THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 12, 2021 AT 6:15 PM
Paul Plante says:
And before I go further in here, let me make it clear that in addition to being a parent and grandparent, I am speaking as someone who made the arduous climb up the ladder of responsibility in the field of public health at the state level, which is where the public’s health is supposed to be not only maintained, but improved, from a technician doing field studies and gathering evidence in the 1960s to becoming certified by examination at the associate level as a public health engineer in the state of New York, where pursuant to 10 NYCRR 11.100, “The term public health engineer shall mean a person who applies engineering principles for the detection, evaluation, control and management of those factors in the environment which influence the public’s health,” a climb that takes years of patience and diligence to make, given you first have to become educated as an engineer, and then licensed as a professional engineer pursuant to §7201 of the New York State Education Law titled “Definition of practice of engineering,” which profession is defined as performing professional service such as consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning, design or supervision of projects wherein the safeguarding of life, health and property is concerned, when such service or work requires the application of engineering principles and data, a process itself that can take nine years or more to accomplish.
As an associate level public health engineer, I was personally responsible for protecting, safeguarding, maintaining and improving the health of 154,000 people in a health district in upstate New York, a responsibility I took quite seriously then, and now, although I no longer actively practice in that field.
As an associate public health engineer, I was personally responsible to the people of the State of New York and ultimately, to the Commissioner of Health of the state of New York, for providing advice and guidance to local officials and the general public in regard to environmental health problems and the measures necessary for improvement and compliance with legal requirements, as well as providing leadership in the health district in the promotion of public health through the application of environmental health practices, and in addition, I was responsible for the enforcement of the provisions of the Public Health Law in the state of New York, a law the enforcement of which Joe Biden as president has no control over whatsoever, as well as local and State Sanitary Codes in relation to environmental health matters.
That is all pursuant to Section 3 of ARTICLE XVII of the New York State Constitution, entitled SOCIAL WELFARE, which section states thusly:
§3. The protection and promotion of the health of the inhabitants of the state are matters of public concern and provision therefor shall be made by the state and by such of its subdivisions and in such manner, and by such means as the legislature shall from time to time determine. (New. Adopted by Constitutional Convention of 1938 and approved by vote of the people November 8, 1938.)
I would further note that Section 1 of ARTICLE XII of the New York State Constitution provides in clear and unequivocal language as follows:
§1. The defense and protection of the state and of the United States is an obligation of all persons within the state.
Which takes us back to the transcript of Joe’s speech to the nation on 9 September 2-21, where we have some real crazy talk from Joe Biden, as follows:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Remarks by President Biden on Fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic
SEPTEMBER 09, 2021
5:02 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: As your President, I’m announcing tonight a new plan to require more Americans to be vaccinated, to combat those blocking public health.
end quotes
To “combat” those “blocking” public health?
What on earth is Joe Biden talking about there with his threat to “combat” people who are American citizens in the United States of America, where the word “combat” means a fight or contest between individuals or groups?
With regard to protection and promotion of the public’s health in the United States of America, Joe Biden is the equivalent of a “minister without portfolio,” where in politics, a portfolio is a minister’s responsibility for a particular area of a government’s activities.
So Joe has absolutely no jurisdiction, authority or discretion to be sticking his nose into what is clearly not his business.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-422344
AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 13, 2021 AT 10:33 AM
Paul Plante says:
And while we are on that important subject of authority and jurisdiction with respect to public health threats or concerns or emergencies in the United States of America, by way of background, let’s first go to the CDC’s own website for the subject of the Health Alert Network that exists in the United States of America, where we have as follows:
CDC’s Health Alert Network (HAN) is CDC’s primary method of sharing cleared information about urgent public health incidents with public information officers; federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local public health practitioners; clinicians; and public health laboratories.
CDC’s HAN collaborates with federal, state, territorial, tribal, and city/county partners to develop protocols and stakeholder relationships that will ensure a robust interoperable platform for the rapid distribution of public health information.
end quotes
If one carefully scans that information, what one does not find in there is Joe Biden’s name, nor does one see the office of president listed anywhere on that list, for the simple reason that it is not the job of an American president who is not qualified as a public health professional to be involved in public health matters which are best left to public health professionals, not hack politicians of limited intelligence who would only get in the way and make a mess of things.
And that brings us to a key date in our time line in here, that being January 8, 2020, which is the date the CDC used the Health Alert Network to issue an alert on COVID, as follows:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is an official CDC Health Advisory
Distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network
January 8, 2020, 1615 ET (04:15 PM ET)
CDCHAN-00424
Summary
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is closely monitoring a reported cluster of pneumonia of unknown etiology (PUE) with possible epidemiologic links to a large wholesale fish and live animal market in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China.
An outbreak investigation by local officials is ongoing in China; the World Health Organization (WHO) is the lead international public health agency.
Currently, there are no known U.S. cases nor have cases been reported in countries other than China.
CDC has established an Incident Management Structure to optimize domestic and international coordination if additional public health actions are required.
This HAN Advisory informs state and local health departments and health care providers about this outbreak and requests that health care providers ask patients with severe respiratory disease about travel history to Wuhan City.
Wuhan City is a major transportation hub about 700 miles south of Beijing with a population of more than 11 million people.
Background
According to a report from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, as of January 5, 2020, the national authorities in China have reported 59 patients with PUE to WHO.
The patients had symptom onset dates from December 12 through December 29, 2019.
Patients involved in the cluster reportedly have had fever, dyspnea, and bilateral lung infiltrates on chest radiograph.
Of the 59 cases, seven are critically ill, and the remaining patients are in stable condition.
No deaths have been reported and no health care providers have been reported to be ill.
The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has not reported human-to-human transmission.
Reports indicate that some of the patients were vendors at the Wuhan South China Seafood City (South China Seafood Wholesale Market) where, in addition to seafood, chickens, bats, marmots, and other wild animals are sold, suggesting a possible zoonotic origin to the outbreak.
The market has been closed for cleaning and disinfection.
Local authorities have reported negative laboratory test results for seasonal influenza, avian influenza, adenovirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV), and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) among patients associated with this cluster.
Additional laboratory testing is ongoing to determine the source of the outbreak.
Health authorities are monitoring more than 150 contacts of patients for illness.
CDC has issued a level 1 travel notice (“practice usual precautions”) for this destination. (https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/wa … onia-china).
On January 5, 2020, WHO posted an update on this situation, including an early risk assessment, which is available at: https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january- … n/external icon.
Recommendations for Health Care Providers
1. Providers should consider pneumonia related to the cluster for patients with severe respiratory symptoms who traveled to Wuhan since December 1, 2019 and had onset of illness within two weeks of returning, and who do not have another known diagnosis that would explain their illness.
Providers should notify infection control personnel and local and state health departments immediately if any patients meet these criteria.
State health departments should notify CDC after identifying a case under investigation by calling CDC’s Emergency Operations Center at (770) 488-7100.
2. Multiple respiratory tract specimens should be collected from persons with infections suspected to be associated with this cluster, including nasopharyngeal, nasal, and throat swabs.
Patients with severe respiratory disease also should have lower respiratory tract specimens collected, if possible.
Consider saving urine, stool, serum, and respiratory pathology specimens if available.
3. Although the etiology and transmissibility have yet to be determined, and to date, no human-to-human transmission has been reported and no health care providers have been reported ill, CDC currently recommends a cautious approach to symptomatic patients with a history of travel to Wuhan City.
Such patients should be asked to wear a surgical mask as soon as they are identified and be evaluated in a private room with the door closed.
Personnel entering the room to evaluate the patient should use contact precautions and wear an N95 disposable facepiece respirator.
For patients admitted for inpatient care, contact and airborne isolation precautions, in addition to standard precautions, are recommended until further information becomes available.
For additional information see:
https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/gu … index.html.
This guidance will be updated as more information becomes available.
For More Information
1-800-CDC-INFO
https://www.cdc.gov/cdc-info/index.html
CDC’s Emergency Operations Center: 770-488-7100
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) protects people’s health and safety by preventing and controlling diseases and injuries; enhances health decisions by providing credible information on critical health issues; and promotes healthy living through strong partnerships with local, national and international organizations.
This message was distributed to state and local health officers, state and local epidemiologists, state and local laboratory directors, public information officers, HAN coordinators, and clinician organizations.
Page last reviewed: January 8, 2020
end quotes
So there is where the COVID clock started ticking, with that alert, and again, if one looks at the distribution, one notices that it went to public health professionals, not a politician in the white house, because politics are not supposed to interfere with public health matters.
Then, nine (9) days later, on 17 January 2020, the NYS Department of Health issued the following notice about COVID, to wit:
TO: Healthcare Providers, Healthcare Facilities, Clinical Laboratories, and Local Health Departments (LHDs)
FROM: New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH)
Bureau of Communicable Disease Control (BCDC)
SUMMARY
• The enclosed Health Update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides updated information about an outbreak of a 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China that began in December 2019.
• CDC will today begin screening travelers on direct and indirect flights from Wuhan to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), San Francisco International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.
• NYSDOH is working closely with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and other public health partners to support CDC’s efforts at JFK.
• In accordance with the current requirements and expectations from the 2014 Commissioner’s Order, healthcare providers and facilities are required to collect a travel history for patients presenting with febrile illness and remain aware of current outbreaks overseas.
