Tag: Immunizations

Biden to get updated COVID booster on Tuesday; less than 10% of eligible Americans have had the shot so far

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President Joe Biden will receive his updated COVID booster on Tuesday and will urge Americans to get the shot, which targets both the original virus and omicron variants that have been dominant in the U.S. and elsewhere this year.

The news, first reported by NBC News, was confirmed by a tweet from White House assistant press secretary Kevin Munoz and by an emailed statement, in which the White House said, “The President will receive his updated COVID-19 vaccine and will deliver remarks on the ongoing fight against the virus.”

Biden tested positive for COVID-19 in July, then did so again three days after he had been cleared from isolation in a rare rebound case after receiving the anti-viral drug Paxlovid. The president was fully vaccinated and boosted and suffered only mild symptoms. Health officials recommend that people who have contracted COVID wait at least three months after infection to get the booster.

The bivalent booster has been available to adults and older children since early September, and its use was expanded to children as young as 5 in October. But data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show fewer than 20 million Americans have received it so far — less than 10% of those eligible.

That’s a slow start given expectations for a wave of new cases in the winter months.

As immunity from previous shots wanes and new variants spread, health officials are urging people, especially those over 65, to get the updated booster. A study earlier this month by the Commonwealth Fund concluded that a strong booster campaign this fall could save 90,000 American lives and prevent more than 936,000 COVID hospitalizations in the U.S.

CDC data released Friday showed the two new COVID variants dubbed BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 continued to gain traction in the U.S. in the latest week, accounting for 16.6% of all cases, up from 11.4% a week ago.

The two variants are lineages of BA.5, the omicron subvariant that remains dominant but has shrunk to account for 62.2% of circulating variants, the agency said, down from 67.9% a week ago. The CDC had previously combined data about BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 with BA.5 cases, because the number of cases caused by the new variants was so small. BQ.1 was first identified by researchers in early September and has been found in the U.K. and Germany, among other places. The New York area, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, has the highest number of cases involving those variants, at 28.4%, the data show.

U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since mid-April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where data are not being collected.

The daily average for new cases stood at 37,741 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 7% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was down 1% to 26,798, while the daily average for deaths was down 6% to 361.

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• The head of the CDC has tested positive for COVID, the Associated Press reported. Rochelle Walensky, who is up to date on her vaccinations, tested positive Friday night and had mild symptoms, the CDC said in a statement. “Consistent with CDC guidelines, she is isolating at home and will participate in her planned meetings virtually,” the agency said. Senior staff and close contacts have been informed of her positive test and are monitoring their health.

• The pandemic caused historic learning setbacks for America’s children, erasing decades of academic progress and widening racial disparities, according to results of a national test that provide the sharpest look yet at the scale of the crisis, the AP reported separately. Across the country, math scores saw their largest decreases ever. Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly 4 in 10 eighth-graders failed to grasp basic math concepts. Not a single state saw a notable improvement in average test scores, with some treading water at best. Those are the findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress — known as the “nation’s report card” — which tested hundreds of thousands of fourth- and eighth-graders across the country this year.

The FDA has authorized modified COVID-19 boosters to target the latest versions of the omicron variant. But as WSJ’s Daniela Hernandez explains, a key part of the decision-making process was changed with these new shots. Photo: Laura Kammermann

• The Chinese economy grew 3.9% over a year earlier in the third quarter, quickening from the 0.4% expansion recorded in the second quarter, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The reading topped the 3.5% economic growth expected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal. For the first nine months of the year, China’s GDP expanded 3.0% over a year earlier, well below the 5.5% annual growth target set by the government. Growth has been crimped all year by China’s zero-COVID policy, which has led to repeated lockdowns of commercial and residential areas.

• The pandemic interrupted measles-vaccine campaigns globally in 2020 and 2021, leaving millions of children unprotected against one of the world’s most contagious diseases, whose complications include blindness, pneumonia and death, Reuters reported. After what health experts call the biggest backslide in a generation, 26 large or disruptive measles outbreaks have occurred worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. A devastating outbreak in Zimbabwe has killed more than 700 children this year, chiefly among religious sects that do not believe in vaccinations.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 627.6 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.57 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 97.2 million cases and 1,067,686 fatalities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 111.4 million have had a booster, equal to 49.1% of the vaccinated population, and 26.8 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 40.6% of those who received a first booster.

