Infectious diseases

Subterms

    Latest story

    163 Shares169 Views

    Malaria drug Trump touted as Covid cure increased chance of death – study

    by

    People who took an anti-malaria treatment that Donald Trump touted as a cure for Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic and waning days of his presidency were 11% more likely to die from the virus, according to a new scientific study.The study’s authors – who published their findings in the peer-reviewed Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy journal – also estimated that nearly 17,000 people in six different countries, including the US, died after contracting Covid-19 and taking the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine.Doctors who prescribed hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 at the height of activity restrictions meant to slow the spread of the virus did so off-label and without evidence that there was any clinical benefit, as the authors of the new study noted. The study’s conclusions “illustrate the hazard of drug repurposing with low-level evidence for the management of future pandemics”, its authors added.A meta-analysis of randomized trials produced the findings in the study released by Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, a 67-year-old journal edited by DM Townsend of the Medical University of South Carolina.The study’s authors said they used public databases to establish the number of Covid-19 patients who were hospitalized during the early days of the pandemic. They said they then systematically reviewed 44 cohort studies to calculate that there was an 11% increase in mortality associated with cases involving the use of hydroxychloroquine, along with about 16,990 in-hospital deaths in the US, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Turkey.Trump first hawked hydroxychloroquine as a miracle drug that could cure Covid-19 in March 2020 as he railed against activity lockdowns, saying they would ruin the US economy.His remarks about anti-malaria medication led to a surge in prescriptions for the drug. The Food and Drug Administration – which didn’t approve the first Covid-19 vaccine until December 2020 – was forced to warn that hydroxychloroquine could cause irregular heartbeats and other cardiac trouble.And the regulatory agency also clarified that the medication had only been approved to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.The then-president later dismissed an early study which showed hydroxychloroquine was an ineffective Covid-19 treatment as a “Trump enemy statement”.“They were giving it to people that were … almost dead,” Trump said at one point as the White House claimed he himself was taking the medication prophylactically.Trump ultimately tested positive for Covid-19 on 26 September 2020 and was hospitalized within days. He recovered after doctors treated him with a new antibody cocktail that was nearly impossible for the general public to access.Weeks later, Trump lost his bid for a second term in the Oval Office to Joe Biden. He is now facing 91 pending criminal charges for attempting to subvert his electoral defeat, illegally retaining government secrets, and hush-money payments to an adult film actor who has alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with him.Trump nonetheless is leading the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and polls have suggested a rematch with Biden would be competitive.Before the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped keeping track in May, more than 1.1 million people had died from Covid-19 in the US, and nearly 105m cases had been reported, according to officials. More

    More stories

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      US Covid emergency status ends as officials plan ‘new phase of managing’ virus