• As described in CDC’s Health Update, patients who meet either of the following criteria should be evaluated as a person under investigation (PUI) in association with the 2019-nCoV outbreak.
o Fever AND symptoms of lower respiratory illness (e.g., cough, shortness of breath) and in the last 14 days before symptom onset had:
▪ A history of travel from Wuhan City, China OR
▪ Close contact with a person who is under investigation for 2019-nCOV while that person was ill.
o Fever OR symptoms of lower respiratory illness (e.g., cough, shortness of breath) and in the last 14 days before symptom onset:
▪ Had close contact with an ill laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV patient.
• Providers caring for patients who meet either PUI criteria should follow CDC’s recommended infection prevention and control guidelines and immediately notify the local health department (LHD) where the patient resides.
Notification is required under the New York State Sanitary Code (10NYCRR 2.10).
o Providers who are unable to reach the LHD can contact the NYSDOH Bureau of Communicable Disease Control at 518-473-4439 during business hours or the NYSDOH Public Health Duty Officer at 1-866-881-2809 evenings, weekends, and holidays.
• NYSDOH will assist providers in determining and accessing appropriate laboratory testing for respiratory pathogens and if indicated, 2019-nCoV. Specimen collection and shipping instructions will also be provided.
end quotes
So there we see the Health Alert Network working as it is supposed to.
As to the CDC guidance on 17 January 2020, it reads as follows:
HEALTH ADVISORY: INTERIM GUIDANCE FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND FACILITIES IN NEW YORK STATE ON THE OUTBREAK OF 2019 NOVEL CORONAVIRUS (2019 n C o V)
This is an official CDC HEALTH UPDATE
Distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network
January 17, 2020, 2030 ET (8:30 PM ET)
CDCHAN-00426
Update and Interim Guidance on Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China
Summary
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to closely monitor an outbreak of a 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China that began in December 2019.
CDC has established an Incident Management System to coordinate a domestic and international public health response.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses.
Some cause illness in people; numerous other coronaviruses circulate among animals, including camels, cats, and bats.
Rarely, animal coronaviruses can evolve and infect people and then spread between people such as has been seen with Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/index.html) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) (https://www.cdc.gov/sars/index.html).
Chinese authorities report most patients in the Wuhan City outbreak have been epidemiologically linked to a large seafood and animal market, suggesting a possible zoonotic origin to the outbreak.
Chinese authorities additionally report that they are monitoring several hundred healthcare workers who are caring for outbreak patients; no spread of this virus from patients to healthcare personnel has been reported to date.
Chinese authorities are reporting no ongoing spread of this virus in the community, but they cannot rule out that some limited person-to-person spread may be occurring.
China has reported that two of the patients have died, including one with pre-existing medical conditions.
Chinese health officials publicly posted the genetic sequence of the 2019-nCoV on January 12, 2020.
This will facilitate identification of infections with this virus and development of specific diagnostic tests.
Thailand and Japan have confirmed additional cases of 2019-nCoV in travelers from Wuhan, China.
It is possible that more cases will be identified in the coming days.
This is an ongoing investigation and given previous experience with MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, it is possible that person-person spread may occur.
There is much more to learn about the transmissibility, severity, and other features associated with 2019-nCoV as the investigations in China, Thailand, and Japan continue.
Additional information about this novel virus is needed to better inform population risk.
This HAN Update provides a situational update and guidance to state and local health departments and healthcare providers that supersedes guidance in CDC’s HAN Advisory 424 distributed on January 8, 2020.
This HAN Update adds guidance for evaluation of patients under investigation (PUI) for 2019-nCoV, prevention and infection control guidance, including the addition of an eye protection recommendation, and additional information on specimen collection.
Background
An outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan City was initially reported to WHO on December 31, 2019.
Chinese health authorities have confirmed more than 40 infections with a novel coronavirus as the cause of the outbreak.
Reportedly, most patients had epidemiological links to a large seafood and animal market.
The market was closed on January 1, 2020.
Currently, Chinese health authorities report no community spread of this virus, and no transmission among healthcare personnel caring for outbreak patients.
No additional cases of infection with 2019-nCoV have been identified in China since January 3, 2020.
On January 13, 2020 public health officials in Thailand confirmed detection of a human infection with 2019-nCoV in a traveler from Wuhan, China.
This was the first confirmed case of 2019-nCoV documented outside China.
On January 17, 2020 a second case was confirmed in Thailand, also in a returned traveler from Wuhan City.
On January 15, 2020 health officials in Japan confirmed 2019-nCoV infection in a returned traveler from Wuhan City.
These persons had onset dates after January 3, 2020.
These cases did not report visiting the large seafood and animal market to which many cases in China have been linked.
On January 11, 2020, CDC updated the level 1 travel health notice (“practice usual precautions”) for Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China with additional information (originally issued on January 6, 2020):
end quotes
So what happened after that?
Where did things go south?
Where did the wheels come off?
Stay tuned, and we shall soon find out, and the short answer is that the wheels started coming off the day that hack politicians inserted themselves into the process, like Joe Biden is doing now, and essentially took it over.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-422809
Paul Plante says:
And while we are on that important subject of authority and jurisdiction with respect to public health threats or concerns or emergencies in the United States of America, by way of background, let’s first go to the CDC’s own website for the subject of the Health Alert Network that exists in the United States of America, where we have as follows:
CDC’s Health Alert Network (HAN) is CDC’s primary method of sharing cleared information about urgent public health incidents with public information officers; federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local public health practitioners; clinicians; and public health laboratories.
CDC’s HAN collaborates with federal, state, territorial, tribal, and city/county partners to develop protocols and stakeholder relationships that will ensure a robust interoperable platform for the rapid distribution of public health information.
end quotes
If one carefully scans that information, what one does not find in there is Joe Biden’s name, nor does one see the office of president listed anywhere on that list, for the simple reason that it is not the job of an American president who is not qualified as a public health professional to be involved in public health matters which are best left to public health professionals, not hack politicians of limited intelligence who would only get in the way and make a mess of things.
And that brings us to a key date in our time line in here, that being January 8, 2020, which is the date the CDC used the Health Alert Network to issue an alert on COVID, as follows:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is an official CDC Health Advisory
Distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network
January 8, 2020, 1615 ET (04:15 PM ET)
CDCHAN-00424
Summary
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is closely monitoring a reported cluster of pneumonia of unknown etiology (PUE) with possible epidemiologic links to a large wholesale fish and live animal market in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China.
An outbreak investigation by local officials is ongoing in China; the World Health Organization (WHO) is the lead international public health agency.
Currently, there are no known U.S. cases nor have cases been reported in countries other than China.
CDC has established an Incident Management Structure to optimize domestic and international coordination if additional public health actions are required.
This HAN Advisory informs state and local health departments and health care providers about this outbreak and requests that health care providers ask patients with severe respiratory disease about travel history to Wuhan City.
Wuhan City is a major transportation hub about 700 miles south of Beijing with a population of more than 11 million people.
Background
According to a report from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, as of January 5, 2020, the national authorities in China have reported 59 patients with PUE to WHO.
The patients had symptom onset dates from December 12 through December 29, 2019.
Patients involved in the cluster reportedly have had fever, dyspnea, and bilateral lung infiltrates on chest radiograph.
Of the 59 cases, seven are critically ill, and the remaining patients are in stable condition.
No deaths have been reported and no health care providers have been reported to be ill.
The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has not reported human-to-human transmission.
Reports indicate that some of the patients were vendors at the Wuhan South China Seafood City (South China Seafood Wholesale Market) where, in addition to seafood, chickens, bats, marmots, and other wild animals are sold, suggesting a possible zoonotic origin to the outbreak.
The market has been closed for cleaning and disinfection.
Local authorities have reported negative laboratory test results for seasonal influenza, avian influenza, adenovirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV), and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) among patients associated with this cluster.
Additional laboratory testing is ongoing to determine the source of the outbreak.
Health authorities are monitoring more than 150 contacts of patients for illness.
CDC has issued a level 1 travel notice (“practice usual precautions”) for this destination. (https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/wa … onia-china).
On January 5, 2020, WHO posted an update on this situation, including an early risk assessment, which is available at: https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january- … n/external icon.
Recommendations for Health Care Providers
1. Providers should consider pneumonia related to the cluster for patients with severe respiratory symptoms who traveled to Wuhan since December 1, 2019 and had onset of illness within two weeks of returning, and who do not have another known diagnosis that would explain their illness.
Providers should notify infection control personnel and local and state health departments immediately if any patients meet these criteria.
State health departments should notify CDC after identifying a case under investigation by calling CDC’s Emergency Operations Center at (770) 488-7100.
2. Multiple respiratory tract specimens should be collected from persons with infections suspected to be associated with this cluster, including nasopharyngeal, nasal, and throat swabs.
Patients with severe respiratory disease also should have lower respiratory tract specimens collected, if possible.
Consider saving urine, stool, serum, and respiratory pathology specimens if available.
3. Although the etiology and transmissibility have yet to be determined, and to date, no human-to-human transmission has been reported and no health care providers have been reported ill, CDC currently recommends a cautious approach to symptomatic patients with a history of travel to Wuhan City.
Such patients should be asked to wear a surgical mask as soon as they are identified and be evaluated in a private room with the door closed.
Personnel entering the room to evaluate the patient should use contact precautions and wear an N95 disposable facepiece respirator.
For patients admitted for inpatient care, contact and airborne isolation precautions, in addition to standard precautions, are recommended until further information becomes available.
For additional information see:
https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/gu … index.html.
This guidance will be updated as more information becomes available.