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October 24, 2022
FACT FOCUS: States, not CDC, set school vaccine requirements

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A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee on Thursday voted that the agency should update its recommended immunization schedules to add the COVID-19 vaccine, including to the schedule for children.

But in the lead-up to the vote by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, false claims spread widely that it would mean the vaccine would be required to attend school.

In reality, the CDC doesn’t have the authority to set school immunization requirements, and the vote doesn’t mandate the vaccine for schoolchildren. That’s a decision left to the states.

Here are the facts.

CLAIM: If the CDC adds the COVID-19 vaccine to the immunization schedule for children, the shots will be mandatory to attend school.

THE FACTS: The false claim gained momentum after it was shared by Fox News host Tucker Carlson this week.

“The CDC is about to add the Covid vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule, which would make the vax mandatory for kids to attend school,” Carlson tweeted on Tuesday night. The tweet included a segment from his show in which he began by making the same claim.

Another popular tweet similarly claimed the CDC committee’s vote would make the vaccine “mandatory for school registration.”

But the public health agency doesn’t determine school vaccine requirements.

“States have the authority to enact state laws requiring vaccination, not the CDC,” said Wendy Mariner, a professor emerita of health law, ethics and human rights at Boston University. “ACIP has no authority to make law.”

CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich told The Associated Press in an email that the agency “only makes recommendations for use of vaccines, while school-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions.”

Grusich explained that the action was meant to streamline clinical guidance for healthcare providers by adding COVID-19 vaccines to a single list of all currently licensed, authorized and routinely recommended vaccines.

“It’s important to note that there are no changes in COVID-19 vaccine policy,” she said.

The immunization practices advisory committee is a body of experts that makes recommendations to the CDC about vaccines. Its recommendation to update the schedules, which included other revisions, still needs to be formally adopted by the agency and the amended schedules wouldn’t take effect until 2023, Grusich said.

Fox News referred the AP to a follow-up segment by Carlson on Wednesday night, in which he revisited the topic and claimed the CDC was “lying.” Carlson claimed that “more than a dozen states follow the CDC’s immunization schedule to set vaccination requirements — not suggestions, requirements — for children to be educated.”

“For example, the Virginia Department of Health states that ‘vaccines must be administered in accordance with the CDC’s schedule,’” he stated. He cited Massachusetts as another example.

But those states do not list every vaccine from the schedule in their school requirements.

Virginia, for example, does not require the annual flu vaccine in order to attend school — even though the vaccine appears on the CDC’s schedule. Nor does Massachusetts.

A Virginia Department of Health spokesperson, Maria Reppas, said in an email that there “is no direct, immediate impact on COVID-19 vaccine being added to the Immunization Schedule on school required vaccines in Virginia.” Reppas said changes to the school requirements would need legislative or regulatory action.

Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine policy expert and professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said he was not aware of any states that automatically require all vaccines on the schedule for school.

“Those are recommendations that go to pediatricians and family doctors as they care for children,” Schaffner said. “They’re just recommendations, there are no automatic mandates that follow.”

There has also been reluctance by many states to require the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine, even though it appears on the childhood schedule, Schaffner said.

States can use legislation to require specific vaccines or can authorize a state agency or local health entity to require specific vaccines for certain age groups, Mariner said. She added that some states include private schools when establishing requirements, though in other cases, private schools may also voluntarily require vaccinations.

___

This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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October 23, 2022
Pfizer says COVID-19 vaccine will cost $110-$130 per dose

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Pfizer will charge $110 to $130 for a dose of its COVID-19 vaccine once the U.S. government stops buying the shots, but the drugmaker says it expects many people will continue receiving it for free.

Pfizer executives said the commercial pricing for adult doses could start early next year, depending on when the government phases out its program of buying and distributing the shots.

The drugmaker said it expects that people with private health insurance or coverage through public programs like Medicare or Medicaid will pay nothing. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover many recommended vaccines without charging any out-of-pocket expenses.