      by

      Thursday marked the end of Covid-19’s public health emergency status in the US, concluding more than three years of free access to testing, vaccines, virtual accommodations and treatment for the majority of Americans.The end of the emergency designation comes just weeks after the World Health Organization declared an end to the global health emergency. But the nation’s leading health officials also wanted to be sure Americans don’t confuse this marker for the end of Covid-19 concerns.“This does not mean it’s over. This is just a new phase of managing it,” Dr Becky Smith, infectious disease specialist and director of Duke Health News, said. “The ability to make the transition out of the public health emergency phase signals a lot of successes in vaccine development, immunity and effective therapeutics.“All of those successes have paid off and now because we’re seeing less severe disease we can sort of fold it into how we think about other respiratory infections.”The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates more than 1,000 people are still dying of Covid-19 in the United States every week and many suffer from long Covid symptoms months or years after being affected. Meanwhile, at the height of the pandemic, there were sometimes upwards of 20,000 people dying in the country in just one week.According to the CDC, both vaccines and medication, like Pfizer’s Paxlovid, will remain available for free “while supplies last”. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted access to these supplies under the Covid-19 emergency use authorization declaration and insured Americans can continue to get vaccinated at no cost.However, most Americans will be left to foot the bill for testing. Without public health emergency designation, insurance providers aren’t required to waive costs for testing. The federal government will continue to distribute tests online via their website through the end of May.For those who have Medicaid benefits, a program which largely insures low-income families, at-home and in-office testing will remain free until 24 September, when federal funding expires. At this point, those who are uninsured will no longer have access to free testing, though community health organizations and local clinics are still likely to offer these supplies.There are other ways that the emergency designation changed the US healthcare system that could extend beyond Thursday.Telehealth and telemedicine, for which many restrictions were lifted to expand access and stop viral spread, will remain largely intact for now.The Consolidated Appropriations Act passed last December and included provisions that extend access to telehealth through December 2024 for Americans with Medicare. In addition, clinics in rural areas can continue to see patients remotely.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThrough November 2024, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced, providers can still prescribe controlled substances via telehealth after the emergency is lifted.But for Medicaid recipients and children enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, telehealth flexibilities are up to the states.After years of updating maps and statistics, the Biden administration’s Covid-19 response team will disband after Thursday and Americans will lose access to data collected and shared by the CDC. Federal tracking of Covid-19 infections will be largely left to individual states.The Department of Health and Human Services will also no longer require labs to report Covid-19 test results, meaning data regarding test positivity at the county level will no longer be available.The CDC will end weekly updates of case and death counts and officials urge states to sign agreements to enable the sharing of vaccine administration data. More

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘It’s just gotten crazy’: how the origins of Covid became a toxic US political debate

