Fauci Talks Fourth Dose, Eventually Ending Restrictions In US

 White House Covid-19 adviser Anthony Fauci says that Americans may be looking at a fourth jab in order to be fully vaccinated depending on things such as "age, as well as underlying conditions."

While speaking at a Wednesday CDC briefing, Fauci said that the decision over a fourth dose would depend on data collected after the third dose.

"You measure laboratory phenomenon, but you measure the real-world data on the efficacy in preventing, for example, hospital visits as well as hospitalizations," he said. "And I believe that you’re going to be hearing data about that as the data become available."

Meanwhile, Fauci told the Financial Times that there's no way to fully eliminate Covid-19, but that the United States is past the "full-blown" Covid-19 pandemic phase.

"We are looking at a time when we have enough people vaccinated and enough people with protection from previous infection that the COVID restrictions will soon be a thing of the past," he said.

As the Epoch Times' Jack Phillips notes (emphasis ours):

Fauci’s reference to prior infection, known as “natural immunity,” is notable because, for months, Fauci and other top federal health officials have solely pushed COVID-19 vaccines as the way to defeat the pandemic. Last year, during interviews with the press, Fauci would often downplay natural immunity in favor of vaccines.

In the interview Tuesday, Fauci also suggested that booster shots may not be needed for all Americans.

“It will depend on who you are,” he said. “But if you are a normal, healthy 30-year-old person with no underlying conditions, you might need a booster only every four or five years.”

Meanwhile, in the near future, the government response to the pandemic will be primarily handled at the local level with little federal involvement. He didn’t say specifically when COVID-19 restrictions such as mask or vaccine mandates would end but could be done away with “soon,” according to the Financial Times.

“As we get out of the full-blown pandemic phase of COVID-19,” Fauci told the paper. “Which we are certainly heading out of, these decisions will increasingly be made on a local level rather than centrally decided or mandated. There will also be more people making their own decisions on how they want to deal with the virus.”

His remarks come as several Democrat-led states such as California, New Jersey, Delaware, and New York have moved to rescind mask mandates statewide, although some municipalities have opted to keep them. Some federal officials, including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, also still favor masking in certain settings.

“We continue to endorse universal masking in schools,” Walensky told Reuters this week, adding that federal officials will “continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission—that is essentially everywhere in the country in public indoor settings.”

A recent spike in COVID-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant has dropped across most of the United States in recent days. Hospitalizations from the CCP virus have also fallen significantly over the past two weeks or so, according to federal data.

The moves to simultaneously ease rhetoric on COVID-19 and end certain restrictions come just months before the 2022 midterm elections as Democrats have thin majorities in both houses of Congress. A Jan. 31 Monmouth poll found that at least 70 percent of Americans agree that “it’s time we accept that COVID is here to stay.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fauci-talks-fourth-dose-eventually-ending-restrictions-us

More About That 'Johns Hopkins' Lockdown Study

 A paper being touted as the "Johns Hopkins study" that suggested lockdowns didn't reduce COVID deaths has serious flaws and is being misinterpreted, several researchers said.

Fox News has charged that there's been a "full-on media blackout" of the paper, but science and medical experts argue the real reason for not covering the paper is because of its limitations.

First, the paper is a "working paper" that hasn't been peer-reviewed. Also, it was published on the website of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences in Baltimore.

Study author Steve Hanke, PhD, is the founder of the institute. He is an applied economist, not an epidemiologist, public health expert, or medical doctor. Hanke is also a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Hanke's co-authors are Jonas Herby, MS, a "specialist consultant" at the Center for Political Studies in Copenhagen, and Lars Jonung, PhD, professor emeritus of economics at Lund University in Sweden -- a country that famously opted out of lockdowns and only recommended masks in public. Again, neither of Herby nor Jonung are medical or public health experts.

The trio are "highly regarded economists who have also been extremely anti-lockdown since March 2020," tweeted Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, PhD, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, who posted a thorough critique of the paper.

