COVID-19 News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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Coronavirus boosters targeting omicron get FDA blessing for fall push

Source: Washington Post
New omicron-targeting coronavirus booster shots are poised for rollout after being authorized Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration -- a move designed to improve protection against severe illness and death during a potential rise in covid-19 cases this fall and winter. The boosters, reformulated to take aim at the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants dominant in the United States, are scheduled to be reviewed by advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday.

If the outside experts recommend the shots, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky agrees, some boosters may be available starting this weekend, with more showing up in pharmacies, doctors offices and clinics after Labor Day. The emergency authorizations of the boosters -- one by Moderna and the other by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech -- mark the start of a high-stakes effort by the Biden administration to deploy a more muscular defense against a virus that has evolved drastically over the last 2 years and is still killing an average of 400 to 500 people a day in the United States.

The changes are the first since the mRNA vaccines debuted in December 2020. Scientists and physicians wonder whether the American public, which has been slow to embrace boosters, will show more enthusiasm for the newest crop of shots, which will be free to the public. Some experts, including Paul A. Offit, one of the FDA's most prominent vaccine advisers, have criticized the agency for moving too quickly, saying it is not clear the new booster is better than the current one and warning the agency's heavy reliance on mouse studies could fuel skepticism.

"We already have a problem with booster acceptance," Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, said. If that is exacerbated by the paucity of human data for the new shots, "I think that would be unfortunate." Peter Marks, top vaccine official at the FDA, defended the agency's approach, saying the mRNA vaccines have a strong safety record. And while cases are decreasing now, he said, some experts worry there could be a sharp rise in infections by Thanksgiving, as people flock indoors and immunity continues to wane. Waiting for additional data could cause a substantial delay in releasing the boosters, he said. "We have constantly been behind this virus, and we had to think creatively about how to safely catch up," Marks said in an interview before the authorizations. "If we are going to intervene, the time is ripe to do it now."
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... ter-shots/
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raklian
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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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andmar74
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Not death over a mask but a vaccine.
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Ken_J
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I do find myself wondering if there will be something like a follow along degenerative disorder like E.B. virus is linked to a massive increase in likelyhood of having MS.

with symptoms of olfactory disruption (a symptom seen often in some forms of dementia) and taste loss, as well as heart rate issues, fatigue, and brainfog... there is a form of dementia called vascular dementia that occurs with blood pressure issues. It also can result in micro strokes that do less noticed deterioration over time. I would not be at all surprised to learn that there is something like the link between EBV and MS but in this case being neurodegenerative disorders like dementia, alzhiemers and parkinsons percipitated by damaged circulatory systems of the brain.
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caltrek
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New Antiviral Therapy May Block COVID-19 Transmission
September 9, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) SAN FRANCISCO, CA—By the time you test positive for COVID-19, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has already taken up residence in your respiratory system. With each breath, you expel invisible viral particles into the air—a process known as viral shedding. Existing drugs aimed at treating COVID-19, even when they address symptoms of the virus, do little to quell viral shedding.

Researchers at Gladstone Institutes previously developed a novel approach for treating infectious diseases: a single-dose, intranasal treatment that protects against severe SARS-CoV-2 infection.

In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they show that this new treatment, called a therapeutic interfering particle (TIP), also decreases the amount of virus shed from infected animals and limits transmission of the virus.

“Historically, it has been exceptionally challenging for antivirals and vaccines to limit the transmission of respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2,” says Gladstone Senior Investigator Leor Weinberger, PhD, senior author of the new paper. “This study shows that a single, intranasal dose of TIPs reduces the amount of virus transmitted, and protects animals that came into contact with that treated animal.”

“To our knowledge, this is the only single-dose antiviral that reduces not only symptoms and severity of COVID-19, but also shedding of the virus,” says Sonali Chaturvedi, PhD, a research investigator at Gladstone and first author of the paper.
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Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/964306
Last edited by caltrek on Sat Sep 10, 2022 12:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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