Target to $65 from $75
Monday, February 28, 2022
US Trucker Convoy Swells As It Moves Across Country To DC
by Enrico Trigoso and Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
The largest truck convoy in the United States has grown in size since departing California and is attracting thousands of supporters as it makes its way to the East Coast.
The People’s Convoy started with around 150 vehicles and has grown to over 250 as it made its way through Texas and Oklahoma over the weekend.
More vehicles have joined for stretches of time. That, along with the length of the convoy, makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly how many participants it has.
“It varies. Let’s just say there are like 50 truckers that know the convoy is coming through and might have been going through this area. They’ll stop at an exit and they’ll wait for the convoy to come by, and then they’ll join it. They might join it for 200 miles or 100 miles, and then they keep going wherever they were going because they were heading in the same direction as us,” Maureen Steele, one of the convoy’s organizers, told The Epoch Times.
“And then there are cars that join … and some of them go for 30 miles, some go for 100, some for 200, and then they drop off.”
Collin Walters joined the convoy for about 25 miles.
“This is a movement that everybody should be supporting. This is a national event; this is making history,” Walters told The Epoch Times.
“It’s pretty exciting,” he added.
Kathy Walters, his aunt, said she opposes COVID-19 vaccine mandates like the ones the federal government imposed. She sees them as violating Americans’ “free will.”
Convoy organizers say they are against vaccine mandates, the federal government’s continuation of a national emergency declaration over COVID-19, and other actions from President Joe Biden’s administration.
Convoy supporters in Texas on Feb. 26, 2022. (Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times)
Truckers part of The People’s Convoy drive past an overpass with supporters in Oklahoma on Feb. 27, 2022. (Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times)
Convoy supporters wave American flags by the side of the road in Oklahoma on Feb. 27, 2022. (Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times)
Convoy supporters in Oklahoma on Feb. 27, 2022. (Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times)
Convoy supporters in Oklahoma on Feb. 27, 2022. (Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times)
Organizers have been sending drones up periodically to capture estimates of vehicles traveling with the group, which has drawn thousands of people to roadsides as the convoy passes by.
Chuck Frantz showed up to display his support for the convoy in Weatherford, Oklahoma.
“This is getting people’s attention,” Frantz told The Epoch Times on a highway overpass. He described the mandates, some of which have been struck down by courts, as unconstitutional.
A spokesman for the Amarillo, Texas Police Department, which worked to make sure the convoy’s passage was smooth, told The Epoch Times that there were no issues.
KTUL-TV reported that several vehicles in the convoy were involved in a crash about 15 miles west of Big Cabin, Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol, which didn’t respond to requests for comment, told the broadcaster that the cause of the crash is under investigation.
The convoy stopped in Big Bend, Oklahoma on Sunday night and was prepared to travel to Missouri on Feb. 28. It is on track to arrive in Washington, where authorities are reinstalling fencing around the Capitol, on March 5.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-trucker-convoy-swells-it-moves-across-country-dc
Seelos starts Phase 2/3 for ALS candidate
Seelos Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: SEEL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of therapies for central nervous system disorders and rare diseases, today announced the dosing of the first participants in its registrational Phase II/III trial studying the investigational treatment SLS-005 (trehalose injection, 90.5 mg/mL for intravenous infusion) for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) on the HEALEY ALS Platform Trial.
"Initiating this trial is a major achievement for Seelos and we are honored to be part of the HEALEY ALS Platform Trial. We look forward to offering this investigational therapy to people suffering with this debilitating disease," said Raj Mehra Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of Seelos.
"We are thankful to all the patients with ALS who participate in the HEALEY ALS Platform Trial and help develop new treatments in a much faster and more efficient approach. Partnering with Seelos to determine the efficacy of SLS-005 in this platform trial will give answers sooner because of the sharing of data and infrastructure with other regimens in the platform trial," added Merit Cudkowicz, MD, director of the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital, Chief of the Department of Neurology, and Principal Investigator of the HEALEY ALS Platform Trial.
Seelos' Phase II/III trial (NCT05136885) plans to enroll 160 participants with either familial or sporadic ALS in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Participants will be randomized 3:1 (drug: placebo) and studied with a primary endpoint measuring change from baseline on Revised Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS-R) score at 24 weeks. Secondary endpoints will also be measured at 24 weeks, including change from baseline in slow vital capacity, muscle strength, quality of life measurements as well as additional signs of disease progression.
If you are a patient (PALS) or caregiver of someone with ALS (CALS) and would like more information, please visit: https://seelostherapeutics.com/patients-and-caregivers/
Some Americans Welcome New CDC Mask Guidance, Others Wary
Grace Thomas is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 but still not ready to take off her mask, especially around the kids at the home day care she runs in Chicago.