Its key conclusion was that lockdowns only reduced COVID mortality by 0.2% on average, but several researchers said that number is unreliable.

For starters, experts commenting for the U.K. Science Media Centre warned about the paper's questionable definition of "lockdown." Samir Bhatt, DPhil, a professor of statistics and public health at Imperial College London, said in that statement that the study's "most inconsistent aspect is the reinterpreting of what a lockdown is."

"The authors define lockdown as 'the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention [NPI].' This would make a mask-wearing policy a lockdown," Bhatt stated.

Neil Ferguson, PhD, also of Imperial College London, said in the same statement that by that definition, "the U.K. has been in permanent lockdown since 16th of March 2021, and remains in lockdown -- given it remain compulsory for people with diagnosed COVID-19 to self-isolate for at least 5 days." Ferguson is the director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis and the Jameel Institute at the college.

Questions also have been raised about the quality of the included studies. Of the 34 papers ultimately selected, 12 were "working papers" rather than peer-reviewed science. And 14 studies were conducted by economists rather than public health or medical experts, according to Forbes.

Meyerowitz-Katz highlighted his concerns with the paper's inclusion criteria, as it doesn't include "modelled counterfactuals...the most common method used in infectious disease assessments" which excludes "most epidemiological research from the review," he tweeted.

He added that the "included studies certainly aren't representative of research as a whole on lockdowns -- not even close. Many of the most robust papers on the impact of lockdowns are, by definition, excluded."

"All of this adds up to a very weird review paper," he tweeted. "The authors exclude many of the most rigorous studies, including those that are the entire basis for their meta-analysis in the first place. ... They then take a number of papers, most of which found that restrictive NPIs had a benefit on mortality, and derive some mathematical estimate from the regression coefficients indicating less benefit than the papers suggest."

"All of this together means that the actual numbers produced in the review are largely uninterpretable," he tweeted.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/97056

Time to Kick the CDC Out of Washington

 Although the CDC was included on the White House COVID Response Team to bolster the scientific credibility, it ended up being at the expense of its own.

CDC and its director, Rochelle Walensky, MD, need to reclaim their independence and return to Atlanta. Let the White House continue to tout its pandemic accomplishments, and return the COVID briefings to where they started, conducted by career scientists at CDC headquarters.

The agency's presence in Washington has hindered, not helped, its reputation. Rather than effectively and expertly managing the crisis, the White House COVID Response Team's uneasy marriage of politics and public health has instead fueled distrust of public health guidelines. And this unbalanced partnership has tainted the formerly apolitical health agency.

Leaving the White House COVID Response Team would disentangle the CDC from this politically charged arrangement, and empower it to manage this public health crisis as they've managed every prior public health crisis, from 2009's H1N1 swine flu pandemic to 2014's Ebola outbreak.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it looked like the CDC would once again be leading the country through another public health crisis, with regular briefings on the situation. However, these were discontinued after CDC's former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Nancy Messonnier, MD, told reporters at a press briefing on Feb. 25, 2020 that "disruption to everyday life may be severe" from this "novel coronavirus" in the U.S.

Shortly thereafter, the "White House COVID Task Force" was born under the Trump administration. COVID briefings were no longer handled by the federal public health agency, but by a handful of politicians and federal agency heads.

Including CDC in the White House COVID briefings has muddied its messaging with that of the White House, and led to some uncomfortable moments for Walensky, as well as a dramatic decline in public trust of the agency. Returning the COVID briefings to the CDC would help to rebuild some broken trust with the public.

Unmooring the CDC from the White House sends the message that the pandemic is not over, and the nation's public health agency is focusing their attention on ending it, rather than endorsing whatever the White House says. Separate COVID briefings also might help Walensky to clarify and strengthen her messaging, rather than acting as window dressing in a politically charged venue.

If the CDC held its own briefings, it also might encourage a more active role for HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, who has been practically invisible during the pandemic with the White House running the show. The Association of Health Care Journalists recently penned a letter to Becerra, asking him to hold a press conference open to all reporters for general questions, arguing it would reflect "the promise of government transparency" from this administration.