A spokesman said the company also has an income-based assistance program that helps eligible U.S. residents with no insurance get the shots.

The price would make the two-dose vaccine more expensive for cash-paying customers than annual flu shots. Those can range in price from around $50 to $95, depending on the type, according to CVS Health, which runs one of the nation’s biggest drugstore chains.

A Pfizer executive said Thursday that the price reflects increased costs for switching to single-dose vials and commercial distribution. The executive, Angela Lukin, said the price was well below the thresholds “for what would be considered a highly effective vaccine.”

The drugmaker said last year that it was charging the U.S. $19.50 per dose, and that it had three tiers of pricing globally, depending on each country’s financial situation. In June, the company said the U.S. government would buy an additional 105 million doses in a deal that amounted to roughly $30 per shot. The government has the option to purchase more doses after that.

Pfizer’s two-shot vaccine debuted in late 2020 and has been the most common preventive shot used to fight COVID-19 in the U.S.

More than 375 million doses of the original vaccine, which Pfizer developed with the German drugmaker BioNTech, have been distributed in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That doesn’t count another 12 million doses of an updated booster that was approved earlier this year.

The vaccine brought in $36.78 billion in revenue last year for Pfizer and was the drugmaker’s top-selling product.

Analysts predict that it will rack up another $32 billion this year, according to FactSet. But they also expect sales to fall rapidly after that.

More than 90% of the adult U.S. population has already received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC. But only about half that population has also received a booster dose.

———

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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October 21, 2022
CDC shoots down false claims it will mandate COVID-19 vaccines for schoolchildren, saying states make that decision

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has refuted claims that it’s planning to add the COVID-19 vaccine to immunization schedules for schoolchildren, saying that the authority for that decision lies with states and other local entities.

The false claim spread after it was shared by Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a tweet this week, as the Associated Press reported.

Carlson tweeted that the agency would make the vaccine mandatory in order for children to attend school, a claim the CDC quickly shot down. While an advisory committee to the CDC voted to recommend that the vaccine be added to immunization schedules, the CDC “only makes recommendations for use of vaccines, while school-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions,” CDC spokeswoman Kate Grusich told the AP.

Grusich explained that the action was meant to streamline clinical guidance for healthcare providers by adding COVID-19 vaccines to a single list of all currently licensed, authorized and routinely recommended vaccines.

“It’s important to note that there are no changes in COVID-19 vaccine policy,” she said.

The news comes as U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since mid-April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where data are not being collected.

The daily average for new cases stood at 38,077 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 8% from two weeks ago. Cases are currently rising in 14 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

The daily average for hospitalizations was down 2% to 26,669, although hospitalizations are rising in almost all northeastern states as cold weather arrives. The daily average for deaths was down 7% to 360.

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• Pfizer
PFE,
+4.42%
is planning to sell the COVID vaccine it developed with German partner BioNTech
BNTX,
+9.88%
for $110 -$130 a dose once the U.S. market for COVID-19 shots becomes commercial, likely in the first quarter of next year, MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported. Pfizer and BioNTech are currently paid $30.50 per vaccine dose by the U.S. government, which contracted with the companies, as well as with other vaccine makers like Moderna
MRNA,
+9.07%
and Novavax
NVAX,
+11.35%,
and then made the COVID-19 shots available at no cost to people in the U.S. during the public-health emergency. The emergency declaration in the U.S. isn’t expected to be renewed next year, which will lead to the formation of an official commercial market for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments.

• Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
+1.91%
said the volume of surgical procedures is returning to prepandemic levels in many parts of the world, a trend that cheered Wall Street and could bode well for other medical-technology heavyweights like Stryker Corp.
SYK,
+0.57%
and Zimmer Biomet Holdings
ZBH,
+0.18%.
J&J, which reported earnings this week, said its medical-technology business had a “strong September,” with U.S. sales of hip and knee implants and other surgical devices rising 7.7% to $3.3 billion in the third quarter of the year. “We are seeing procedures recovering,” Ashley McEvoy, worldwide chair of J&J’s MedTech business, told investors during this week’s earnings call. “In the U.S., we started to see surgical procedures tick up, predominantly at the latter part of the quarter.”