For More Information
1-800-CDC-INFO
https://www.cdc.gov/cdc-info/index.html
CDC’s Emergency Operations Center: 770-488-7100
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) protects people’s health and safety by preventing and controlling diseases and injuries; enhances health decisions by providing credible information on critical health issues; and promotes healthy living through strong partnerships with local, national and international organizations.
This message was distributed to state and local health officers, state and local epidemiologists, state and local laboratory directors, public information officers, HAN coordinators, and clinician organizations.
Page last reviewed: January 8, 2020
end quotes
So there is where the COVID clock started ticking, with that alert, and again, if one looks at the distribution, one notices that it went to public health professionals, not a politician in the white house, because politics are not supposed to interfere with public health matters.
Then, nine (9) days later, on 17 January 2020, the NYS Department of Health issued the following notice about COVID, to wit:
TO: Healthcare Providers, Healthcare Facilities, Clinical Laboratories, and Local Health Departments (LHDs)
FROM: New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH)
Bureau of Communicable Disease Control (BCDC)
SUMMARY
• The enclosed Health Update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides updated information about an outbreak of a 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China that began in December 2019.
• CDC will today begin screening travelers on direct and indirect flights from Wuhan to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), San Francisco International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.
• NYSDOH is working closely with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and other public health partners to support CDC’s efforts at JFK.
• In accordance with the current requirements and expectations from the 2014 Commissioner’s Order, healthcare providers and facilities are required to collect a travel history for patients presenting with febrile illness and remain aware of current outbreaks overseas.
• As described in CDC’s Health Update, patients who meet either of the following criteria should be evaluated as a person under investigation (PUI) in association with the 2019-nCoV outbreak.
o Fever AND symptoms of lower respiratory illness (e.g., cough, shortness of breath) and in the last 14 days before symptom onset had:
▪ A history of travel from Wuhan City, China OR
▪ Close contact with a person who is under investigation for 2019-nCOV while that person was ill.
o Fever OR symptoms of lower respiratory illness (e.g., cough, shortness of breath) and in the last 14 days before symptom onset:
▪ Had close contact with an ill laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV patient.
• Providers caring for patients who meet either PUI criteria should follow CDC’s recommended infection prevention and control guidelines and immediately notify the local health department (LHD) where the patient resides.
Notification is required under the New York State Sanitary Code (10NYCRR 2.10).
o Providers who are unable to reach the LHD can contact the NYSDOH Bureau of Communicable Disease Control at 518-473-4439 during business hours or the NYSDOH Public Health Duty Officer at 1-866-881-2809 evenings, weekends, and holidays.
• NYSDOH will assist providers in determining and accessing appropriate laboratory testing for respiratory pathogens and if indicated, 2019-nCoV. Specimen collection and shipping instructions will also be provided.
end quotes
So there we see the Health Alert Network working as it is supposed to.
As to the CDC guidance on 17 January 2020, it reads as follows:
HEALTH ADVISORY: INTERIM GUIDANCE FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND FACILITIES IN NEW YORK STATE ON THE OUTBREAK OF 2019 NOVEL CORONAVIRUS (2019 n C o V)
This is an official CDC HEALTH UPDATE
Distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network
January 17, 2020, 2030 ET (8:30 PM ET)
CDCHAN-00426
Update and Interim Guidance on Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China
Summary
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to closely monitor an outbreak of a 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China that began in December 2019.
CDC has established an Incident Management System to coordinate a domestic and international public health response.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses.
Some cause illness in people; numerous other coronaviruses circulate among animals, including camels, cats, and bats.
Rarely, animal coronaviruses can evolve and infect people and then spread between people such as has been seen with Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/index.html) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) (https://www.cdc.gov/sars/index.html).
Chinese authorities report most patients in the Wuhan City outbreak have been epidemiologically linked to a large seafood and animal market, suggesting a possible zoonotic origin to the outbreak.
Chinese authorities additionally report that they are monitoring several hundred healthcare workers who are caring for outbreak patients; no spread of this virus from patients to healthcare personnel has been reported to date.
Chinese authorities are reporting no ongoing spread of this virus in the community, but they cannot rule out that some limited person-to-person spread may be occurring.
China has reported that two of the patients have died, including one with pre-existing medical conditions.
Chinese health officials publicly posted the genetic sequence of the 2019-nCoV on January 12, 2020.
This will facilitate identification of infections with this virus and development of specific diagnostic tests.
Thailand and Japan have confirmed additional cases of 2019-nCoV in travelers from Wuhan, China.
It is possible that more cases will be identified in the coming days.
This is an ongoing investigation and given previous experience with MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, it is possible that person-person spread may occur.
There is much more to learn about the transmissibility, severity, and other features associated with 2019-nCoV as the investigations in China, Thailand, and Japan continue.
Additional information about this novel virus is needed to better inform population risk.
This HAN Update provides a situational update and guidance to state and local health departments and healthcare providers that supersedes guidance in CDC’s HAN Advisory 424 distributed on January 8, 2020.
This HAN Update adds guidance for evaluation of patients under investigation (PUI) for 2019-nCoV, prevention and infection control guidance, including the addition of an eye protection recommendation, and additional information on specimen collection.
Background
An outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan City was initially reported to WHO on December 31, 2019.
Chinese health authorities have confirmed more than 40 infections with a novel coronavirus as the cause of the outbreak.
Reportedly, most patients had epidemiological links to a large seafood and animal market.
The market was closed on January 1, 2020.
Currently, Chinese health authorities report no community spread of this virus, and no transmission among healthcare personnel caring for outbreak patients.
No additional cases of infection with 2019-nCoV have been identified in China since January 3, 2020.
On January 13, 2020 public health officials in Thailand confirmed detection of a human infection with 2019-nCoV in a traveler from Wuhan, China.
This was the first confirmed case of 2019-nCoV documented outside China.
On January 17, 2020 a second case was confirmed in Thailand, also in a returned traveler from Wuhan City.
On January 15, 2020 health officials in Japan confirmed 2019-nCoV infection in a returned traveler from Wuhan City.
These persons had onset dates after January 3, 2020.
These cases did not report visiting the large seafood and animal market to which many cases in China have been linked.
On January 11, 2020, CDC updated the level 1 travel health notice (“practice usual precautions”) for Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China with additional information (originally issued on January 6, 2020):
end quotes
So what happened after that?
Where did things go south?
Where did the wheels come off?
Stay tuned, and we shall soon find out, and the short answer is that the wheels started coming off the day that hack politicians inserted themselves into the process, like Joe Biden is doing now, and essentially took it over.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-422809
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
NPR
"What We Know About Breakthrough Infections And Long COVID"
Heard on Morning Edition
September 13, 2021
Like millions of others, Kathleen Hipps thought she was safe from COVID-19 after she got two shots of the Moderna vaccine last spring.
So she figured she just had a summer cold when she got the sniffles in July.
But then she opened some Vick's VapoRub.
"Anyone who's ever smelled Vick's VapoRub knows how pungent of a smell it is."
"And I couldn't smell it."
"And that's how I knew I had COVID," says Hipps, 40, a Los Angeles lawyer who has two young sons.
And sure enough, Hipps tested positive.
"I got very sick."
"I was very tired, very congested — could barely get out of bed."
"I couldn't work at all."
"I had to find colleagues to cover my work for me."
"And I just spent the next week basically in bed, completely isolated from my family," she says.
Hipps never ran a fever, though, and did not have bad head or body aches.
She started feeling better after about a week, tested negative and went back to working from home and caring for her family.
She thought she was fully recovered.
"And I was in my mom's new car and all of a sudden I felt burning."
"And I thought there was something wrong with her car," she says.
Wherever she moved her foot, she could still feel the burning sensation.
And then her other foot started burning too.
It felt like she was walking on hot coals, she says.
"I've learned that this is neuropathy, and this a common symptom of long COVID," Hipps says.
Some patients' symptoms last for weeks or months
Long COVID is a poorly defined, poorly understood condition that occurs when COVID-19 patients' symptoms won't go away for weeks or months, or new ones emerge just when they think they're all better.
More than six weeks after it started, Hipps still experiences the burning sensation every day, as well as tingling and numbness in her hands.
Sometimes the numbness is so bad she can't push her baby's stroller.
Her periods are really heavy.
And work tires her out so fast now that she has to take lots of breaks.
"I'm really scared."
"I mean I'm really scared that there are things that are going on with me that I'm going to have to deal with for the rest of my life," Hipps says.
Now it's really important to stress that the COVID-19 vaccines are still highly effective at protecting people from getting really sick or dying, and are still quite good at keeping most people from even catching the virus or getting mildly ill.
But breakthrough infections can happen, especially with the delta variant.
And it's becoming increasingly clear that unvaccinated people can develop long COVID symptoms, even from mild cases.
"We've seen that with the infection itself in the unvaccinated individuals about 30% of those individuals continue to have these long-haul COVID symptoms," says Dr. Avindra Nath, who is studying long COVID at the National Institutes of Health.
So the concern is whether vaccinated people who get infected may be at risk for long COVID too, Nath says.
"I think that's a good question," he says.
Studies look for answers about long COVID
A small Israeli study recently provided the first evidence that breakthrough infections could lead to long COVID symptoms, although the numbers are small.
Out of about 1,500 vaccinated health care workers, 39 got infected, and seven reported symptoms that lasted more than six weeks.
And a large British study subsequently found about 5% of people who got infected — even though they were fully vaccinated — experienced persistent symptoms, although the study also found that the odds of having symptoms for 28 days or more were halved by having two vaccine doses.
"I think it's a reasonable concern."