The White House COVID Response Team should retain some scientific voice in the form of Anthony Fauci, MD, the chief medical adviser to the president. Fauci should return to what he does best: explaining the science behind the latest COVID vaccines and treatments, while leaving the cable network and political show appearances to Walensky or other CDC officials so they can reiterate the public health messages without being so heavily entangled in White House messaging.

The CDC must return to Atlanta to resume the role it was always meant to play: an apolitical arbiter of public health decisions and an advisor to the White House, not its yes-man. Mixing the two together has left a political stench on the agency's credibility. The time has come to dissolve this doomed marriage of convenience.

Rachel Warren, SVP, Editorial

Ian Ingram, Managing Editor

Molly Walker, Deputy Managing Editor

Kristina Fiore, Director, Enterprise & Investigative Reporting

Joyce Frieden, Washington Editor

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/fromtheeditors/97093

Muni union workers sue to stop NYC from firing unvaccinated

 A group of municipal unions — including cops, firefighters and teachers — are suing to block the city from firing unvaccinated workers ahead of a Friday deadline, court papers show.

Over two dozen unions, including the United Federation of Teachers, Uniformed Fire Officers Association and the Police Benevolent Association, say the city’s policy to “summarily” terminate on Friday city employees who lost their bids for exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine violates their right to due process, according to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

The suit says that the mandate doesn’t say that unvaccinated workers should be fired and accommodations, such as weekly COVID-19 testing and working remotely, are still viable.

Over two dozen unions say the policy violates their right to due process.

Matthew McDermott for NY Post

Unions suing include the United Federation of Teachers, Uniformed Fire Officers Association and the Police Benevolent Association.

Jeenah Moon/Pool via REUTERS

“The summary separation of thousands of employees who have already been subjected to months of leave without pay … and would now be swiftly removed from health insurance coverage in the middle of a continuing pandemic should be enjoined,” the suit charges.

The suit says that termination letters went out to roughly 4,000 city workers, many of whom would face “dire” circumstances as they are currently being treated for medical conditions and illness.

“It’s not about the mandate itself or challenging that, it really is about the discrete issue that if they can deprive these workers of their due process rights and terminate them for this non-compliance then they can get around these due process rights in the future on some other issue,” Dina Kolker, one of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit, told The Post.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, speaks at a press conference to discuss the city’s implementation of a vaccine mandate, October 4, 2021.

Stefan Jeremian for NY Post

Termination letters went out to roughly 4,000 city workers.

Paul Martinka for NY Post

The city Law Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

In September, the unions sued the city, claiming the vaccine mandate was unconstitutional. A judge threw out the case a month later.

https://nypost.com/2022/02/09/nyc-union-workers-sue-to-stop-city-from-firing-unvaccinated-employees/

Figure skating medal ceremony delayed with drug test controversy

 The medal ceremony for the team figure skating event at the 2022 Olympics was delayed late Tuesday night with reports circulating that there was a failed drug test among the gold medal-winning Russian team.

The ceremony was pulled from its time slot late Tuesday night over “legal issues,” as reported by the IOC. A source close to the situation told USA Today that a member of the six-person Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team had a positive drug test.

The source did not reveal which skater tested positive. Russia’s team includes Kamila Valieva, 15 (a gold medal favorite in the individual event); Mark Kondratiuk, 18; Anastasia Mishina, 20; Aleksandr Galliamov, 22; Victoria Sinitsina, 26; and Nikita Katsalapov, 30.

Kamila Valieva of Team ROC

Getty Images

Figure skater Mark Kondratiuk of the Russian Olympic Committee

Valery Sharifulin/TASS

The American team was slated for a silver medal, and Japan for a bronze. Should the Russians be disqualified, the Americans could move up to the gold, with Canada (who finished fourth) in line for the bronze.

“Let’s, for the sake of understanding, wait for some explanations either from our sports officials or from the IOC,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, per ESPN.