But whether the children continue to wear masks remains to be seen after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that healthy people in most areas of the country can safely stop wearing masks as cases continue to fall.
Thomas, 62, plans to ask parents to have their children wear masks to prevent the day care from being a potential source of transmission, but "you can't make them wear masks if they don't want to," she said.
Many Americans, including parents of school children, have been clamoring for an end to masking while others remain wary that the pandemic could throw a new curveball. Now, states, cities and school districts are assessing Friday's guidance to determine whether it's safe to stop mask-wearing — long after others threw out such mandates and many Americans ignored them.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said that the statewide school mask mandate will be lifted Monday in response the new guidance, although Chicago Public Schools officials said they will continue to require masks "to maintain health and safety measures."
Los Angeles on Friday began allowing people who are vaccinated to remove their masks indoors, and Washington, D.C., had already said it would end its mask mandate on Monday. Washington state and Oregon plan to lift indoor mask mandates in late March.
But the issue still remains politically fraught: Florida's governor on Thursday announced new recommendations called "Buck the CDC" that discourage mask wearing — even though the CDC says the state still has wide areas at high levels of concern.
Christine Bruhn, 79, a retired food science professor at the University of California at Davis, said she'll only take off her mask if she thinks it's safe, usually around vaccinated friends. When she's around a large group of strangers, "I'm wearing a mask," Bruhn said.
"I have been vaccinated and boosted but I don't want to get sick," said Bruhn, who also said she'll continue crossing the street to keep her distance from people without masks if she sees any of them walking toward her.
American Medical Association President Gerald E. Harmon said Friday that he would continue to wear a mask in indoor public settings and urged "all Americans to consider doing the same" because millions are susceptible to severe illness or too young to be vaccinated.
Still, many people appear to be done with masking.
Steve Kelly, a manager of Kilroy's Bar & Grill in downtown Indianapolis, said it seems that neither employees nor customers think much about COVID since Indiana lifted a mask mandate for restaurants.
"It doesn't seem like anybody is wearing masks," he said of his customers, though a few employees still do. And he said people rarely get upset anymore.
"My daughter is 13 and she wears a mask. It's her choice," he said. "Nobody bothers her about it and she wouldn't care if they did."
In central Illinois' Effingham County, mask-wearing — and the animosity between those who do and don't — has plummeted, said David Campbell, vice chairman of the county board. He said about the only places he sees people wearing masks are hospitals and doctors' offices.
"Eighty-five to ninety percent of the people you see on the street, in stores, restaurants, aren't wearing them," said Campbell, 61. "You used to hear people say, 'Why aren't you wearing masks?' but you don't anymore."
Under the new guidance, the CDC says people can stop wearing masks if they live in counties where the coronavirus poses a low or medium threat to hospitals — accounting for more than 70% of the U.S. population.
The agency still advises people, including schoolchildren, to wear masks where the risk of COVID-19 is high, in about 37% of U.S. counties, where about 28% of Americans live. And those with COVID-19 symptoms or who test positive should wear masks, the agency said.
The recommendations do not change the requirement to wear masks on public transportation and in airports, train stations and bus stations, but the guidelines for other indoor spaces aren't binding, meaning cities and institutions may set their own rules.
Two of the nation's largest teachers' unions weighed in, with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten calling the guidance "long-needed new metrics for a safe off-ramp from universal masking." She said many students and teachers have struggled with COVID-19 restrictions.
But National Education Association President Becky Pringle urged school districts to "act cautiously" and seek input from local educators before making any decisions to end mask-wearing.
Chicago high school teacher Sharon Holmes said she'll continue to wear a mask while teaching and outside the classroom.
"My partner and my daughter both have asthma," said the 53-year-old Holmes. "I just don't feel safe yet, personally."
Efforts to Vaccinate Medicaid Enrollees Against COVID Run Into Obstacles
Medicaid enrollees continue to get vaccinated against covid at far lower rates than the general population despite vigorous outreach efforts by government officials and private organizations to get low-income people inoculated, according to data from several states.
That leaves many Medicaid enrollees — who tend to be sicker than those with private insurance — at higher risk for severe illness, hospitalization, or death from the virus.
Nationally, more than 215 million Americans — including 75% of adults and 57% of children ages 12 to 17 — are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among children 5 to 11 years old, who have only been eligible for a shot since early November, about 25% have been fully vaccinated. A vaccine has not yet been authorized for children younger than 5.
There is no nationwide compilation of how many Medicaid enrollees have been vaccinated.