"But it's too early."
"I think we need to follow these patients."
"It's quite recent that they've been recognized."
"So at the moment we don't have that answer," Nath says, adding that if there is a risk, he suspects it's probably very low.
But the experts don't all agree
Some infectious disease experts remain highly skeptical that long COVID from breakthrough infections is a big problem.
"Pathophysiologically, it's quite unlikely to get long COVID from a breakthrough infection," says Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.
That's because the immune response generated by the vaccine would prevent the virus from taking hold in the body or triggering a harmful overreaction by the immune system, Gandhi says.
"I think it is absolutely not impossible, but pathophysiologically it is less likely," she says.
Other researchers are convinced the problem is real.
"Categorically I can say that we have already been seeing a handful of cases of long COVID from breakthrough infection," says David Putrino, who studies long COVID at Mount Sinai.
"We need to behave as though there is the same chance as always of developing long COVID from a mild-to-asymptomatic infection because once you have it you can't unring that bell and you're looking at months to years of illness," Putrino says.
Putrino is working with Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University, to try to understand how breakthrough infections can lead to persistent symptoms.
Iwasaki says some people may experience long COVID because the virus is still hiding in the body.
In others, it may be that their immune systems overreact to the virus — a so-called autoimmune response.
"We know that the vaccine induces a robust immune response to quickly clear the virus during breakthrough infections," Iwasaki says.
"And that suggests to me that autoimmunity may be the culprit there."
Even if breakthrough infections can lead to long COVID, others say there are also plenty of other reasons vaccinated people should continue to keep being careful to avoid catching the virus.
"At the end of the day, my biggest concern honestly is not that I'm going to get long COVID," says Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease researcher at Emory University.
"It's that I'm going to bring COVID and give it to someone else."
"I mean, I have a young granddaughter."
"If I get infected, I could give it to her."
"I'm more concerned that people who are vaccinated can get infected and transmit to others."
For her part, Hipps hopes her symptoms don't plague her for months or even years.
"It's scary because there's obviously a lot of things we don't know about this virus and I'm scared about these long-term implications on my body."
Still, she is glad she got the vaccine.
She knows it probably kept her out of the hospital and kept her alive.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... long-covid
"What We Know About Breakthrough Infections And Long COVID"
Heard on Morning Edition
September 13, 2021
Like millions of others, Kathleen Hipps thought she was safe from COVID-19 after she got two shots of the Moderna vaccine last spring.
So she figured she just had a summer cold when she got the sniffles in July.
But then she opened some Vick's VapoRub.
"Anyone who's ever smelled Vick's VapoRub knows how pungent of a smell it is."
"And I couldn't smell it."
"And that's how I knew I had COVID," says Hipps, 40, a Los Angeles lawyer who has two young sons.
And sure enough, Hipps tested positive.
"I got very sick."
"I was very tired, very congested — could barely get out of bed."
"I couldn't work at all."
"I had to find colleagues to cover my work for me."
"And I just spent the next week basically in bed, completely isolated from my family," she says.
Hipps never ran a fever, though, and did not have bad head or body aches.
She started feeling better after about a week, tested negative and went back to working from home and caring for her family.
She thought she was fully recovered.
"And I was in my mom's new car and all of a sudden I felt burning."
"And I thought there was something wrong with her car," she says.
Wherever she moved her foot, she could still feel the burning sensation.
And then her other foot started burning too.
It felt like she was walking on hot coals, she says.
"I've learned that this is neuropathy, and this a common symptom of long COVID," Hipps says.
Some patients' symptoms last for weeks or months
Long COVID is a poorly defined, poorly understood condition that occurs when COVID-19 patients' symptoms won't go away for weeks or months, or new ones emerge just when they think they're all better.
More than six weeks after it started, Hipps still experiences the burning sensation every day, as well as tingling and numbness in her hands.
Sometimes the numbness is so bad she can't push her baby's stroller.
Her periods are really heavy.
And work tires her out so fast now that she has to take lots of breaks.
"I'm really scared."
"I mean I'm really scared that there are things that are going on with me that I'm going to have to deal with for the rest of my life," Hipps says.
Now it's really important to stress that the COVID-19 vaccines are still highly effective at protecting people from getting really sick or dying, and are still quite good at keeping most people from even catching the virus or getting mildly ill.
But breakthrough infections can happen, especially with the delta variant.
And it's becoming increasingly clear that unvaccinated people can develop long COVID symptoms, even from mild cases.
"We've seen that with the infection itself in the unvaccinated individuals about 30% of those individuals continue to have these long-haul COVID symptoms," says Dr. Avindra Nath, who is studying long COVID at the National Institutes of Health.
So the concern is whether vaccinated people who get infected may be at risk for long COVID too, Nath says.
"I think that's a good question," he says.
Studies look for answers about long COVID
A small Israeli study recently provided the first evidence that breakthrough infections could lead to long COVID symptoms, although the numbers are small.
Out of about 1,500 vaccinated health care workers, 39 got infected, and seven reported symptoms that lasted more than six weeks.
And a large British study subsequently found about 5% of people who got infected — even though they were fully vaccinated — experienced persistent symptoms, although the study also found that the odds of having symptoms for 28 days or more were halved by having two vaccine doses.
"I think it's a reasonable concern."
"But it's too early."
"I think we need to follow these patients."
"It's quite recent that they've been recognized."
"So at the moment we don't have that answer," Nath says, adding that if there is a risk, he suspects it's probably very low.
But the experts don't all agree
Some infectious disease experts remain highly skeptical that long COVID from breakthrough infections is a big problem.
"Pathophysiologically, it's quite unlikely to get long COVID from a breakthrough infection," says Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.
That's because the immune response generated by the vaccine would prevent the virus from taking hold in the body or triggering a harmful overreaction by the immune system, Gandhi says.
"I think it is absolutely not impossible, but pathophysiologically it is less likely," she says.
Other researchers are convinced the problem is real.
"Categorically I can say that we have already been seeing a handful of cases of long COVID from breakthrough infection," says David Putrino, who studies long COVID at Mount Sinai.
"We need to behave as though there is the same chance as always of developing long COVID from a mild-to-asymptomatic infection because once you have it you can't unring that bell and you're looking at months to years of illness," Putrino says.
Putrino is working with Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University, to try to understand how breakthrough infections can lead to persistent symptoms.
Iwasaki says some people may experience long COVID because the virus is still hiding in the body.
In others, it may be that their immune systems overreact to the virus — a so-called autoimmune response.
"We know that the vaccine induces a robust immune response to quickly clear the virus during breakthrough infections," Iwasaki says.
"And that suggests to me that autoimmunity may be the culprit there."
Even if breakthrough infections can lead to long COVID, others say there are also plenty of other reasons vaccinated people should continue to keep being careful to avoid catching the virus.
"At the end of the day, my biggest concern honestly is not that I'm going to get long COVID," says Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease researcher at Emory University.
"It's that I'm going to bring COVID and give it to someone else."
"I mean, I have a young granddaughter."
"If I get infected, I could give it to her."
"I'm more concerned that people who are vaccinated can get infected and transmit to others."
For her part, Hipps hopes her symptoms don't plague her for months or even years.
"It's scary because there's obviously a lot of things we don't know about this virus and I'm scared about these long-term implications on my body."
Still, she is glad she got the vaccine.
She knows it probably kept her out of the hospital and kept her alive.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... long-covid
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 14, 2021 AT 10:28 AM
Paul Plante says:
So once again, people, after reviewing the above HEALTH ADVISORY: INTERIM GUIDANCE FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND FACILITIES IN NEW YORK STATE ON THE OUTBREAK OF 2019 NOVEL CORONAVIRUS (2019-nCoV), an official CDC HEALTH UPDATE distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network on January 17, 2020, 2030 ET (8:30 PM ET), CDCHAN-00426, Update and Interim Guidance on Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China, Recommendations for Healthcare Providers, we have to each of us individually ask ourselves what happened after that?
Focus in on who that guidance was for – Recommendations for Healthcare Providers,
Aren’t the healthcare providers that guidance was for on 17 January 2020 the same for-profit hospitals that were caught flatfooted by COVID after 17 January 2020?
So how can that be?
Look at what the guidance to these same healthcare providers caught flatfooted was saying:
Clinical judgment should be used to guide testing of patients in such situations:
Close contact with a person who is under investigation for 2019-nCOV.
Close contact is defined as—
a) being within approximately 6 feet (2 meters), or within the room or care area, of a novel coronavirus case for a prolonged period of time while not wearing recommended personal protective equipment or PPE (e.g., gowns, gloves, NIOSH-certified disposable N95 respirator, eye protection).
end quotes
Is that language not clear?
Is it confusing?
Would healthcare providers in the most advanced nation ever on the face of the earth not be able to understand what the CDC was saying when it talked in what I thought was clear and unequivocal language about wearing recommended personal protective equipment or PPE, e.g., gowns, gloves, NIOSH-certified disposable N95 respirator, eye protection?
Do you need several Ph.D and MD degrees to comprehend what personal protective gear in a hospital setting consists of?
So where did things go south?
Why didn’t the healthcare providers have that stuff on hand after getting that warning?
And what about this on 17 January 2021:
Although the transmission dynamics have yet to be determined, CDC currently recommends a cautious approach to patients under investigation for 2019-nCoV.
Such patients should be asked to wear a surgical mask as soon as they are identified and be evaluated in a private room with the door closed, ideally an airborne infection isolation room if available.
