People who stay up to date on their vaccines and receive treatments when they have breakthrough infections face almost no risk of dying from Covid-19, a top health official said on Tuesday.
Dr. Ashish Jha, head of the White House Covid task force, said the U.S. has made major strides in fighting Covid since the early days of the pandemic when thousands of people were dying daily from the virus.
“If you are up to date with your vaccines and if you get treated if you have a breakthrough infection, your risk of dying from Covid is now close to zero,” Jha told reporters at the White House.
More than 300 people are still dying every day from Covid on average, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jha told reporters last week that 70% of the people dying from the virus are 75 and older and don’t have the latest shots or aren’t getting treated as needed. He said this level of death is unacceptable given all the tools the U.S. now has at its disposal to manage the virus.
Jha encouraged people who have Covid symptoms to get tested so they can get diagnosed and receive treatments such as the antiviral pill Paxlovid when needed.
“Treatments which we have available today for free keep people out of the hospital, keep people out of the ICU, prevent the worst outcome at all,” Jha said.
People older than 50 and those who are otherwise at elevated risk, such as people with weak immune systems or serious medical conditions, should be seriously considered for treatments, he said.
The U.S. rolled out new booster shots that target the dominant omicron BA.5 subvariant in September. Although there’s no real-world data on their effectiveness yet, Jha said they should provide a much higher degree of protection based on what scientists know about how the human immune system works.
Health officials are expecting Covid infections to increase in November through January as they have every fall and winter since the pandemic began, Jha said. But it’s difficult to predict whether the U.S. will face another major Covid surge because the virus continues to evolve, he added.
“We are not helpless against these challenges. What happens in the weeks and months ahead will have a large impact on how the winter goes and really what happens this winter is largely up to us as the American people,” Jha said on Tuesday.
He called on everyone ages 12 and older to get their new Covid booster shot by Halloween so they have protection in time for Thanksgiving when the holiday season gets into full swing. Everyone who is eligible should go out and get their annual flu shot as well because health officials are expecting a significant flu season for the first time since the pandemic began, he said.
One caveat is people who recently caught Covid can wait three months to get their booster because infection also boosts your immunity, Jha said.
“Don’t wait — get your new flu shot and your new Covid shot today,” Jha said. “If Americans did that we could save hundreds of lives each day this winter.”
Bio-Rad Laboratories is in talks to combine with fellow life-sciences company Qiagen NV in a deal that would be worth more than $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The talks have been going on for a while but any agreement isn’t likely for another few weeks or more—and there may not be one.
A large number of U.S. COVID deaths could be prevented if patients would take Paxlovid, the antiviral developed by Pfizer PFE, -1.79%
that helps reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, according to White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha.
Jha told the New York Times that the average daily death count could be reduced to about 50 a day from 400 currently, if every American aged 50 and above that tests positive for the virus took a course of either Paxlovid or used monoclonal antibodies.
“The public doesn’t seem to understand that the evidence around hospitalization and deaths is really powerful,” Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco told the paper.
The issue seems to be a combination of worry about certain issues that Paxlovid can cause, including a strange metallic taste and the potential for “rebound COVID,” where patients quickly become reinfected after the five-day course of pills has been completed. That happened to both President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden recently.
The second reason is that many Americans — and Republicans, in particular — have refused to take COVID seriously and are not willing to take steps to reduce its impact. Trials have found Paxlovid to be effective across all age groups, but mostly among older patients. But as the COVID death rate for people under 50 is already close to zero, reducing it in a statistically significant way is difficult.
The news comes as U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, with data generally not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 41,605 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 25% from two weeks ago. Cases are declining in northeastern states including New York and New Jersey, while cases are rising in the western states Montana, Washington and Oregon.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 11% at 27,021, while the daily average for deaths is down 8% to 391.
• Molnupiravir, the COVID pill developed by Merck MRK, +0.18%
and privately held Ridgeback Therapeutics, produced mixed results in two recent studies, the companies said Thursday. Early data from a trial conducted in the U.K. by the University of Oxford found no evidence of a difference when molnupiravir was added to usual care in reducing hospitalizations and death. A second study conducted in Israel found a benefit in patients who were 65 and older, but no benefit for 40- to 60-year-olds.
