China Suggests It Could Maintain 'Zero COVID' Policy For 5 Years

 by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

China has suggested it will maintain its controversial ‘zero COVID’ policy for at least 5 years, eschewing natural immunity and guaranteeing repeated rounds of new lockdowns.

“In the next five years, Beijing will unremittingly grasp the normalization of epidemic prevention and control,” said a story published by Beijing Daily.

The article quoted Cai Qi, the Communist Party of China’s secretary in Beijing and a former mayor of the city, who said that ‘zero COVID’ approach would remain in place for 5 years.

After the story prompted alarm, reference to “five years” was removed from the piece and the hashtag related to it was censored by social media giant Weibo.

“Monday’s announcement and the subsequent amendment sparked anger and confusion among Beijing residents online,” reports the Guardian.

“Most commenters appeared unsurprised at the prospect of the system continuing for another half-decade, but few were supportive of the idea.”

Although western experts severely doubt official numbers coming out of China, Beijing claimed success in limiting COVID deaths by enforcing the policy throughout 2021.

However, this meant that China never achieved anything like herd immunity, and at one stage the Omicron variant caused more more coronavirus cases in Shanghai in four weeks than in the previous two years of the entire pandemic.

Back in May, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus suggested that China would be better off if it abandoned the policy, but Beijing refused to budge.

As we previously highlighted, the only way of enforcing a ‘zero COVID’ policy is via brutal authoritarianism.

In Shanghai, children were separated from their parents in quarantine facilities and others were left without urgent treatment like kidney dialysis.

Panic buying of food also became a common occurrence as the anger threatened to spill over into widespread civil unrest.

Former UK government COVID-19 advisor Neil Ferguson previously admitted that he thought “we couldn’t get away with” imposing Communist Chinese-style lockdowns in Europe because they were too draconian, and yet it happened anyway.

“It’s a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought,” said Ferguson.

“And then Italy did it. And we realised we could,” he added.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/china-suggests-it-could-maintain-zero-covid-policy-5-years

EU begins review of Bavarian Nordic's vaccine for monkeypox

 The European Union's drug regulator said on Tuesday it has started a review to extend the use of Bavarian Nordic's smallpox vaccine to prevent monkeypox disease as well.

The Danish biotech's Imvanex vaccine is approved for smallpox in Europe, but has been provided for off-label use to treat monkeypox cases.

More than 3,400 confirmed monkeypox cases and one death were reported to the World Health Organization till last week, with a majority of them from Europe.

Bavarian Nordic's shot has already been cleared for both smallpox and monkeypox in the United States, where it is called Jynneos.

The decision to start the EU review is based on results from laboratory studies suggesting that the vaccine triggers the production of antibodies that target the monkeypox virus, the European Medicines Agency said.

The regulator also advised importing the vaccine from the United States to supplement tight supply in Europe as infection rates rise across the bloc.

Earlier in June, the European Union signed an agreement with Bavarian Nordic for the supply of about 110,000 doses of its vaccines against monkeypox.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/BAVARIAN-NORDIC-A-S-1412846/news/EU-begins-review-of-Bavarian-Nordic-s-vaccine-for-monkeypox-40843730/

Soligenix Shares Rise on FDA Clearance

 Shares of Soligenix Inc. gained 17% to 65 cents in premarket trading Tuesday after the company said regulators had cleared an investigational new drug application for a clinical trial examining its psoriasis treatment.

The company said the Food and Drug Administration had cleared the application for a Phase 2a trial designed to evaluate SGX302 as a topically applied treatment for mild to moderate psoriasis.

The trial will be a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of up to 32 adults with stable psoriasis covering between 2% and 30% of their bodies. Treatment will last for up to 18 weeks, Soligenix said.

Patient enrollment is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2022.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/SOLIGENIX-INC-32430006/news/Soligenix-Shares-Rise-17-on-FDA-Clearance-40844320/

Beyond Air Shares Surge on FDA Approval of Nitric Oxide Generator

 Beyond Air Inc. shares are up 37% in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company said it received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for a nitric oxide generator and delivery system.