      by

      ‘It’s just gotten crazy’: how the origins of Covid became a toxic US political debateNew report supporting theory the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab has sparked the latest eruption in a long fight over how the virus started, clouding efforts to pursue a neutral, fact-based inquiryWhite House official John Kirby, standing at the podium where Donald Trump once railed against the “China virus” and praised the healing powers of bleach, faced questions on Monday about the origins of Covid-19. He had no choice but humility. “There is not a consensus right now in the US government about exactly how Covid started,” Kirby admitted. “There is just not an intelligence community consensus.”The renewed interest in a genuine scientific mystery followed a report in the Wall Street Journal that the US Department of Energy had determined the coronavirus most likely leaked by accident from a Chinese laboratory.This startling assessment appeared to have a solid foundation: according to the Washington Post, it was based on an analysis by experts from the national laboratory complex, including the “Z-Division”, known for carrying out some of the American government’s most secretive and technically challenging investigations of security threats from adversaries such as China and Russia.But the claim was not officially confirmed by the energy department or Kirby, and it came with a caveat: the department had “low confidence” in its assessment, which was provided to the White House and certain members of Congress, the Journal said.Even so, gleeful Republicans seized on the findings to claim vindication in their pursuit of the lab leak theory, triggering a fresh round of toxic debate in Washington and on social media.Opponents say there is still no hard evidence for a lab leak, as many scientists still believe the virus most probably came from animals, mutated and jumped into people. They note that the loudest champions of the lab leak hypothesis are often also trafficking in rightwing conspiracy theories, for example about the top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci.But the two do not necessarily go hand in hand. Some scientists and other observers argue that the lab leak theory cannot be ruled out and should be kept separate from the racist propaganda that often accompanies it. It demands careful investigation, not peremptory dismissal or acceptance, they contend.It is the latest chapter in a long fight over the origin of a virus that has caused close to 7m deaths worldwide, clouding efforts to pursue a neutral, fact-based inquiry. In its loud opinions, blue v red certainties and lack of nuance, the melee echoes clashes over pandemic lockdowns, masks and vaccines, as well as the investigation into Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia.Bill Galston, a former policy adviser to Bill Clinton, said: “Isn’t this just like everything else in American politics, where a partisan position on one side invites a partisan response by the other? There’s a lot of what might be called reactive thinking going on because of the high degree of polarisation and the high stakes. Charges without foundation invite responses without foundation.”Calling for public hearings into the matter, Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, warned: “If this isn’t lifted out of the crucible of political debate right now, it’ll just get worse and worse.”Studies by experts around the world have indicated that Covid-19 most likely emerged from a live animal market in Wuhan, China. The hypothesis that it originated from an accidental lab leak was initially dismissed by most public health experts and government officials.In February 2020, the Lancet medical journal published a statement that rejected the lab leak theory, signed by 27 scientists and expressing “solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China”. It asserted: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.” (The journal later disclosed that the organiser of the letter had links to the Wuhan lab at the center of the controversy.)That the lab leak theory was being pushed by Trump, who long played down the virus and used xenophobic language such as “China virus”, and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, may have contributed to the instinctive eagerness of some to dismiss the hypothesis – and to ostracise scientists who dared question the mainstream orthodoxy.“From the start, the lab leak theory was never properly framed and parsed,” David Relman, a microbiology and immunology professor at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, wrote in an email. “The hypothesis of a lab-associated origin became synonymous with deliberate efforts to engineer viruses and malevolent intent, and this has not been helpful. The emotions, assumptions about motives, obstructionism by the Chinese government, and poor scrutiny of the evidence have only made things worse.”Jackson Lears, a history professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, echoed this view: “People who consider themselves Democratic party sympathisers and liberals uncritically arrayed themselves against this. It was a kind of a lockstep reaction against Trump, as in so many matters.”The lab leak hypothesis did begin to receive scrutiny after Joe Biden ordered an intelligence investigation in May 2021. The 90-day review was intended to push US intelligence agencies to collect more information and review what they already had.But the review proved inconclusive. A report summary said four members of the US intelligence community believed with low confidence that the virus was first transmitted from an animal to a human, and a fifth believed with moderate confidence that the first human infection was linked to a lab. Two agencies – including the CIA – remain undecided.Without the equivalent of a special counsel delivering a final report, the White House is left in a fog of uncertainty that satisfies no one. Lears commented: “There should have been a more carefully orchestrated investigation, more centralised, more high profile, with more legitimacy. Splitting it up and into many agencies is a way of defanging the whole situation.”Others agree that the multiple investigations give Biden a political headache, especially at a moment of rising tensions with China over trade, Taiwan, Ukraine and a recent spy balloon shot down after transiting US airspace.Laurie Garrett, a columnist at Foreign Policy magazine who spent time in China during the Sars outbreak, witnessing how animal markets operated, said: “The president said, ‘I want the relevant agencies in the government to take a close look at this.’ Well, every agency has its own prism, its own skill set.“In Britain if you asked the Home Office, MI5, the Metropolitan Police, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the British Medical Association to take a look, you would get seven different answers and that’s the situation that the Biden administration has created for itself. By trying to appease all the screaming and cut the rightwing Republicans off at the knees on this, they’ve essentially opened up a Pandora’s box because every single agency is going to have a different way of looking at the problem.”Many scientists, including Fauci, who until December served as Biden’s chief medical adviser, say they still believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to humans, an established phenomenon known as a spillover event. But the reports of dissent in the intelligence community will give enough oxygen to those with doubts, good faith or otherwise.Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and formerly USAid’s lead official for Covid-19, likens it to a Rorschach test. He said: “The priors that you come in with are going to shape a lot of how you interpret the evidence, because ultimately, the evidence may suggest one way or another, but it’s not definitive one way or another.“If you want to craft a narrative that justifies the lab leak theory, you can do so. If you want to craft a narrative that justifies a natural origin, natural spillover, market amplification theory, you can do so. There’s not enough on either side to definitively rule in or out either.”But that does not make them equally plausible, Konyndyk added. “The preponderance of evidence strongly points to a natural spillover, occurring at and certainly amplified at the market.” Konyndyk noted how online debate about the issue has become toxic, with proponents of the lab leak making death threats to scientists. “There’s been some really irresponsible behaviour and they’re not trying to turn the temperature down.“That has prompted in turn very strong views from some of the more vocal folks who believe in the natural origin theory because they’re getting attacked on Twitter with a larger and larger army of trolls. It’s just gotten crazy.”Earlier this month, Republicans in the House of Representatives issued letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony, exploring the hypothesis of a lab leak. Congressman Brad Wenstrup, chair of the House oversight panel’s virus subcommittee, has accused US intelligence of withholding key facts about its investigation.Garrett, author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, added: “My concern about where we are right now with this whole Wuhan origins question is that several very serious, real issues are getting conflated and they’re being manipulated for political purposes by people who don’t understand the issues at all and don’t care.“We’re not hearing in these congressional hearings this is what we should do to strengthen the chemical, biological warfare agreements and make lab research safe in the world. Nobody’s saying that. They couldn’t care less. That’s not their agenda. Their agenda is to tear down a man who was seen on camera in a live press conference putting his hand over his face and shaking his head as President Trump said, ‘Maybe bleach can cure Covid.’”TopicsCoronavirusUS politicsInfectious diseasesMicrobiologyMedical researchBiologyfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      White House health officials: up-to-date vaccines key to move on from Covid