But in Utah — one of a handful of states that publish that data — fewer than half of adult Medicaid enrollees are fully vaccinated.
Disparities exist in every age and racial/ethnic group that the state publishes data on. For example, about 40% of Black Medicaid enrollees are vaccinated, compared with 56% of Black people overall. Among Hispanics, 38% of Medicaid enrollees are vaccinated, compared with 51% of the overall Hispanic population. (Hispanic people can be of any race or combination of races.) Among children 12 to 18, about 35% of Medicaid enrollees are vaccinated, compared with 57% overall.
Officials at Molina Healthcare, which is one of Utah's four Medicaid managed-care plans and has about 90,000 members, said overcoming resistance to the covid vaccine has been difficult. One of the biggest hurdles is getting in touch with members. Molina officials told a Utah Medicaid advisory board in January that they can't reach 40% of their members because they don't have correct addresses or phone numbers.
"It's worrying," said Brian Roach, division services manager at the Utah Department of Health, which oversees the federal-state health insurance program for low-income residents. "We still see little increases every month, but it is not enough to close the gap," he added. "There has been no silver bullet to solve this issue."
Roach said he is not surprised Medicaid health plans have difficulty reaching members. "The Medicaid population is pretty transient, and people change jobs and move," he said.
Under federal rules implemented for the covid public health emergency, states can't remove people from the Medicaid rolls if their income changes, so enrollees have generally not had to check in with the state to renew their eligibility. As a result, states might not have updated contact information.
Personal contact with someone trusted by the enrollee is crucial to persuading members to get vaccinated. Harley Jones, a senior manager at Project Hope, a global humanitarian relief group, said unvaccinated people often need to hear from someone they know, such as a clinic nurse, to persuade them to get the shots. Since last summer, the nonprofit has been using a federal grant to help free health clinics in Texas boost vaccination rates.
"It's been a year since the mass vaccination clinics, and this is a slow slog," he said. "What works is finding the trusted voice for people who is from their community, knows the culture, and that one-on-one can take hours or a month to pay off."
The federal government has authorized nearly $400 million for vaccination outreach efforts to underserved communities.
Utah's difficulty getting Medicaid enrollees vaccinated is mirrored in other states.
In Ohio, 54% of adult Medicaid enrollees are at least partly vaccinated, compared with 73% of adults in the general state population.
Washington state has vaccinated 43% of its Medicaid enrollees 5 and older, compared with 76% of all state residents in that age group.
In Virginia, 41% of Medicaid enrollees 5 and older are vaccinated, compared with 76% of state residents in that age group.
In California, about 54% of Medicaid members 5 and older are at least partly vaccinated, compared with 81% of state residents in that age group.
Dr. Christopher Chen, medical director for the Washington Medicaid program, said that since Medicaid enrollees are more likely to be in poorer health, they are more likely to benefit from the vaccine to prevent complications from covid. "It's definitely something to be concerned about," he said.
Washington, he noted, increased pay to doctors and pharmacists to vaccinate Medicaid enrollees and agreed to pay doctors to counsel patients about the vaccine. The state also gave its Medicaid health plans access to data showing which of their members had not been immunized so they could reach out to those people.
The University of Alabama received a $1 million federal grant last July to increase vaccination rates in an 18-county rural region in the southern part of the state where African Americans make up the majority of the population. Under the plan, community health workers canvass the region to inform residents about the benefit of the vaccine. The initiative also provides a $15 incentive payment for getting a shot.
Since last summer, many of the counties have seen vaccination rates double. But because the rates were so low to begin with, most of the area still has fewer than half of residents vaccinated.
Dr. Hee Yun Lee, who oversees the grant and is associate dean for research at the University of Alabama School of Social Work, said many people lack easy access to shots because they don't have cars and mistrust of vaccines runs strong.
Another obstacle has been skepticism from some pastors, who told congregations not to fear covid, Lee said. They also incorrectly told congregants that the disease can't afflict them while they attend church, she said. A gathering of more than 300 people in a church recently led to an outbreak.
"There are a lot of misconceptions about the virus here," she said.
Mersana 2021 results and update
UPLIFT on track to complete enrollment Q3 2022, UP-NEXT to initiate in Q2 2022, and UPGRADE on track for 2H 2022 interim data readout
XMT-1660 and XMT-2056 expected to enter clinic mid-2022
Research collaboration and license agreement with Janssen leverages Mersana’s ADC expertise and Dolasynthen platform
Strengthened financial position with $40 million upfront payment from Janssen, $45.6 million in proceeds from strategic use of ATM with participation from long-term investors, and up to $100 million from line of credit
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