It’s all speculation at this point, as so far the IOC has yet to officially acknowledge that a participant was directly involved in any wrongdoing. Should there be a disqualification, an appeal would likely follow, delaying the ceremony even further.

Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov of Team Russia skate during the Pair Skating Free Skating Team Event

Getty Images

Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of ROC perform during the figure skating team event

Getty Images

“Everyone is doing absolutely everything that the situation can be resolved as soon as possible,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said, though he also acknowledged that “legal issues can sometimes drag on.”

https://nypost.com/2022/02/09/2022-olympics-delay-in-ice-skating-medals-over-russia-drug-test/

Amazon launching telehealth service nationwide

 Amazon announced Tuesday that it is rolling out its telehealth service nationwide. 

The company said the virtual service, known as Amazon Care, would now be available across the nation, with in-person services available in 20 cities later this year.

Amazon Care, which was first launched in 2019 and grew amid the demand for virtual services brought on by COVID-19, provides on-demand access to various urgent and primary care services.

“Patients are tired of a health care system that doesn't put them first. Our patient-centric service is changing that, one visit at a time,” Kristen Helton, director of Amazon Care, said in the company's announcement.

“We’ve brought our on-demand urgent and primary care services to patients nationwide. As we grow the service, we’ll continue to work with our customers to address their needs."

The tech giant, however, faces many competitors in the virtual health care world, including major insurers who offer remote services like Aetna, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and others.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators last year looked to expand telehealth reimbursement eligibility for additional providers in November.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services already expanded the list of providers eligible for reimbursement for the remote services as a result of the pandemic. 

But the Expanded Telehealth Access Act would further broaden the terms to allow reimbursement for providers like physical therapists, audiologists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists.

“Particularly in our rural communities, telehealth is no longer just an innovative option for accessing services, it has become a vital lifeline to care,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who was involved with the legislation, said in a statement at the time.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/593448-amazon-launching-telehealth-service-nationwide

WHO: COVID-19 cases down 17 percent globally

 Coronavirus cases dropped 17 percent worldwide in the week between Jan. 31 and Feb. 6 when compared with the prior week, though the global death rate increased by 7 percent, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) weekly epidemiological report released Tuesday. 

The report also found that the omicron variant is increasingly dominant, making up almost 97 percent of all cases uploaded to the international virus-tracking platform GISAID in the last 30 days. In the same time period, the delta variant accounted for just over 3 percent of cases.

“The prevalence of the omicron variant has increased globally and is now detected in almost all countries,” the WHO said in the report. “However, many of the countries which reported an early rise in the number of cases due to the omicron variant have now reported a decline in the total number of new cases since the beginning of January 2022.”

Overall, the WHO reported more than 19 million new cases of COVID-19 and just under 68,000 new deaths in the week between Jan. 31 and Feb. 6.

The United States, the country with the highest number of reported cases, also saw a significant decrease in new infections in that time period. The U.S. reported just over 1.87 million new cases, a 50 percent drop from the previous week. Overall, cases in the Americas dropped 36 percent week to week, according to the report.

Other regions also reported a decrease in cases. Europe reported a 7 percent drop, led by countries with declining infection numbers such as Germany and France. However, countries in Eastern Europe, such as Belarus and Russia, reported an increased number of cases when compared with the prior week.

The WHO noted that caution must be taken when interpreting the data, as such tallies are subject to variable underestimation of the actual case and death counts.

The organization also cited limited data on the effectiveness of vaccines against COVID-19 variants, saying that the initial course of vaccines was shown to be less effective in preventing infection, symptomatic disease and severe disease resulting from omicron when compared with past strains of the virus. The report noted that vaccines were found to be more effective in preventing severe disease from the new variant than they were infection or symptomatic disease.

The WHO added that the booster dose was found to increase vaccine effectiveness estimates to over 75 percent for all vaccines for which data is available for up to three to six months post-injection.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/593477-who-covid-19-cases-down-17-percent-globally