      by

      White House health officials: up-to-date vaccines key to move on from CovidFauci and Jha comments come amid campaign to encourage public to get the new coronavirus boosters as well as flu shots White House public health officials offered cautious optimism that Americans could begin to move on from coronavirus, but cautioned that keeping immunity vaccination up-to-date and combating scientific disinformation remained key for the country to successfully emerge from the three-year Covid-19 pandemic.“If you look at where we were a year ago at this time, when [coronavirus variant] Omicron started to surge, we were having 800,000 to 900,000 infections and 3,000 to 4,000 deaths [a day]. Today, we had less than 300 deaths. Yesterday, we had 350 deaths, and…anywhere from 27,000 to 45,000 cases” Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the US president, said.“That is much, much better than we were a year ago. But if you look at it in a vacuum, it’s still not a great place to be,” Fauci told CBS Face the Nation on Sunday.But he acknowledged that “everybody’s got Covid fatigue…and people just want it behind us.”The infectious disease expert, who is retiring at the end of the year after many decades as a leading public health official, said Covid was still concerning and “it is not at a level low enough where we should feel we’re done with it completely because we’re not.”Separately, White House Covid response coordinator Ashish Jha, told ABC’s This Week that: “It’s been, obviously, a long 2.5 years for Americans, and we understand that people want to move on. The good news is people can move on if they keep their immunity up to date.”The officials’ comments comes as the White House undertakes a campaign to encourage the public to get the new Covid boosters, designed to combat Omicron, as well as flu shots. The low take-up of both this fall has disappointed health experts, with just 11% of the population accepting the latest Covid vaccine and 42 million Americans receiving this year’s flu vaccine.“We think it’s incredibly important as we head into the holidays for people to update their immunity, get the new Covid vaccine, get the flu shot,” Jha said.Both Fauci and Jha addressed concerns that Covid vaccine hesitancy had translated into flu vaccine hesitancy in some states even as a “tripledemic” of flu, Covid, and the respiratory virus, RSV – hitting children and the elderly hardest – is straining hospitals in some places.“We know these vaccines are incredibly effective. They’re very safe. That’s point number one,” Jha said. “Our strategy is get out into the community, talk to religious leaders, talk to civil society leaders, community-based organizations, have them get out to the community and talk to people.”Fauci said he had been “very troubled” by the divisive state of American politics and its effects on public health.Asked why he thought the anti-vaccine movement, which had long existed among a minority on the left, is now prevalent among some conservatives in the US, Fauci blamed an expansion and amplification of anti-science, anti-vaccine thinking.He said it was “something I’ve never seen in my 54 years in medicine at the NIH (National Institutes of Health) is that the acceptance or not of a life-saving intervention is steered very heavily by your political ideology”.“Why would you ever want to see that ‘red’ [Republican-voting] states are under-vaccinated and ‘blue’ [Democratic-leaning] states are pretty well vaccinated and there are more deaths among red state Republicans than there are among blue states Democrats?” he added. “Divisions of political ideology…shouldn’t be a reason why you get sick or you don’t get sick.”Meanwhile, Jha said that China’s aims for zero-Covid, where fresh outbreaks across the vast nation result in lockdowns and now protests and crackdowns, was unrealistic.Depressed, powerless, angry: why frustration at China’s zero-Covid is spilling overRead more“Obviously, that’s not our strategy. We don’t think that’s realistic, certainly not for the American people. Our strategy has been build up immunity in the population by getting people vaccinated,” he said.TopicsOmicron variantCoronavirusBiden administrationInfectious diseasesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Jill Biden tests negative for Covid and will end isolation in South Carolina