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

• “As China’s ruling Communist Party holds a congress this week, many Beijing residents are focused on an issue not on the formal agenda: Will the end of the meeting bring an easing of China’s at times draconian ‘zero-COVID’ policies that are disrupting lives and the economy?” the AP reported. It appears to be wishful thinking. As the world moves to a postpandemic lifestyle, many across China have resigned themselves to lining up several times a week for COVID tests, restrictions on travel to other regions and the ever-present possibility of a community lockdown.

• Fantasy Fest, a 10-day annual party, is kicking off in Key West, Fla., on Friday, with a full slate of events for the first time since the pandemic started, the AP reported. “Due to the COVID pandemic, this will be the first full Fantasy Fest since 2019,” the festival’s board chair, Steve Robbins, said. “So I know our guests and staff are excited about getting back to the real Fantasy Fest.” Dozens of themed events are set for the festival, including a nighttime parade Oct. 29 featuring floats and elaborately costumed marching groups. Participants are encouraged to draw costume ideas from the festival’s theme, “Cult Classics & Cartoon Chaos,” and to portray characters inspired by favorite cartoons and television or film productions with a cult following.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 626.9 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.57 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 97.2 million cases and 1,067,190 fatalities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.5 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 111.4 million have had a booster, equal to 49.1% of the vaccinated population, and 26.8 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 40.6% of those who received a first booster.

The CDC reports that some 19.4 million people have had a dose of the updated bivalent booster that targets omicron and its subvariants along with the original virus.

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October 21, 2022
Pfizer sets new prices for its COVID-19 vaccines. The cost? $110 to $130 per dose

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Pfizer Inc.
PFE,
+4.17%
said Thursday that it plans to sell the COVID-19 shot it developed with BioNTech SE
BNTX,
+7.14%
for $110 to $130 per dose once the U.S. market for COVID-19 shots becomes commercial, likely in the first quarter of next year.

Pfizer and BioNTech are currently paid $30.50 per vaccine dose by the U.S. government, which contracted with the companies (as well as other vaccine makers like Moderna Inc.
MRNA,
+6.57%
and Novavax Inc.
NVAX,
+8.88%
) and then made the COVID-19 shots available at no cost to people in the U.S. during the public-health emergency.

The emergency declaration in the U.S. isn’t expected to be renewed next year, which will lead to the formation of an official commercial market for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. That said, this change doesn’t mean most Americans will be on the hook to pay for their shots in 2023 and beyond.

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis said most people with private insurance won’t be expected to pay anything out of pocket for the vaccines, though the costs may eventually be baked into the price of health-insurance premiums, as is done with flu shots. People with Medicare will have their shots covered by Medicare Part B, while those with Medicaid should also have coverage of COVID-19 vaccines. It’s the uninsured who may find it difficult to find free vaccines and boosters in the future.

Wall Street analysts cheered the news, saying Pfizer’s pricing plan came in above expectations. It also bodes well for Moderna’s stock. SVB Securities upgraded the company to market perform from underperform, though the company has not yet announced its pricing plans for its COVID-19 shots.

“Presuming that MRNA prices as a rational duopolist, this substantially improves the company’s ability to meet 2023 revenue guidance,” SVB analyst Mani Foroohar told investors.

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October 21, 2022
Moderna Stock Takes Off on Cancer Vaccine News

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Moderna

stock shot up after

Merck

said it is exercising an option to work on a personalized cancer vaccine with the Covid-19 vaccine maker.

Merck (ticker: MRK) will pay

Moderna

(MRNA) $250 million for the joint development and future commercialization of the vaccine, which is currently in Phase 2 clinical trials. The two companies had announced a “strategic collaboration” in June 2016.

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October 12, 2022
Today in History: October 12, China arrests “Gang of Four”

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Today in History

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 12, the 285th day of 2022. There are 80 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Oct. 12, 1976, it was announced in China that Hua Guofeng had been named to succeed the late Mao Zedong as chairman of the Communist Party; it was also announced that Mao’s widow and three others, known as the “Gang of Four,” had been arrested.

On this date:

In 1492 (according to the Old Style calendar), Christopher Columbus’ expedition arrived in the present-day Bahamas.

