The Food and Drug Administration announced last week that it will strictly limit the use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine due to the risk of a serious blood clotting disorder that has resulted in at least nine deaths. The agency has stressed that the clotting condition called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome is extremely rare,...
Moderna, the U.S. drugmaker that made historic profits due to its COVID-19 vaccine, announced last week that up to 1.7 billion people at risk for serious infection should consider getting an annual booster. Moderna sold $5.9 billion of its vaccine in the first quarter of 2022. Moderna maintained its full-year guidance of $21 billion in...
India’s Supreme Court last Monday ruled that no individual can be forced to take the COVID-19 vaccine due to the integrity of bodily and personal autonomy. Justices L Nageswara Rao wrote the ruling for the court that bodily integrity is “protected under Article 21 of the Constitution and no individual can be forced to be...
The COVID-19 death rate in Sweden, which refused mandatory lockdowns in the early stages of the virus outbreak, was among the lowest in Europe, according to data released from the World Health Organization. The average excess death rate in the country was 56 per 100,000 from 2020 and 2021 compared to 109 in the UK...
Pfizer announced last week that its oral antiviral Paxlovid was ineffective at preventing infections inside households where someone had been diagnosed with the virus. “While we are disappointed in the outcome of this particular study, these results do not impact the strong efficacy and safety data we’ve observed in our earlier trial for the treatment...
Health officials around the world are tracking an outbreak of severe hepatitis in young children that so far have an unknown origin but could be tied to COVID-19 lockdowns. There have been at least 190 confirmed cases of “acute hepatitis of unknown origin,” and the majority of patients were under the age of 10, the Financial...
Health officials in the U.S. are seeing more vaccinated individuals dying from COVID-19 due to faster-spreading strains and vaccines that lose effectiveness at a faster rate than earlier, The Washington Post reported last week. The paper, citing data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported that vaccinated individuals accounted for 42% of...
Greece announced last week that it will no longer enforce its strict COVID-19 restrictions for visitors, just before the summer travel season. Thanos Plevris, Athens’ health minister, said Wednesday that he does not believe it would be wise to try to emulate China and seek a “zero-COVID” strategy. He said the country will instead try...
As we had forecast the first week of this year, the COVID War would wind down late March/mid-April. With the exception of lockdown China who launched the COVID War on Lunar New Year January 2020, the Year of the Rat, most nations have eased COVID mandates. Recognizing the slowdown, health officials say the World Health...
We’re almost at the point where it is no longer even news when so-called “fully vaxxed” politicians and “celebrities” (arrogant actors) announce they came down with COVID-19—and then pitch the vaccine’s effectiveness to the public. Last week, some household names in Washington announced a COVID diagnosis, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday and...