      by

      Jill Biden tests negative for Covid and will end isolation in South CarolinaFirst lady will travel to Delaware to rejoin the president after getting negative results from two consecutive tests First lady Jill Biden has tested negative for Covid-19 and will leave South Carolina – where she had isolated since vacationing with Joe Biden – and rejoin the president at their Delaware beach home, her office said Sunday.The White House announced on Tuesday that the first lady, 71, who like her husband has been twice-vaccinated and twice-boosted with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, had tested positive for the coronavirus. She first had symptoms on Monday.The president, 79, recovered from a rebound case of the virus on 7 August.Jill Biden was prescribed the antiviral drug Paxlovid and isolated at the Kiawah Island vacation home for five days before receiving negative results from two consecutive Covid-19 tests, spokesperson Elizabeth Alexander said. Jill Biden planned to travel to Delaware later Sunday.TopicsJill BidenJoe BidenUS politicsCoronavirusInfectious diseasesnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      White House resumes Covid briefings after six-week hiatus as cases rise

      by

      White House resumes Covid briefings after six-week hiatus as cases riseNew head of Covid response calls on Congress for additional funding to pay for vaccines and treatments The White House resumed its coronavirus briefings on Wednesday after a six-week hiatus as Covid-19 cases rose across the nation, with the new head of Covid response calling on Congress for additional funding to pay for vaccines and treatments.“I want to make sure we have enough resources so that we can buy enough vaccines for every American. I think that is absolutely critical. We do not have the resources to do that right now,” said Ashish Jha, the White House’s new coronavirus response coordinator, who replaced Jeff Zients in March. “So without additional funding from Congress, we will not be able to buy enough vaccines for every American who wants one.”The last White House coronavirus briefing was held on 5 April. Since then, various mask mandates have been lifted across the country, including those on planes, trains and in automobiles.Jha explained that the administration has not stopped fighting the virus, however, noting that it has increased its rapid test kits allocated to each household from four to eight kits. “We know there are multigenerational households, we know that there are households with more than four people and we want to make sure that we make as many tests as we can possibly make available,” he said.Jha also revealed that the administration has seen a dramatic increase in the use of the Covid-19 pill Paxlovid, with demand increasing fourfold in just the previous month.“Our latest estimates are that about 20,000 prescriptions of Paxlovid are being given out every day. I think that is actually a really important reason why, despite the very substantial increase in infections, we have not seen a commensurate increase in deaths,” Jha said.Jha also renewed his pleas for Congress to authorize additional funding so the government could purchase more vaccines and Covid-19 treatments.“If we don’t get more resources from Congress, what we will find in the fall and winter is … a period of time where Americans can look around and see their friends in other countries in Europe and Canada with access to these treatments that Americans would not have.”The resumed briefing comes as the US marks a grim milestone, now that more than 1 million people have been officially counted dead since the pandemic began in March 2020, and the real number likely to be much higher.The US has one of the highest mortality rates in the world: 303 dead from Covid-19 out of every 100,000 residents, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.The huge toll has set the US apart from other wealthy nations, in a crisis exacerbated by the country’s deep-rooted inequality, broken healthcare system and fraught politics.“In terms of understanding why we had such a bad experience from the pandemic, we have to think about the systemic issues that already were in place when the pandemic arrived,” Steven Woolf, a social epidemiologist and population health researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University, told the Guardian. “And, on top of that, mishandling of the pandemic by the government and by the public, frankly.”According to data from the New York Times, for the first time since 20 February, the daily average of Covid-19 cases in the country surpassed 100,000, marking a 61% rise from two weeks ago.Although deaths have been declining, hospitalizations have been on the rise: up by 25% in the past two weeks.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, Rochelle Walensky, reaffirmed the importance of booster shots at the briefing.“Our vaccine effectiveness cohort studies have shown Covid-19 vaccines generally remain effective in preventing severe disease, including protecting against Omicron. However, we also know that protection from Covid-19 vaccines wanes, or becomes less protective over time, especially in the Omicron era,” she said.“This is one of the reasons vaccine boosters are so important.”TopicsBiden administrationCoronavirusInfectious diseasesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden administration extends public transport mask mandate by two weeks

