocarditis — Results Echo the Controversial VAERS Study From September
The incidence of myocarditis after receipt of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was several times higher in two reports from Israel compared with some estimates, but remained low through the late spring of this year.
For patients in Israel’s largest healthcare system, Clalit Health Services, the estimate of myocarditis was 2.13 cases per 100,000 vaccinated persons, reaching as high as 10.69 cases per 100,000 in men and boys ages 16 to 29. A separate study using Israel’s government database, capturing active and passive periods of surveillance for myocarditis, supported the higher risk in young men. In this report, males of all ages had myocarditis occur at 0.64 cases per 100,000 persons after the first dose and 3.83 cases per 100,000 after the second dose — with the incidence increasing to 1.34 and 15.07 per 100,000 after the first and second doses, respectively, for teenage boys ages 16 to 19.
Both papers were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Finland Joins Sweden and Denmark in Limiting Moderna COVID Vaccine
Finland on Thursday paused the use of Moderna‘s (MRNA.O) COVID-19 vaccine for younger males due to reports of a rare cardiovascular side effect, joining Sweden and Denmark in limiting its use.
Mika Salminen, director of the Finnish health institute, said Finland would instead give Pfizer’s vaccine to men born in 1991 and later. Finland offers shots to people aged 12 and over.
“A Nordic study involving Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark found that men under the age of 30 who received Moderna Spikevax had a slightly higher risk than others of developing myocarditis,” he said.
Behind India’s Ivermectin Blackout: New COVID Cases Dropped 97% in 5 Weeks
In June, five weeks after health officials in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, launched an aggressive program to fight COVID and the Delta variant, new cases dropped by a staggering 97.1%.
The health officials went door-to-door in the state of 230 million residents, providing a test and treat program with medicine kits. The World Health Organization (WHO) praised the overwhelming success of the program, but would not identify the medicines used in the kits provided to residents.
Each home kit contained the following: Paracetamol tablets [tylenol], Vitamin C, Multivitamin, Zinc, Vitamin D3, Ivermectin 12 mg [quantity #10 tablets], Doxycycline 100 mg [quantity #10 tablets]. Other non-medication components included face masks, sanitizer, gloves and alcohol wipes, a digital thermometer, and a pulse oximeter.
France Extends List of Who Qualifies for COVID Booster Jab
France is to offer a COVID-19 booster vaccination to a wider group of people. It comes after the European Medicines Agency approved boosters for all adults — but this is not expected to happen in France yet.
Who is currently being offered a booster jab in France? People who are most at risk of suffering a severe form of COVID are already being offered a third jab, including the elderly, and those with underlying conditions or who are immunosuppressed.
Now, their carers will also be offered a third, booster vaccination, health authority la Haute autorité de Santé (HAS) confirmed yesterday (October 6).
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