• Homelessness is surging in the U.S. again as pandemic programs that halted evictions are being phased out, the Associated Press reported. The overall number of homeless people in a federal report to be released in the coming months is expected to be higher than the 580,000 unhoused before the coronavirus outbreak, the National Alliance to End Homelessness said. The AP tallied results from city-by-city surveys conducted earlier this year and found the number of people without homes is up overall compared with 2020 in areas reporting results so far.
• The idea was to have China in stable and tip-top shape when thousands of delegates gather in Beijing to usher in a historic third term in power for Xi Jinping, BBC News reported. However, the coronavirus is not playing nicely. In recent weeks, tens of millions of people have again been confined to their homes in lockdowns across 60 towns and cities, and this is bringing political pressure on the man who has become the most powerful Chinese figure since the first communist-era leader, Mao Zedong.
Covid-19 lockdowns, corruption crackdowns and more have put China’s economy on a potential crash course. WSJ’s Dion Rabouin explains how China’s economic downturn could harm the U.S. and the rest of the world. Illustration: David Fang
• A new COVID-19 wave appears to be brewing in Europe as cooler weather arrives, with public health experts warning that vaccine fatigue and confusion over types of available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake, Reuters reported. The omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 that dominated this summer are still behind the majority of infections, but newer omicron subvariants are gaining ground. Hundreds of new forms of omicron are being tracked by scientists, the World Health Organization said this week.
The U.S. leads the world with 96.6 million cases and 1,062,130 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.8 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 110.5 million have had a booster, equal to 48.9% of the vaccinated population, and 24.8 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 37.9% of those who received a first booster.
Some 11.5 million people have had a shot of the new bivalent booster that targets the new omicron subvariants.
The U.S. will rout and screen passengers for Ebola at five designated airports if they have traveled in Uganda within three weeks prior to their arrival, federal officials said on Thursday.
Uganda, a nation in East Africa, is battling a deadly outbreak of Ebola with 63 confirmed and probable cases and 29 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. No cases of Ebola have been reported in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC is working closely with Uganda’s health ministry and the WHO to respond to the outbreak.
The U.S. Embassy in Uganda, in a health alert Thursday, said passengers who have been in the East African nation within 21 days of their arrival in the U.S. will be routed to one of five airports: New York JFK, Newark, Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare or Washington Dulles.
Passengers arriving from Uganda at those airports will undergo temperature checks and verification of their contact data, a federal health official said. Airlines will send passenger information to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention so the agency can conduct health follow ups, the official said. Contact information will also be sent to state health departments so they can conduct follow ups locally.
Uganda is battling an outbreak caused by a strain of Ebola called Sudan ebolavirus. The virus spreads through direct contact with body fluids of a person who has fallen ill with the virus or died from it, as well as infected animals and contaminated objects, according to CDC. Ebola does not spread through airborne transmission, the health agency said.
People infected with ebolavirus are not contagious until symptoms appear, which can take anywhere from two to 21 days after contact with the virus, according to CDC. On average, it takes about 8 to 10 days for symptoms to appear.
Symptoms include unexplained hemorrhaging, bleeding or bruising; fever; severe headache and muscle and joint pain; stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting. Other symptoms include red eyes, skin rash and hiccups.
There is no vaccine licensed by the Food and Drug Administration to protect against the Sudan ebolavirus strain. The FDA approved a vaccine to combat Zaire ebolavirus based on animal studies, but it’s not expected to protect against the Sudan strain, according to CDC. There is also no FDA approved treatment for Sudan ebolavirus.
The CDC, in a health alert Thursday, said health-care providers should be on the alert for any patients suspected of having Ebola. Physicians and other clinicians should obtain a detailed travel history for any patients suspected of having the disease, particularly for people who have been to the regions in Uganda where there is an outbreak.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
The U.S. is at risk of prolonging the COVID pandemic if it fails to back an initiative that aims to get vaccines, diagnostics and treatments to lower-income countries, a congressional group has told President Joe Biden.