      by

      Biden administration extends public transport mask mandate by two weeksCDC says it is extending order, which was set to expire on 18 April, to allow more time to study Omicron subvariant The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it is extending the US nationwide mask requirement for public transit for 15 days as it monitors an uptick in Covid-19 cases.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it was extending the order, which was set to expire on 18 April, until 3 May to allow more time to study the BA.2 Omicron subvariant that is now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the US.“In order to assess the potential impact the rise of cases has on severe disease, including hospitalizations and deaths, and healthcare system capacity, the CDC order will remain in place at this time,” the agency said in a statement.When the Transportation Security Administration, which enforces the rule for planes, buses, trains and transit hubs, extended the requirement last month, it said the CDC had been hoping to roll out a more flexible masking strategy that would have replaced the nationwide requirement.The mask mandate is the most visible vestige of government restrictions to control the pandemic, and possibly the most controversial. A surge of abusive and sometimes violent incidents on airplanes has been attributed mostly to disputes over mask-wearing.Critics have seized on the fact that states have rolled back rules requiring masks in restaurants, stores and other indoor settings, and yet Covid-19 cases have fallen sharply since the Omicron variant peaked in mid-January.There has been a slight increase in cases in recent weeks, driven by the BA.2 strain, with daily confirmed cases nationwide rising from about 25,000 per day to more than 30,000. Those figures are an undercount since many people now test positive on at-home tests that are not reported to public health agencies.Severe illnesses and deaths tend to lag infections by several weeks. The CDC is awaiting indications of whether the increase in cases correlates to a rise in adverse outcomes before announcing a less restrictive mask policy for travel.TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenOmicron variantCoronavirusUS politicsInfectious diseasesnewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Fauci says protocols to protect Biden ‘pretty strong’ amid rash of Covid cases