Healthcare personnel entering the room should use standard precautions, contact precautions, airborne precautions, and use eye protection (e.g., goggles or a face shield).
end quotes
Don’t healthcare providers in America know what surgical masks are?
So why weren’t there any?
Where did the wheels come off?
And to help us ferret out that answer, because clearly, after all that notification, things clearly did not go right here, let us go to a press release picked up by the media and further reported on from Rensselaer County (NYS) County Executive Steve McLaughlin on 2 March 2020, 54 days AFTER the CDC issued the January 8, 2020 public health alert about COVID to state and local health officers, state and local epidemiologists, state and local laboratory directors, public information officers, HAN coordinators, and clinician organizations, where we have as follows:
“Rensselaer County Officials Working with State and Federal Officials on Coronavirus Issue”
3/2/20
With confirmed cases of coronavirus in the nation and the state, Rensselaer County health officials took part in calls with the Centers for Disease Control and the New York State Department of Health regarding the issue.
At this time, there are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in the county.
Federal and state health officials have termed the spread of the illness nationally and in the state as “isolated” cases.
end quotes
And stop right there, people, for a moment and re-read that last sentence a time or two about Federal health officials terming the spread of the illness nationally as “isolated” cases.
That is on 2 March 2020, thirty-one (31) days AFTER the World Health Organization issued a Global Health Emergency on 31 January 2020, as follows:
With a worldwide death toll of more than 200 and an exponential jump to more than 9800 cases, the WHO finally declares a public health emergency, for just the sixth time.
Human-to-human transmission is quickly spreading and can now be found in the United States, Germany, Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
end quotes
So what was the political response to that, because that is why this all went off the tracks very early on?
Let’s go back to the March 2, 2020 press release to find that out, to wit:
“We want residents to know that our team at the Health Department is monitoring this situation closely and working with state and federal officials to share information and get updates.”
“However, there is no need for undue concern or worry,” said County Executive Steve McLaughlin.
“We have been informed that New York State remains at a low risk for coronavirus.”
“Our Health Department is doing a solid job monitoring this situation and residents can be assured that we will be providing updates and news as needed,” said McLaughlin.
end quotes
So who dropped the ball here, people, right in the very beginning, that caused this PANDEMIC?
Donald Trump?
Or was it the CDC itself?
Think about it, people, for it is your life that has been put at risk here by an obviously shoddy and slipshod public healthcare system in America that blew it BIG TIME!
Who in the CDC told Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin to tell the people of New York state, “However, there is no need for undue concern or worry, we have been informed that New York State remains at a low risk for coronavirus?”
Tony Fauci?
Or did that come from Trump, as well?
Stay tuned!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-423461
Paul Plante says:
So once again, people, after reviewing the above HEALTH ADVISORY: INTERIM GUIDANCE FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND FACILITIES IN NEW YORK STATE ON THE OUTBREAK OF 2019 NOVEL CORONAVIRUS (2019-nCoV), an official CDC HEALTH UPDATE distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network on January 17, 2020, 2030 ET (8:30 PM ET), CDCHAN-00426, Update and Interim Guidance on Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China, Recommendations for Healthcare Providers, we have to each of us individually ask ourselves what happened after that?
Focus in on who that guidance was for – Recommendations for Healthcare Providers,
Aren’t the healthcare providers that guidance was for on 17 January 2020 the same for-profit hospitals that were caught flatfooted by COVID after 17 January 2020?
So how can that be?
Look at what the guidance to these same healthcare providers caught flatfooted was saying:
Clinical judgment should be used to guide testing of patients in such situations:
Close contact with a person who is under investigation for 2019-nCOV.
Close contact is defined as—
a) being within approximately 6 feet (2 meters), or within the room or care area, of a novel coronavirus case for a prolonged period of time while not wearing recommended personal protective equipment or PPE (e.g., gowns, gloves, NIOSH-certified disposable N95 respirator, eye protection).
end quotes
Is that language not clear?
Is it confusing?
Would healthcare providers in the most advanced nation ever on the face of the earth not be able to understand what the CDC was saying when it talked in what I thought was clear and unequivocal language about wearing recommended personal protective equipment or PPE, e.g., gowns, gloves, NIOSH-certified disposable N95 respirator, eye protection?
Do you need several Ph.D and MD degrees to comprehend what personal protective gear in a hospital setting consists of?
So where did things go south?
Why didn’t the healthcare providers have that stuff on hand after getting that warning?
And what about this on 17 January 2021:
Although the transmission dynamics have yet to be determined, CDC currently recommends a cautious approach to patients under investigation for 2019-nCoV.
Such patients should be asked to wear a surgical mask as soon as they are identified and be evaluated in a private room with the door closed, ideally an airborne infection isolation room if available.
Healthcare personnel entering the room should use standard precautions, contact precautions, airborne precautions, and use eye protection (e.g., goggles or a face shield).
end quotes
Don’t healthcare providers in America know what surgical masks are?
So why weren’t there any?
Where did the wheels come off?
And to help us ferret out that answer, because clearly, after all that notification, things clearly did not go right here, let us go to a press release picked up by the media and further reported on from Rensselaer County (NYS) County Executive Steve McLaughlin on 2 March 2020, 54 days AFTER the CDC issued the January 8, 2020 public health alert about COVID to state and local health officers, state and local epidemiologists, state and local laboratory directors, public information officers, HAN coordinators, and clinician organizations, where we have as follows:
“Rensselaer County Officials Working with State and Federal Officials on Coronavirus Issue”
3/2/20
With confirmed cases of coronavirus in the nation and the state, Rensselaer County health officials took part in calls with the Centers for Disease Control and the New York State Department of Health regarding the issue.
At this time, there are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in the county.
Federal and state health officials have termed the spread of the illness nationally and in the state as “isolated” cases.
end quotes
And stop right there, people, for a moment and re-read that last sentence a time or two about Federal health officials terming the spread of the illness nationally as “isolated” cases.
That is on 2 March 2020, thirty-one (31) days AFTER the World Health Organization issued a Global Health Emergency on 31 January 2020, as follows:
With a worldwide death toll of more than 200 and an exponential jump to more than 9800 cases, the WHO finally declares a public health emergency, for just the sixth time.
Human-to-human transmission is quickly spreading and can now be found in the United States, Germany, Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
end quotes
So what was the political response to that, because that is why this all went off the tracks very early on?
Let’s go back to the March 2, 2020 press release to find that out, to wit:
“We want residents to know that our team at the Health Department is monitoring this situation closely and working with state and federal officials to share information and get updates.”
“However, there is no need for undue concern or worry,” said County Executive Steve McLaughlin.
“We have been informed that New York State remains at a low risk for coronavirus.”
“Our Health Department is doing a solid job monitoring this situation and residents can be assured that we will be providing updates and news as needed,” said McLaughlin.
end quotes
So who dropped the ball here, people, right in the very beginning, that caused this PANDEMIC?
Donald Trump?
Or was it the CDC itself?
Think about it, people, for it is your life that has been put at risk here by an obviously shoddy and slipshod public healthcare system in America that blew it BIG TIME!
Who in the CDC told Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin to tell the people of New York state, “However, there is no need for undue concern or worry, we have been informed that New York State remains at a low risk for coronavirus?”
Tony Fauci?
Or did that come from Trump, as well?
Stay tuned!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-423461
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
CNBC
"Data shows Covid booster shots are ‘not appropriate’ at this time, U.S. and international scientists conclude"
Berkeley Lovelace Jr. @BERKELEYJR
PUBLISHED MON, SEP 13 2021
KEY POINTS
* An expert review of scientific evidence has concluded that Covid vaccine booster shots are not needed at this time for the general public, a group of leading U.S. and international scientists said Monday.
* The conclusion in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet comes a week before the Biden administration says it plans to begin offering the shots to the general public.
*An FDA advisory group is meeting Friday to discuss the data to support the wide use of boosters.
An expert review of scientific evidence to date has concluded that Covid-19 vaccine booster shots are not needed at this time for the general public, a group of leading U.S. and international scientists said Monday in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet.
The conclusion by scientists, including two senior Food and Drug Administration officials and the World Health Organization, came as studies continue to show the authorized Covid vaccines in the U.S. remain highly effective against severe disease and hospitalization caused by the fast-spreading delta variant.
While Covid vaccine effectiveness against mild disease may wane over time, protection against severe disease may persist, the scientists said.
That’s because the body’s immune system is complex, they said, and has other defenses besides antibodies that may protect someone from getting seriously sick.
“Current evidence does not, therefore, appear to show a need for boosting in the general population, in which efficacy against severe disease remains high,” the scientists wrote, adding the wide distribution of boosters is “not appropriate at this stage in the pandemic.”
They acknowledged that booster shots may eventually be needed for the general population if vaccine-induced immunity wanes even further or a new variant emerges that can evade the protection of the shots.
They said there are risks to distributing boosters too soon, including the potential for side effects such as a rare heart inflammation condition known as myocarditis, which is more common after the second dose of mRNA vaccines.
“If unnecessary boosting causes significant adverse reactions, there could be implications for vaccine acceptance that go beyond COVID-19 vaccines,” they wrote.
Shares of Covid vaccine maker BioNTech were down more than 5% in intraday trading.
The comments come a week before the Biden administration says it plans to begin offering Covid vaccine booster shots to the general public.
An FDA advisory group is meeting Friday to discuss the data to support the wide use of boosters.
The administration last month cited three new studies, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that showed the vaccines’ protection against Covid diminished over several months.