In 1792, the first recorded U.S. celebration of Columbus Day was held to mark the tricentennial of Christopher Columbus’ landing.

In 1870, General Robert E. Lee died in Lexington, Virginia, at age 63.

In 1933, bank robber John Dillinger escaped from a jail in Allen County, Ohio, with the help of his gang, who killed the sheriff, Jess Sarber.

In 1971, the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon nominated House minority leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president.

In 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an attempt on her life when an Irish Republican Army bomb exploded at a hotel in Brighton, England, killing five people.

In 1986, the superpower meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, ended in stalemate, with President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev unable to agree on arms control or a date for a full-fledged summit in the United States.

In 2000, 17 sailors were killed in a suicide bomb attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

In 2002, bombs blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants destroyed a nightclub on the Indonesian island of Bali, killing 202 people, including 88 Australians and seven Americans.

In 2007, former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize for sounding the alarm over global warming.

In 2011, a Nigerian al-Qaida operative pleaded guilty to trying to bring down a jetliner with a bomb in his underwear; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (OO’-mahr fah-ROOK’ ahb-DOOL’-moo-TAH’-lahb) defiantly told a federal judge in Detroit that he had acted in retaliation for the killing of Muslims worldwide.

Ten years ago: Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi clashed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in the first such violence since Morsi took office more than three months earlier. The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize for fostering peace on a continent long ravaged by war.

Five years ago: The Trump administration said it would “immediately” halt payments to insurers under the Obama-era health care law. President Donald Trump lashed out at hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico, saying the federal government can’t keep sending help “forever” and suggesting that the U.S. territory was to blame for its financial struggles.

One year ago: The New Jersey Nets said Kyrie Irving could not play or practice with them until he could be a full participant; New York City required professional athletes to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to play or practice in public venues. (Irving would be allowed to rejoin the team for out-of-town games in January 2022, and for home games two months later.) The head of the Chicago police officers union called on its members to defy the city’s requirement to report their COVID-19 vaccination status or be placed on unpaid leave. The Boeing Co. told employees they must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or possibly be fired. Florida issued its first fine to a county that it said had violated a new state law banning coronavirus vaccine mandates; Leon County was fined $3.5 million.

Today’s Birthdays: Former Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, is 90. Singer Sam Moore (formerly of Sam and Dave) is 87. Broadcast journalist Chris Wallace is 75. Actor-singer Susan Anton is 72. Pop/rock singer/songwriter Jane Siberry is 67. Actor Hiroyuki Sanada is 62. Actor Carlos Bernard is 60. Jazz musician Chris Botti (BOH’-tee) is 60. R&B singer Claude McKnight (Take 6) is 60. Rock singer Bob Schneider is 57. Actor Hugh Jackman is 54. Actor Adam Rich is 54. R&B singer Garfield Bright (Shai) is 53. Country musician Martie Maguire (Courtyard Hounds, The Chicks) is 53. Actor Kirk Cameron is 52. Olympic gold medal skier Bode Miller is 45. Rock singer Jordan Pundik (New Found Glory) is 43. Actor Brian J. Smith is 41. Actor Tyler Blackburn is 36. Actor Marcus T. Paulk is 36. Actor Ito Aghayere is 35. Actor Josh Hutcherson is 30.

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October 11, 2022
U.S. risks prolonging pandemic if it doesn’t back WTO push to get vaccines and treatments to lower-income countries, lawmakers warn

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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

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• 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.

Don’t miss: Peloton CEO says ‘naysayers’ are looking at the company’s $1.2 billion quarterly loss all wrong.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 619.9 million on Wednesday, while the death toll rose above 6.55 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

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.

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October 6, 2022
A strong fall COVID booster campaign could save 90,000 U.S. lives and avoid more than 936,000 hospitalizations, study finds

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A strong fall COVID booster campaign could save about 90,000 people living in the U.S. from dying of the virus and avoid more than 936,000 hospitalizations, according to a new study by the Commonwealth Fund.

As immunity wanes and new variants that can evade protection from early vaccines emerge, surges in hospitalizations and deaths are increasingly likely this fall and winter, the authors wrote. That makes it important that people get the bivalent boosters recently authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and help stop transmission, they wrote.