The biopharmaceutical company said the first phase of its U.S. commercial launch has begun and that it believes the product will transform the way nitric oxide is used in hospitals.

The company expects to receive a CE Mark in Europe during the second half of the year.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/BEYOND-AIR-INC-64309653/news/Beyond-Air-Shares-Surge-37-on-FDA-Approval-of-Nitric-Oxide-Generator-40847796/

U.S. White House To Announce Monkeypox Vaccine Strategy As U.S. Cases Climb

 WHITE HOUSE TO ANNOUNCE MONKEYPOX VACCINE STRATEGY AS U.S. CASES CLIMB - WAPO Source text: https://wapo.st/3a6Mfxs

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/latest/U-S-White-House-To-Announce-Monkeypox-Vaccine-Strategy-As-U-S-Cases-Climb-WaPo--40848180/

CVS removes purchase limit on Plan B pills

 CVS is removing the purchase limit it had put on emergency contraceptive pills following last week’s Supreme Court ruling, the chain said Tuesday.

The reversal comes as sales have dipped back to normal levels and will be made both in stores and online over the next 24 hours, CVS said.

The limit on the emergency contraceptives, commonly known as morning after pills and sold under names including Plan B, had gone into effect on Saturday. It prevented customers from buying more than three at a time to “ensure equitable access,” the drug store chain said earlier. The cap was put in place after the chain said it experienced a “sharp increase” in sales of the pills following the Supreme Court’s Friday decision to overturn the landmark ruling that had constitutionally protected the right to abortion for nearly 50 years.

As of late Tuesday, a purchase limit of three was still in place online for both Plan B One Step and Aftera on the chain’s site.

A limit on emergency contraceptives was also in place at Amazon, the company confirmed to CNBC. A Walmart representative said Tuesday that many of the chain’s products have online purchase limits in place that may change “during times of fluctuating demand.” Walgreens does not have a purchase limit in place for emergency contraceptives, a representative said Monday.

Emergency contraceptive pills are different from medication abortion, or abortion pills, which require a prescription and involve taking two different pills within 10 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/28/cvs-to-remove-purchase-limit-on-plan-b-pills-says-sales-have-returned-to-normal.html

Juul seeks to extend stay on FDA ban

 Juul Labs is seeking to extend a temporary stay on the Food and Drug Administration’s ban of its e-cigarettes, according to a court filing Tuesday.

Juul said in the filing that the agency overlooked more than 6,000 pages of data that it provided about the aerosols generated by heating the liquid in its pods and that users ultimately inhale. The FDA had said last week the company’s application for market approval gave insufficient or conflicting data about the potential risks of using its products, including whether potentially harmful chemicals could leak from Juul pods.

A representative for the FDA declined to comment on the filing, saying the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.

“Had FDA done a more thorough review (like it did for other applicants), it would have seen data showing that those chemicals are not observable in the aerosol that JUUL users inhale,” the company said in the filing with the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Juul also cited a “backdrop of immense political pressure” that it said influenced the FDA’s decision. It said in its filing that taking its products off store shelves, even temporarily, would permanently damage its brand and that its customers would either use competitors’ products or return to traditional cigarettes.

Over the last year, rival e-cigarette makers British American Tobacco and NJOY have won approvals from the FDA for their e-cigarettes, although the agency rejected some of the flavored products submitted by those companies. The agency said it approved those companies’ tobacco-flavored products because they proved they could benefit adult smokers and outweighed the risk to underage users.

Juul had been the market leader in e-cigarettes since 2018, according to Euromonitor International. As of 2020, the company held 54.7% share of the $9.38 billion U.S. e-vapor market.

The company said that no other rival had their application denied for similar reasons and that the FDA offered no explanation for why it held Juul to a different standard. Juul had been seeking approval for its vaping device and tobacco- and menthol-flavored pods.

Last Thursday, the FDA denied to authorize the products and said the company had to stop selling its products effective immediately. The next day, the Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals granted the emergency request for a stay, pending its appeal of the decision.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/28/juul-seeks-to-extend-stay-on-fda-ban-saying-agency-did-not-evaluate-all-its-evidence.html