The administration’s plan, outlined by senior health officials, calls for a third dose eight months after people get their second shot of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
Scientists and other health experts have repeatedly criticized the plan, saying data the federal health officials cited wasn’t compelling, characterizing the administration’s push for boosters as premature.
The scientists in The Lancet review published Monday include Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, and deputy director Phil Krause.
Both officials are departing the FDA this year after they were reportedly frustrated over the agency’s decision to support booster shots.
The scientists said boosting could be appropriate for some individuals, such as those with weakened immune systems, who don’t produce an adequate immune response after receiving two doses of a vaccine.
Federal health officials last month authorized booster shots for such people including cancer and HIV patients or those who have had organ transplants.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/13/covid-b ... clude.html
"Data shows Covid booster shots are ‘not appropriate’ at this time, U.S. and international scientists conclude"
Berkeley Lovelace Jr. @BERKELEYJR
PUBLISHED MON, SEP 13 2021
KEY POINTS
* An expert review of scientific evidence has concluded that Covid vaccine booster shots are not needed at this time for the general public, a group of leading U.S. and international scientists said Monday.
* The conclusion in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet comes a week before the Biden administration says it plans to begin offering the shots to the general public.
*An FDA advisory group is meeting Friday to discuss the data to support the wide use of boosters.
An expert review of scientific evidence to date has concluded that Covid-19 vaccine booster shots are not needed at this time for the general public, a group of leading U.S. and international scientists said Monday in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet.
The conclusion by scientists, including two senior Food and Drug Administration officials and the World Health Organization, came as studies continue to show the authorized Covid vaccines in the U.S. remain highly effective against severe disease and hospitalization caused by the fast-spreading delta variant.
While Covid vaccine effectiveness against mild disease may wane over time, protection against severe disease may persist, the scientists said.
That’s because the body’s immune system is complex, they said, and has other defenses besides antibodies that may protect someone from getting seriously sick.
“Current evidence does not, therefore, appear to show a need for boosting in the general population, in which efficacy against severe disease remains high,” the scientists wrote, adding the wide distribution of boosters is “not appropriate at this stage in the pandemic.”
They acknowledged that booster shots may eventually be needed for the general population if vaccine-induced immunity wanes even further or a new variant emerges that can evade the protection of the shots.
They said there are risks to distributing boosters too soon, including the potential for side effects such as a rare heart inflammation condition known as myocarditis, which is more common after the second dose of mRNA vaccines.
“If unnecessary boosting causes significant adverse reactions, there could be implications for vaccine acceptance that go beyond COVID-19 vaccines,” they wrote.
Shares of Covid vaccine maker BioNTech were down more than 5% in intraday trading.
The comments come a week before the Biden administration says it plans to begin offering Covid vaccine booster shots to the general public.
An FDA advisory group is meeting Friday to discuss the data to support the wide use of boosters.
The administration last month cited three new studies, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that showed the vaccines’ protection against Covid diminished over several months.
The administration’s plan, outlined by senior health officials, calls for a third dose eight months after people get their second shot of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
Scientists and other health experts have repeatedly criticized the plan, saying data the federal health officials cited wasn’t compelling, characterizing the administration’s push for boosters as premature.
The scientists in The Lancet review published Monday include Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, and deputy director Phil Krause.
Both officials are departing the FDA this year after they were reportedly frustrated over the agency’s decision to support booster shots.
The scientists said boosting could be appropriate for some individuals, such as those with weakened immune systems, who don’t produce an adequate immune response after receiving two doses of a vaccine.
Federal health officials last month authorized booster shots for such people including cancer and HIV patients or those who have had organ transplants.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/13/covid-b ... clude.html
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
NPR
"New Studies Find Evidence Of 'Superhuman' Immunity To COVID-19 In Some Individuals"
Heard on Morning Edition, MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF
September 7, 20219:32 AM ET
Some scientists have called it "superhuman immunity" or "bulletproof."
But immunologist Shane Crotty prefers "hybrid immunity."
"Overall, hybrid immunity to SARS-CoV-2 appears to be impressively potent," Crotty wrote in commentary in Science back in June.
No matter what you call it, this type of immunity offers much-needed good news in what seems like an endless array of bad news regarding COVID-19.
Over the past several months, a series of studies has found that some people mount an extraordinarily powerful immune response against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19.
Their bodies produce very high levels of antibodies, but they also make antibodies with great flexibility — likely capable of fighting off the coronavirus variants circulating in the world but also likely effective against variants that may emerge in the future.
"One could reasonably predict that these people will be quite well protected against most — and perhaps all of — the SARS-CoV-2 variants that we are likely to see in the foreseeable future," says Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at Rockefeller University who helped lead several of the studies.
In a study published online last month, Bieniasz and his colleagues found antibodies in these individuals that can strongly neutralize the six variants of concern tested, including delta and beta, as well as several other viruses related to SARS-CoV-2, including one in bats, two in pangolins and the one that caused the first coronavirus pandemic, SARS-CoV-1.
"This is being a bit more speculative, but I would also suspect that they would have some degree of protection against the SARS-like viruses that have yet to infect humans," Bieniasz says.
So who is capable of mounting this "superhuman" or "hybrid" immune response?
People who have had a "hybrid" exposure to the virus.
Specifically, they were infected with the coronavirus in 2020 and then immunized with mRNA vaccines this year.
"Those people have amazing responses to the vaccine," says virologist Theodora Hatziioannou at Rockefeller University, who also helped lead several of the studies.
"I think they are in the best position to fight the virus."
"The antibodies in these people's blood can even neutralize SARS-CoV-1, the first coronavirus, which emerged 20 years ago."
"That virus is very, very different from SARS-CoV-2."
In fact, these antibodies were even able to deactivate a virus engineered, on purpose, to be highly resistant to neutralization.
This virus contained 20 mutations that are known to prevent SARS-CoV-2 antibodies from binding to it.
Antibodies from people who were only vaccinated or who only had prior coronavirus infections were essentially useless against this mutant virus.
But antibodies in people with the "hybrid immunity" could neutralize it.
These findings show how powerful the mRNA vaccines can be in people with prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2, she says.
"There's a lot of research now focused on finding a pan-coronavirus vaccine that would protect against all future variants."
"Our findings tell you that we already have it."
"But there's a catch, right?" she adds: You first need to be sick with COVID-19.
"After natural infections, the antibodies seem to evolve and become not only more potent but also broader."
"They become more resistant to mutations within the [virus]."
Hatziioannou and colleagues don't know if everyone who has had COVID-19 and then an mRNA vaccine will have such a remarkable immune response.
"We've only studied the phenomena with a few patients because it's extremely laborious and difficult research to do," she says.
But she suspects it's quite common.
"With every single one of the patients we studied, we saw the same thing."
The study reports data on 14 patients.
Several other studies support her hypothesis — and buttress the idea that exposure to both a coronavirus and an mRNA vaccine triggers an exceptionally powerful immune response.
In one study, published last month in The New England Journal of Medicine, scientists analyzed antibodies generated by people who had been infected with the original SARS virus — SARS-CoV-1 — back in 2002 or 2003 and who then received an mRNA vaccine this year.
Remarkably, these people also produced high levels of antibodies and — it's worth reiterating this point from a few paragraphs above — antibodies that could neutralize a whole range of variants and SARS-like viruses.
Now, of course, there are so many remaining questions.
For example, what if you catch COVID-19 after you're vaccinated?
Or can a person who hasn't been infected with the coronavirus mount a "superhuman" response if the person receives a third dose of a vaccine as a booster?
Hatziioannou says she can't answer either of those questions yet.
"I'm pretty certain that a third shot will help a person's antibodies evolve even further, and perhaps they will acquire some breadth [or flexibility], but whether they will ever manage to get the breadth that you see following natural infection, that's unclear."
Immunologist John Wherry, at the University of Pennsylvania, is a bit more hopeful.
"In our research, we already see some of this antibody evolution happening in people who are just vaccinated," he says, "although it probably happens faster in people who have been infected."
In a recent study, published online in late August, Wherry and his colleagues showed that, over time, people who have had only two doses of the vaccine (and no prior infection) start to make more flexible antibodies — antibodies that can better recognize many of the variants of concern.
So a third dose of the vaccine would presumably give those antibodies a boost and push the evolution of the antibodies further, Wherry says.
So a person will be better equipped to fight off whatever variant the virus puts out there next.
"Based on all these findings, it looks like the immune system is eventually going to have the edge over this virus," says Bieniasz, of Rockefeller University.
"And if we're lucky, SARS-CoV-2 will eventually fall into that category of viruses that gives us only a mild cold."
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandso ... ndividuals
"New Studies Find Evidence Of 'Superhuman' Immunity To COVID-19 In Some Individuals"
Heard on Morning Edition, MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF
September 7, 20219:32 AM ET
Some scientists have called it "superhuman immunity" or "bulletproof."
But immunologist Shane Crotty prefers "hybrid immunity."
"Overall, hybrid immunity to SARS-CoV-2 appears to be impressively potent," Crotty wrote in commentary in Science back in June.
No matter what you call it, this type of immunity offers much-needed good news in what seems like an endless array of bad news regarding COVID-19.
Over the past several months, a series of studies has found that some people mount an extraordinarily powerful immune response against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19.
Their bodies produce very high levels of antibodies, but they also make antibodies with great flexibility — likely capable of fighting off the coronavirus variants circulating in the world but also likely effective against variants that may emerge in the future.
"One could reasonably predict that these people will be quite well protected against most — and perhaps all of — the SARS-CoV-2 variants that we are likely to see in the foreseeable future," says Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at Rockefeller University who helped lead several of the studies.