Researchers analyzed three scenarios to evaluate the impact of vaccination on reducing fatalities, hospitalizations and medical costs to both the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The first measured the outcome if daily vaccination rates remain unchanged from current levels; they have gradually declined since the first wave of the omicron variant. Federal financial support has also not been replenished, amid a perception among many Americans that the pandemic is over and as congressional Republicans oppose legislative efforts to continue the pandemic fight.

As of Oct. 3, some 68% of the U.S. population has had primary shots, but fewer than half of those have received a booster dose, and only 36% of those aged 50 and older have had a second booster.

The second and third Commonwealth Fund scenarios looked at outcomes if rates increased by the end of 2022.

In one scenario, researchers imagined booster uptake would track flu-shot coverage in 2020 to 2021. The other scenario assumed 80% of eligible individuals 5 and older get a booster by the end of 2022.

Source: Commonwealth Fund

The data found that more than 75,000 deaths could be prevented along with more than 745,000 hospitalizations if coverage reaches similar levels to 2021 to 2022 flu vaccination. The best scenario would save $56 billion in direct medical costs over the course of the next six months.

“Stratifying by insurance type, we found direct medical costs would be reduced by $11 billion for Medicare alone under scenario 1 and $13 billion under scenario 2,” the authors wrote. “An additional $3.5 to $4.5 billion in savings would accrue to Medicaid. Even if the federal government paid all vaccination costs, accelerated campaigns would generate more than $10 billion in net savings from federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid.”

The study 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 not being collected.

The daily average for new cases stood at 44,484 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 22% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in most northeastern states by 10% of more, while cases in the are rising in the western states Montana, Washington and Oregon.

The daily average for hospitalizations was down 12% at 27,334, while the daily average for deaths is down 8% to 393.

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

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• Long COVID, a condition that can encompass symptoms such as respiratory distress, cough, “brain fog,” fatigue and malaise that last 12 weeks or longer after initial infection, is becoming a long-term challenge as both employers and workers navigate an ever-mutating virus, according to Liz Seegert, writing for NextAvenue.org. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in five COVID survivors younger than 65 experienced at least one incident that might be related to previous COVID-19 infection. Among those 65 and older, the rate was one in four. Their data also show that nearly three times as many people age 50 to 59 currently have long COVID than those 80 or older.

• A retired judge opened a public inquiry on Tuesday into how Britain handled the coronavirus pandemic, saying bereaved families and those who suffered would be at the heart of the proceedings, the Associated Press reported. Former Court of Appeal judge Heather Hallett said the inquiry would investigate the U.K.’s preparedness for a pandemic, how the government responded, and whether the “level of loss was inevitable or whether things could have been done better.”

With each mutation, the Covid-19 virus is becoming more transmissible. WSJ’s Daniela Hernandez breaks down the science of how Covid variants are getting better at infecting and spreading. Illustration: Rami Abukalam

• Health experts are keeping an eye on new versions of the BA.5 omicron subvariant amid concerns those virus versions can evade the drugs developed to fight COVID, Salon reported. Of particular concern are two named BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, along with BA.2.75.2, which is spreading in Singapore, India and parts of Europe. Then there’s XBB, which some research suggest is the most antibody-evasive strain tested so far. The World Health Organization said in its weekly update on the virus that BA.5 descendent lineages continued to be dominant in the latest week, accounting for 80.8% of sequences shared through a global database. It also noted “increased diversity” within omicron and its lineages.

• Eiger BioPharmaecuticals Inc.
EIGR,
-5.01%
said Wednesday it will not pursue emergency authorization of its experimental treatment for mild and moderate COVID-19 infections. It had asked the Food and Drug Administration to consider an EUA application based on data from the Together trial, a Phase 3 study that has assessed 11 possible treatments for COVID-19 that is being conducted in Brazil and Canada. Eiger said the FDA instead recommended the company consider running its own pivotal trial for peginterferon lambda that would support full approval of the drug.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 619.2 million on Wednesday, while the death toll rose above 6.55 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 96.5 million cases and 1,060,446 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.

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October 5, 2022