In a letter to Biden from the group led by Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, the group urged him to back the World Trade Organization’s agreement in June to ease exports of lifesaving therapies.
“With more than 600 million shots in arms, 21,500 free testing sites, the ability to order at-home tests for free, and more treatments available now than at any point in the pandemic, the outlook in the United States is better than ever. Unfortunately, however, the prospect for many low-income countries is not so positive — putting the United States’ own success in jeopardy,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter was sent ahead of a meeting of the WTO council for trade-related aspects of IP rights that is due to kick off Thursday.
The group noted that lower-income countries are facing a higher risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death as only a small percentage of their populations are vaccinated. Just 19% of people in those countries are vaccinated, compared with about 75% in high-income countries, according to the Multilateral Leaders Taskforce on COVID-19, a joint initiative of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the WTO.
U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, where the data are not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 43,149 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 23% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in most northeastern states by 10% of more, while cases in the western states Montana, Washington and Oregon are rising.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 11% at 27,184, while the daily average for deaths is down 8% to 391.
The new bivalent vaccine might be the first step in developing annual Covid shots, which could follow a similar process to the one used to update flu vaccines every year. Here’s what that process looks like, and why applying it to Covid could be challenging. Illustration: Ryan Trefes
• China’s huge Xinjiang region has been hit with sweeping COVID travel restrictions ahead of a key Communist Party congress later this month, the Associated Press reported. Trains and buses in and out of the region of 22 million people have been suspended, and passenger numbers on flights have been reduced to 75% of capacity in recent days, according to Chinese media reports. The region is home to minorities who have been forced into prison-like re-education centers to force them to renounce their religion, typically Islam, and allegedly subjected to human-rights abuses.
• Five current or former Internal Revenue Service workers have been charged with fraud for illegally getting money from federal COVID-19 relief programs and using a total of $1 million for luxury items and personal trips, prosecutors said, the AP reported. The U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said Tuesday that the five have been charged with wire fraud after they filed fake applications for the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, which were part of a federal stimulus package tied to the pandemic response in 2020.
• Peloton Interactive Inc. PTON, +3.84%
said it plans to cut about 500 jobs, roughly 12% of its remaining workforce, in the company’s fourth round of layoffs this year as the connected fitness-equipment maker tries to reverse mounting losses, the Wall Street Journal reported. After enjoying a strong run early on in the pandemic, Peloton has struggled since the start of the U.S. recovery, and CEO Barry McCarthy, who took over in February, said he is giving the unprofitable company another six months or so to significantly turn itself around and, if it fails, Peloton likely isn’t viable as a stand-alone company.
The U.S. leads the world with 96.6 million cases and 1,061,490 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 67.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 109.9 million have had a booster, equal to 48.8% of the vaccinated population, and 23.9 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 36.6% of those who received a first booster.
Some 7.6 million people have had a shot of one of the new bivalent boosters that target the new omicron subvariants that have become dominant around the world.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has dropped its country-by-country COVID-19 travel health notices that it began issuing early in the pandemic, the Associated Press reported.
The reason: Fewer countries are testing for the virus or reporting the number of COVID cases. That limits the CDC’s ability to calculate travelers’ risk, according to the agency.
CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said the agency will only post a travel health notice for an individual country if a situation such as a troubling new variant of the virus changes CDC travel recommendations for that country.
The CDC still recommends that travelers remain up-to-date on vaccines and follow recommendations found on its international travel page.
A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research has confirmed that political affiliations played a key role as a risk factor for dying of COVID, finding evidence that Republican-leaning counties suffered higher death rates than Democratic-leaning ones.
“We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states,” the authors, Jacob Wallace and Jason L. Schwartz of the Yale School of Public Health, and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham of the Yale School of Management wrote.
“Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats.”