In a study published online last month, Bieniasz and his colleagues found antibodies in these individuals that can strongly neutralize the six variants of concern tested, including delta and beta, as well as several other viruses related to SARS-CoV-2, including one in bats, two in pangolins and the one that caused the first coronavirus pandemic, SARS-CoV-1.
"This is being a bit more speculative, but I would also suspect that they would have some degree of protection against the SARS-like viruses that have yet to infect humans," Bieniasz says.
So who is capable of mounting this "superhuman" or "hybrid" immune response?
People who have had a "hybrid" exposure to the virus.
Specifically, they were infected with the coronavirus in 2020 and then immunized with mRNA vaccines this year.
"Those people have amazing responses to the vaccine," says virologist Theodora Hatziioannou at Rockefeller University, who also helped lead several of the studies.
"I think they are in the best position to fight the virus."
"The antibodies in these people's blood can even neutralize SARS-CoV-1, the first coronavirus, which emerged 20 years ago."
"That virus is very, very different from SARS-CoV-2."
In fact, these antibodies were even able to deactivate a virus engineered, on purpose, to be highly resistant to neutralization.
This virus contained 20 mutations that are known to prevent SARS-CoV-2 antibodies from binding to it.
Antibodies from people who were only vaccinated or who only had prior coronavirus infections were essentially useless against this mutant virus.
But antibodies in people with the "hybrid immunity" could neutralize it.
These findings show how powerful the mRNA vaccines can be in people with prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2, she says.
"There's a lot of research now focused on finding a pan-coronavirus vaccine that would protect against all future variants."
"Our findings tell you that we already have it."
"But there's a catch, right?" she adds: You first need to be sick with COVID-19.
"After natural infections, the antibodies seem to evolve and become not only more potent but also broader."
"They become more resistant to mutations within the [virus]."
Hatziioannou and colleagues don't know if everyone who has had COVID-19 and then an mRNA vaccine will have such a remarkable immune response.
"We've only studied the phenomena with a few patients because it's extremely laborious and difficult research to do," she says.
But she suspects it's quite common.
"With every single one of the patients we studied, we saw the same thing."
The study reports data on 14 patients.
Several other studies support her hypothesis — and buttress the idea that exposure to both a coronavirus and an mRNA vaccine triggers an exceptionally powerful immune response.
In one study, published last month in The New England Journal of Medicine, scientists analyzed antibodies generated by people who had been infected with the original SARS virus — SARS-CoV-1 — back in 2002 or 2003 and who then received an mRNA vaccine this year.
Remarkably, these people also produced high levels of antibodies and — it's worth reiterating this point from a few paragraphs above — antibodies that could neutralize a whole range of variants and SARS-like viruses.
Now, of course, there are so many remaining questions.
For example, what if you catch COVID-19 after you're vaccinated?
Or can a person who hasn't been infected with the coronavirus mount a "superhuman" response if the person receives a third dose of a vaccine as a booster?
Hatziioannou says she can't answer either of those questions yet.
"I'm pretty certain that a third shot will help a person's antibodies evolve even further, and perhaps they will acquire some breadth [or flexibility], but whether they will ever manage to get the breadth that you see following natural infection, that's unclear."
Immunologist John Wherry, at the University of Pennsylvania, is a bit more hopeful.
"In our research, we already see some of this antibody evolution happening in people who are just vaccinated," he says, "although it probably happens faster in people who have been infected."
In a recent study, published online in late August, Wherry and his colleagues showed that, over time, people who have had only two doses of the vaccine (and no prior infection) start to make more flexible antibodies — antibodies that can better recognize many of the variants of concern.
So a third dose of the vaccine would presumably give those antibodies a boost and push the evolution of the antibodies further, Wherry says.
So a person will be better equipped to fight off whatever variant the virus puts out there next.
"Based on all these findings, it looks like the immune system is eventually going to have the edge over this virus," says Bieniasz, of Rockefeller University.
"And if we're lucky, SARS-CoV-2 will eventually fall into that category of viruses that gives us only a mild cold."
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandso ... ndividuals
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
REUTERS
"Blinken defends Afghan withdrawal at angry U.S. congressional hearing"
By Patricia Zengerle, Humeyra Pamuk
SEPTEMBER 13, 2021
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Secretary of State Antony Blinken beat back criticism of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan on Monday, at a contentious congressional hearing where at least one Republican called on him to resign.
In testy exchanges with lawmakers, Blinken defended President Joe Biden’s decision to pull out and pushed back on accusations that the State Department might have done more to help Americans and at-risk Afghans to be evacuated, blaming the previous administration for lacking a plan.
He repeatedly noted that Republican former President Donald Trump had negotiated the withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, and said President Joe Biden’s administration did not consider renegotiating because of threats from the group to resume killing Americans.
“There’s no evidence that staying longer would have made the Afghan security forces or the Afghan government any more resilient or self-sustaining,” Blinken said.
“We inherited a deadline."
"We did not inherit a plan,” Blinken said, referring to the Trump administration’s agreement to remove all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 1.
Members of Congress - Biden’s fellow Democrats as well as opposition Republicans - have planned hearings since the Taliban seized control of the country last month after a rapid advance.
Blinken appeared on Monday before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and was to testify on Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the first Biden administration official to testify publicly to lawmakers since the Islamist militant group’s takeover.
Fireworks had been expected, given the amount of finger-pointing over how the two-decade-long U.S. presence in the country ended.
Republicans offered harsh criticism.
“The American people don’t like to lose, especially not to the terrorists."
"But this is exactly what has happened,” said Representative Michael McCaul, the panel’s top Republican.
McCaul asked why assets like the Bagram Air Base were not maintained and why the administration had not reached surveillance and counterterrorism agreements with neighboring countries.
“This is a national security threat as China moves in."
"For all I know they make take over Bagram,” McCaul said.
Blinken said the United States was actively working to identify threats.
MANY QUESTIONS
Members of Congress asked a long list of questions about the rapid collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the Biden administration’s scramble to evacuate 124,000 people, including Americans and at-risk Afghans.
Democrats expressed concern about Americans and at-risk Afghans still in Afghanistan who wish to leave, but backed the withdrawal as necessary, if painful, after two decades.
“I would welcome hearing what exactly a smooth withdrawal from a messy chaotic 20-year war looks like,” said Representative Gregory Meeks, the committee’s chairman.
Blinken praised the evacuation as “a heroic effort” by diplomats, the military and intelligence officers.
He pledged that the United States will continue to support humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, but through non-governmental organizations and U.N. agencies, not the Taliban.
Afghanistan is at risk of running out of food, as it faces a terrible drought in addition to political upheaval.
“We need to do everything we can to make sure the people of Afghanistan don’t suffer any more than is already the case,” Blinken said.
He said he would name a senior official at the State Department to focus solely on the effort to support women, girls and minorities in Afghanistan.
He said that, as of the end of last week, about 100 Americans were still in Afghanistan, who wanted to leave.
Republicans grilled Blinken about what happened at Kabul’s airport during the evacuation ahead of the administration’s Aug. 31 deadline to leave.
Thirteen U.S. troops and dozens of Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing amid the chaos.
Democrats had said they wanted the hearing to address not just the seven months Biden was president before Kabul was captured by the Taliban but all 20 years of U.S. involvement in the country - under presidents from both parties.
A U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks masterminded by al Qaeda leaders based in Afghanistan.
Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Humeyra Pamuk and Doina Chiacu, additional reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Peter Cooney and Alistair Bell
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afgh ... SKBN2G90XV
"Blinken defends Afghan withdrawal at angry U.S. congressional hearing"
By Patricia Zengerle, Humeyra Pamuk
SEPTEMBER 13, 2021
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Secretary of State Antony Blinken beat back criticism of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan on Monday, at a contentious congressional hearing where at least one Republican called on him to resign.
In testy exchanges with lawmakers, Blinken defended President Joe Biden’s decision to pull out and pushed back on accusations that the State Department might have done more to help Americans and at-risk Afghans to be evacuated, blaming the previous administration for lacking a plan.
He repeatedly noted that Republican former President Donald Trump had negotiated the withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, and said President Joe Biden’s administration did not consider renegotiating because of threats from the group to resume killing Americans.
“There’s no evidence that staying longer would have made the Afghan security forces or the Afghan government any more resilient or self-sustaining,” Blinken said.
“We inherited a deadline."
"We did not inherit a plan,” Blinken said, referring to the Trump administration’s agreement to remove all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 1.
Members of Congress - Biden’s fellow Democrats as well as opposition Republicans - have planned hearings since the Taliban seized control of the country last month after a rapid advance.
Blinken appeared on Monday before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and was to testify on Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the first Biden administration official to testify publicly to lawmakers since the Islamist militant group’s takeover.
Fireworks had been expected, given the amount of finger-pointing over how the two-decade-long U.S. presence in the country ended.
Republicans offered harsh criticism.
“The American people don’t like to lose, especially not to the terrorists."
"But this is exactly what has happened,” said Representative Michael McCaul, the panel’s top Republican.
McCaul asked why assets like the Bagram Air Base were not maintained and why the administration had not reached surveillance and counterterrorism agreements with neighboring countries.
“This is a national security threat as China moves in."
"For all I know they make take over Bagram,” McCaul said.
Blinken said the United States was actively working to identify threats.
MANY QUESTIONS
Members of Congress asked a long list of questions about the rapid collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the Biden administration’s scramble to evacuate 124,000 people, including Americans and at-risk Afghans.