      by

      Fauci says protocols to protect Biden ‘pretty strong’ amid rash of Covid cases‘It’s going to be a person’s decision about the individual risk,’ says president’s chief medical adviser after spate of positive tests in DC A rash of coronavirus infections among elites in Washington that came close to Joe Biden shows a new reality facing Americans including the president, his chief medical adviser said: that life will involve daily decisions about individual risk from Covid.Lara Logan, who compared Fauci to Mengele, says Fox News pushed her outRead more“It’s going to be a person’s decision about the individual risk they’re going to take,” Dr Anthony Fauci told ABC’s This Week, adding that protocols protecting the president were “pretty strong”.Fauci and his host, Jonathan Karl, both attended last weekend’s Gridiron Dinner, a staple of the Washington social scene at which politicians, appointees and those who cover them gather for satirical speeches and roasts.Senior lawmakers who attended events with Biden were among Gridiron attendees subsequently found to be infected, prompting questions to Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, about how well the 79-year-old president was protected.“It’s important for [Biden] to be able to continue his presidential duties now, and even if he tests positive in the future,” Psaki, who herself has tested positive twice, told reporters on Friday. “This is a time where we are certainly living with the virus but we have a range of tools at our disposal to do that.”On Sunday, Karl said the Gridiron Dinner “had about 600 or so attendees. So far I believe we’re at 67 people that have tested positive who were at the dinner. I’m told at least so far no indication of anybody seriously ill. But, you know, about 10% of those [who attended were] infected. What is the lesson here?”Fauci said: “It’s going to be a person’s decision about the individual risk they’re going to take.“I think the people who run functions, who run big dinners … like the White House Correspondents’ [Dinner] or, thinking back, the Gridiron Dinner, are going to have to make a determination looking at the CDC guidelines and seeing where the trends are.“I mean, there are some places you go, not only is it required that you show proof of vaccination, but you have to have a negative test the day you go to a particular place.”Later on Sunday it was revealed that the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, had tested positive after attending the Gridiron Dinner.On Sunday, the US Covid death toll stood at nearly 985,000. Fauci recommended that those who have not been vaccinated get the shot and those who have been vaccinated get recommended boosters.“The protocols to protect the president are pretty strong,” he said. “The president is vaccinated. He is doubly boosted. He got his fourth shot of an mRNA [vaccine].“When people like myself and my colleagues are in the room with him closely for a considerable period of time – half-an-hour, 20 minutes, 40 minutes, all of us need to be tested.“Yes, he is mingling there, but we feel that the protocols around the president are sufficient to protect him. And as Jen said, the fact is he could get infected. We hope he doesn’t. We’d do everything we can do protect him.“But remember, he’s fully vaccinated. He’s doubly boosted and most of the time, people who get anywhere near him need to be tested. So we feel the protocol is a reasonable protocol.”Federal Covid guidelines have been relaxed but case rates have increased thanks to a subvariant of the Omicron strain which itself fuelled a steep rise last winter.“This is not unexpected, that you’re going to see an uptick when you pull back on the mitigation methods,” Fauci said.“If you look at the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] calculation with their new metrics, it’s clear that most of the country, even though we’re seeing an uptick, is still in that green zone, which means that masking is not recommended, in the sense of not required in indoor settings.“… What we’re hoping happens, and I believe it will, is that you won’t see a concomitant comparable increase in severity, in the sense of … hospitalisations and deaths.”Fauci also said the public should remember that authorities have said measures including indoor-mask-wearing could be brought back if hospitalisations rise.TopicsJoe BidenAnthony FauciCoronavirusInfectious diseasesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      CDC announces revamp plans, hires outside official for review

      by

      CDC announces revamp plans, hires outside official for reviewThe one-month review follows criticism for its pandemic response including initial delays in developing a coronavirus test The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday announced plans to revamp itself, with director Rochelle Walensky hiring an outside senior federal health official to conduct a one-month review.James Macrae, an associate administrator in the Department of Health and Human Services, will join CDC on a one-month assignment from 11 April to listen to and engage with the agency’s Covid-19 response activities, Walensky said in an email to her colleagues.Biden names Ashish Jha as new White House Covid-19 response coordinatorRead moreMacrae will provide Walensky insight into how CDC’s programs can be strengthened.She has also asked three senior officials at CDC to gather feedback on the agency’s current structure and solicit suggestions for strategic change.The review follows criticism for its response during the pandemic, from delays in developing a coronavirus test initially to its guidance over masking, isolation and quarantine being called confusing.“As we’ve challenged our state and local partners, we know that now is the time for CDC to integrate the lessons learned into a strategy for the future,” Walensky said in a separate statement.Walensky said the review will allow CDC to develop new systems and processes, with a keen focus on the agency’s core capabilities like public health workforce, laboratory capacity and rapid response to disease outbreaks. TopicsCoronavirusInfectious diseasesBiden administrationVaccines and immunisationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More