The researchers used data from Ohio and Florida and matched 2017 voter registration data with mortality data from 2018 to 2021. They also found a link between political affiliation and views on vaccines, with Republican-leaning counties showing far lower vaccination rates.
Source: NBER paper
In the U.S., known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, where the data are not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 45,495 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 24% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in 11 states plus Washington, D.C. They are up by double-digit percentages in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Vermont.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 11% at 27,854, while the daily average for deaths is down 12% to 386.
• Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. NCLH, +16.84%
is removing all COVID testing, vaccination and masking requirements from its health and safety protocols. The company said the new protocols, which follows “significant, positive progress” in the public health environment, will be effective Oct. 4. “Health and safety are always our first priority; in fact, we were the health and safety leaders from the very start of the pandemic,” said Chief Executive Harry Sommer. “Many travelers have been patiently waiting to take their long-awaited vacation at sea and we cannot wait to celebrate their return.”
• Ringo Starr has test positive for COVID, forcing the former Beatle to cancel scheduled concerts in Canada with his All Starr Band, the AP reported. Five concert dates from Tuesday to Sunday — in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Lethbridge, Alberta; and the British Columbia cities of Abbotsford and Penticton — will be rescheduled. “Ringo hopes to resume as soon as possible and is recovering at home. As always, he and the All Starrs send peace and love to their fans and hope to see them back out on the road soon,” said a statement from the band.
The new bivalent vaccine might be the first step in developing annual Covid shots, which could follow a similar process to the one used to update flu vaccines every year. Here’s what that process looks like, and why applying it to Covid could be challenging. Illustration: Ryan Trefes
• A federal appeals court in New Orleans on Monday became the latest to hear arguments on whether President Joe Biden overstepped his authority with an order that federal contractors require that their employees be vaccinated against COVID, the AP reported separately. The contractor mandate has a complicated legal history. It is being challenged in more than a dozen federal court districts, and the mandate has been blocked or partially blocked in 25 states.
• The Chinese resort city of Sanya has ordered all tourists to take PCR tests, and those who fail to do so by noon on Tuesday will be slapped with a yellow code restricting their mobility, according to local officials, the South China Morning Post reported. The city in the southern province of Hainan logged two asymptomatic Covid-19 cases on Monday. It carried out a round of mass testing and locked down several areas in Haitang district, including a scenic island that received around 2,000 tourists on Monday.
The U.S. leads the world with 96.4 million cases and 1,059,888 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 67.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 109.9 million have had a booster, equal to 48.8% of the vaccinated population, and 23.9 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 36.6% of those who received a first booster.
Some 7.6 million people have had a shot of the new bivalent booster that targets the new omicron subvariants that have become dominant around the world.
The monkeypox virus is unlikely to be eliminated from the U.S. in the near future, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week.
The CDC, in a technical brief, said the outbreak is slowing as the availability of vaccines has increased, people have become more aware of how to avoid infection, and immunity has likely increased among gay and bisexual men, the group most impacted by the virus.
But low-level transmission of the virus could continue indefinitely among men who have sex with other men, according to the report. The CDC said it does not have a projection of how many total people might get infected by the virus.
The Biden administration declared a public health emergency in August in an effort to ramp up vaccines, testing, treatment and community outreach in an effort to eradicate the virus from the U.S.
The U.S. is trying to contain the largest monkeypox outbreak in the world, with nearly 26,000 cases reported across all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, according to CDC data. At least two people have died from the disease in the U.S., according to the data.
The global monkeypox outbreak, the largest in history, is highly unusual because the virus is circulating widely in countries where it is not normally found. Historically, monkeypox has circulated in remote parts of West and Central Africa. In that context, people normally caught the virus from animals. There was little spread between people.
Monkeypox is now spreading widely between people, mostly through close contact during sex among gay and bisexual men. The disease is rarely fatal, but patients develop lesions resembling blisters in sensitive areas that are extremely painful. In some cases, the pain is so great people require hospitalization and in rare instances people with weak immune systems have died.
The CDC, in its report, said the virus is still spreading primarily among men who have sex with men. But anyone can catch the virus through close contact with someone who is infected or with contaminated materials. Health authorities have confirmed 29 cases of children catching the virus to date, and 78 total pediatric cases are under investigation as of late September.
Though 96% of patients are men, 408 women have caught the virus to date in the U.S. Four pregnant women and one who was breastfeeding have caught monkeypox.
The CDC said the percentage of patients who identify as gay or bisexual men has declined over time, with 75% of people who provided recent sexual history reporting male-to-male contact.
But a large number of cases are missing data on sexual history and more than 90% of infections are among males, according to CDC. The decline in the percentage of cases reporting male-to-male sexual contact is likely due to missing data rather than a change in how the virus is spreading, according to the public health agency.
The CDC said the outbreak will likely remain concentrated among men who have sex with men over the long term, with infections continuing to decline over the coming weeks and dropping significantly over the next several months.
More than 684,000 people have received the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine so far. Earlier this week, the CDC reported preliminary data indicating that the vaccine is providing at least some protection against infection. The vaccination campaign is primarily focused on gay and bisexual men.
The outbreak could start accelerating again if the virus starts spreading widely among the U.S. population through heterosexual networks or contact that doesn’t involve sex, according to CDC. But there is no country in the current global outbreak that has found clear evidence of sustained spread of the virus outside sexual networks of gay and bisexual men, according to the CDC.
The public health agency also warned that the virus could start spreading faster again among people if it becomes established in an animal population in the U.S. The CDC said it is unknown which animals in North America are most susceptible to infection.
In Africa, the virus mostly spread from animals to people. If monkeypox becomes established in animals in the U.S., it would be very difficult to eradicate.
About half of the American public has heard little or nothing about the new COVID-19 bivalent booster, a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation has found. The new booster targets the omicron variants that have become dominant around the world.
One in five of those surveyed said they had heard “nothing at all” about the new boosters. Some 17% said they had heard “a lot” about the boosters, while 33% said they had heard “some” about the new shots. About a third said they’d already gotten the new booster or intended to do so as soon as possible.
“Intention is somewhat higher among older adults, one of the groups most at risk for serious complications of a coronavirus infection,” the authors wrote. “Almost half (45%) of adults ages 65 and older say they have gotten the bivalent booster or intend to get it ‘as soon as possible.’”
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
The news will likely disappoint health experts who cheered the regulatory authorization of the new boosters in August. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency-use authorization to boosters developed by Moderna MRNA, +1.36%
and by Pfizer PFE, -0.07%
and German partner BioNTech BNTX, +1.53%
for use in people aged 12 and older who have had an initial series of a COVID vaccine, including those who have already had one or more booster doses.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that all adults get one of the bivalent boosters at least two months after completing a primary series of shots. So far, some 7.6 million people in the U.S. have received it, according to the CDC.
Once again, the country’s partisan divide is evident, with 6 in 10 Democrats saying they’ve already had the shot or will get it soon, compared with 1 in 8 Republicans.
“Notably, 20% of Republicans say they will ‘definitely not’ get the new COVID-19 booster dose, while a further 38% of Republicans are unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated and therefore not eligible for the new updated COVID-19 booster dose,” the survey authors said.
In the U.S., known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, where data are not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 47,569 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 26% from two weeks ago and now at the lowest level since late April. Cases are rising in 14 states and are sharply higher in several. Montana leads the count with a 75% rise in the last two weeks, followed by Washington with a 48% rise. Cases are up by double digits in Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and New Jersey.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 13% to 28,639, while the daily average for deaths was down 11% to 407.
The new bivalent vaccine might be the first step in developing annual COVID shots, which could follow a similar process to the one used to update flu vaccines every year. Here’s what that process looks like, and why applying it to COVID could be challenging. Illustration: Ryan Trefes
• The U.K. is the only G-7 country whose economy is smaller now than before the pandemic, the Guardian reported, citing data released Friday by the Office for National Statistics. The ONS released figures showing that rather than the economy being 0.6% larger than it was in February 2020, a combination of a deeper recession during the pandemic and a weak recovery had left it 0.2% smaller. All the other major economies in the G-7, including France and Italy, recovered strongly enough to be larger than they were in February 2020.
• Taiwan is the latest country to end mandatory COVID quarantines for people arriving from overseas, the Associated Press reported. Officials said that beginning Oct. 13, the previous weeklong quarantine requirement would be replaced with a seven-day self-monitoring period. A rapid antigen test will still be required upon arrival, but people showing no symptoms will be allowed to take public transportation.
• Germany’s health ministry is warning of a rise of COVID cases heading into the fall and is urging older people in particular to get a second booster shot, the AP reported separately. Other European countries such as France, Denmark and the Netherlands are also recording an increase in cases, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin. “We are clearly at the start of a winter wave,” he said.
COVID-19 lockdowns, corruption crackdowns and more have put China’s economy on a potential crash course with the U.S. and the rest of the world, the Wall Street Journal’s Dion Rabouin explains. Illustration: David Fang
• The first Chinese mRNA-based COVID vaccine has received government approval — in Indonesia, the New York Times reported. The shot, developed by Walvax Biotechnology 300142, +0.49%,
Suzhou Abogen Biosciences and the Chinese military, was cleared this week by Indonesia for emergency use. Countries all over the world, including Indonesia, have embraced mRNA vaccines, and they are considered among the most effective vaccines that the world has to offer. But more than two years into the pandemic, they are not yet available in China, which has relied on an increasingly draconian “zero-COVID” approach to keep cases and deaths from the virus low.
• Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a supporter of Russia’s war on Ukraine, has tested positive for COVID-19, the church’s press service said on Friday, Reuters reported. The church said Kirill, 75, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had canceled all his planned trips and events and had “severe symptoms” requiring bed rest and isolation. It said his condition was “satisfactory.”
The U.S. leads the world with 96.3 million cases and 1,059,291 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 67.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 109.9 million have had a booster, equal to 48.8% of the vaccinated population, and 23.9 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 36.6% of those who received a first booster.
TEWKSBURY, Mass., February 7, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– Cambridge Isotope Laboratories, Inc. (CIL) is pleased to announce the hire of Ashley Schultz as a new Regional Sales Manager. Schultz will lead sales for CIL in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions, covering Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.
“It is my pleasure to welcome Ashley to CIL,” said Greg Whitney, Global Sales Director. “Ashley’s comprehensive industry knowledge and successful record of accomplishment adds to our commitment in supporting our customers. We are excited to have her on board as we continue to grow and evolve as a business to reach new heights.”
Schultz spent five years at Microtek, where she worked in Sales and Business Development. During this time, she contributed in numerous impactful ways, independently driving top-line business growth in core markets, helping to commercialize new R&D products from inception to launch, and partnering with key customers and collaborators to secure strategic opportunities. Schultz’s previous experience also boasts 9+ years of combined bench chemistry experience at Daychem, Dupont, and Sigma-Aldrich / Isotec.
During this time, she developed “hands-on” experience with a wide variety of analytical techniques and synthetic chemistry processes. She has also participated directly in the synthesis of isotopically labeled compounds in cGMP labs for use in a broad range of industrial and life sciences applications.
“CIL presented the perfect opportunity for me to continue growing professionally and personally,” states Schultz. “I’m extremely passionate about chemistry and enjoy sales and business development immensely. Being able to help scientists and researchers solve challenges that impact so many of us gives me a profound sense of accomplishment. I’m looking forward to a wonderful future with CIL.”
About Cambridge Isotope Laboratories, Inc.
CIL is the world’s largest manufacturer and global supplier of stable isotopes and stable isotope-labeled compounds used in research, environmental, neonatal, pharmaceutical, medical diagnostic, OLED, and industrial markets. CIL is an operating business owned by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. The CIL business consists of two facilities in the Boston, MA, area; a large isotope-enrichment production plant in Xenia, OH; CIL China; CIL Canada; ABX in Dresden, Germany; and Eurisotop in Saclay, France.