Democrats expressed concern about Americans and at-risk Afghans still in Afghanistan who wish to leave, but backed the withdrawal as necessary, if painful, after two decades.
“I would welcome hearing what exactly a smooth withdrawal from a messy chaotic 20-year war looks like,” said Representative Gregory Meeks, the committee’s chairman.
Blinken praised the evacuation as “a heroic effort” by diplomats, the military and intelligence officers.
He pledged that the United States will continue to support humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, but through non-governmental organizations and U.N. agencies, not the Taliban.
Afghanistan is at risk of running out of food, as it faces a terrible drought in addition to political upheaval.
“We need to do everything we can to make sure the people of Afghanistan don’t suffer any more than is already the case,” Blinken said.
He said he would name a senior official at the State Department to focus solely on the effort to support women, girls and minorities in Afghanistan.
He said that, as of the end of last week, about 100 Americans were still in Afghanistan, who wanted to leave.
Republicans grilled Blinken about what happened at Kabul’s airport during the evacuation ahead of the administration’s Aug. 31 deadline to leave.
Thirteen U.S. troops and dozens of Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing amid the chaos.
Democrats had said they wanted the hearing to address not just the seven months Biden was president before Kabul was captured by the Taliban but all 20 years of U.S. involvement in the country - under presidents from both parties.
A U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks masterminded by al Qaeda leaders based in Afghanistan.
Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Humeyra Pamuk and Doina Chiacu, additional reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Peter Cooney and Alistair Bell
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afgh ... SKBN2G90XV
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
REUTERS
"FACTBOX-Key elements of U.S. House Democrats' tax-hike plans to fund Biden spending"
By David Lawder
SEPTEMBER 13, 2021
WASHINGTON, Sept 13 (Reuters) - U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal on Monday proposed a major rollback of Trump-era tax cuts on corporations and wealthy Americans to raise as much as $2.9 trillion to fund Democratic President Joe Biden’s social spending plans.
The Massachusetts Democrat's proposal will be debated within the tax-writing committee in coming days, but is likely to be altered in weeks of negotiations with the White House and moderate Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate.
Following are key elements of Neal’s proposal, based on the committee’s public description and contents of an internal document circulated among lawmakers and staff on Capitol Hill and seen by Reuters.
INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAXES
- Boosts the top individual tax rate to its pre-2017 level of 39.6%, from 37% currently, for taxable income above $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for married couples.
Biden proposed the same top rate, but kicking in at higher thresholds of $452,700 for individuals and $509,300 for married couples.
- Adds a surcharge of 3% on taxable income above $5 million.
- Prohibits contributions to tax-advantaged retirement accounts when the combined balances of an individual earning more than $400,000 reach $10 million, to curb so-called “mega-IRAs.”
Minimum distributions would also be required at these levels, boosting taxable incomes.
- Caps deductions for qualified business income at $400,000 for individuals and $500,000 for married couples.
Permanently disallows deduction of excess business losses by individuals.
CAPITAL GAINS TAXES
- Increases the top long-term capital gains tax rate to 25% from 20% on individuals with taxable income over $400,000.
Biden had proposed nearly doubling the capital gains rate to 39.6% for those earning over $1 million - a far bigger increase on a much narrower field of taxpayers.
- Preserves a tax break for carried interest income, but shrinks it by lengthening the holding period for most assets to five years from three years currently to qualify for capital gains rates.
ESTATE TAXES
- Accelerates by four years the expiration of Republicans’ temporary doubling of an exemption from estate taxes to $24 million passed in 2017.
The expanded exemption would now expire at the end of this year.
- Adds other changes to capture revenue from inheritance of nonfarm and nonbusiness assets held by grantor trusts or in partial ownership.
But it excludes Biden’s proposed elimination of the “step-up” in valuation of estate assets to current market rates that now occurs on the date of a person’s death - a proposal sharply criticized by Republicans.
CORPORATE, SMALL BUSINESS TAXES
- Increases the top corporate tax rate to 26.5% from 21% currently, but below the 28% proposed by Biden.
- Returns to a pre-2017 system of graduated corporate taxes, with a cut to 18% for small firms with income below $400,000, an unchanged 21% for companies earning up to $5 million and 26.5% thereafter.
- Raises the minimum tax rate on corporate overseas income to about 16.5% from about 10.5% currently.
This is lower than Biden’s proposed 21% rate, but closer to the minimum rate of at least 15% agreed by 134 countries participating in OECD tax negotiations.
- Reduces the percentage of foreign income that can be excluded from the minimum tax to 5% from 10%.
- Redefines the current Base Erosion Anti-Abuse (BEAT) tax to be closer to Biden administration’s SHIELD tax proposal to combat the use of tax havens, and raises the rate to 10% in 2022, 12.5% in 2024 and 15% in 2026.
TOBACCO TAXES
- Doubles the current rate of excise taxes on cigarettes, small cigars and roll-your-own tobacco.
Taxes large cigars and smokeless tobacco by weight at $49.56 per pound.
These increases would appear to be at odds with Biden’s pledge against raising taxes on people earning less than $400,000.
- Imposes a new excise tax on nicotine, such as that delivered through vaping devices, that would be equivalent to the same rate for cigarettes per 1,180 milligrams of nicotine.
TAXPAYER COMPLIANCE
- Provides $80 billion to the Internal Revenue Service over 10 years to improve tax enforcement on high-income taxpayers, in line with Biden’s proposal.
- Denies charitable deductions for conservation easements claimed by partnerships and other pass-through entities if the amount exceeds 2.5 times the sum of each partner’s cost basis in the donated property.
STATE AND LOCAL TAXES (SALT)
- The proposal did not address many Democrats’ calls for scrapping a cap on state and local tax deductions imposed in 2018.
Neal said in a statement he was committed to “meaningful SALT relief.”
Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-bid ... SL1N2QF234
"FACTBOX-Key elements of U.S. House Democrats' tax-hike plans to fund Biden spending"
By David Lawder
SEPTEMBER 13, 2021
WASHINGTON, Sept 13 (Reuters) - U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal on Monday proposed a major rollback of Trump-era tax cuts on corporations and wealthy Americans to raise as much as $2.9 trillion to fund Democratic President Joe Biden’s social spending plans.
The Massachusetts Democrat's proposal will be debated within the tax-writing committee in coming days, but is likely to be altered in weeks of negotiations with the White House and moderate Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate.
Following are key elements of Neal’s proposal, based on the committee’s public description and contents of an internal document circulated among lawmakers and staff on Capitol Hill and seen by Reuters.
INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAXES
- Boosts the top individual tax rate to its pre-2017 level of 39.6%, from 37% currently, for taxable income above $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for married couples.
Biden proposed the same top rate, but kicking in at higher thresholds of $452,700 for individuals and $509,300 for married couples.
- Adds a surcharge of 3% on taxable income above $5 million.
- Prohibits contributions to tax-advantaged retirement accounts when the combined balances of an individual earning more than $400,000 reach $10 million, to curb so-called “mega-IRAs.”
Minimum distributions would also be required at these levels, boosting taxable incomes.
- Caps deductions for qualified business income at $400,000 for individuals and $500,000 for married couples.
Permanently disallows deduction of excess business losses by individuals.
CAPITAL GAINS TAXES
- Increases the top long-term capital gains tax rate to 25% from 20% on individuals with taxable income over $400,000.
Biden had proposed nearly doubling the capital gains rate to 39.6% for those earning over $1 million - a far bigger increase on a much narrower field of taxpayers.
- Preserves a tax break for carried interest income, but shrinks it by lengthening the holding period for most assets to five years from three years currently to qualify for capital gains rates.
ESTATE TAXES
- Accelerates by four years the expiration of Republicans’ temporary doubling of an exemption from estate taxes to $24 million passed in 2017.
The expanded exemption would now expire at the end of this year.
- Adds other changes to capture revenue from inheritance of nonfarm and nonbusiness assets held by grantor trusts or in partial ownership.
But it excludes Biden’s proposed elimination of the “step-up” in valuation of estate assets to current market rates that now occurs on the date of a person’s death - a proposal sharply criticized by Republicans.
CORPORATE, SMALL BUSINESS TAXES
- Increases the top corporate tax rate to 26.5% from 21% currently, but below the 28% proposed by Biden.
- Returns to a pre-2017 system of graduated corporate taxes, with a cut to 18% for small firms with income below $400,000, an unchanged 21% for companies earning up to $5 million and 26.5% thereafter.
- Raises the minimum tax rate on corporate overseas income to about 16.5% from about 10.5% currently.
This is lower than Biden’s proposed 21% rate, but closer to the minimum rate of at least 15% agreed by 134 countries participating in OECD tax negotiations.
- Reduces the percentage of foreign income that can be excluded from the minimum tax to 5% from 10%.
- Redefines the current Base Erosion Anti-Abuse (BEAT) tax to be closer to Biden administration’s SHIELD tax proposal to combat the use of tax havens, and raises the rate to 10% in 2022, 12.5% in 2024 and 15% in 2026.
TOBACCO TAXES
- Doubles the current rate of excise taxes on cigarettes, small cigars and roll-your-own tobacco.
Taxes large cigars and smokeless tobacco by weight at $49.56 per pound.
These increases would appear to be at odds with Biden’s pledge against raising taxes on people earning less than $400,000.
- Imposes a new excise tax on nicotine, such as that delivered through vaping devices, that would be equivalent to the same rate for cigarettes per 1,180 milligrams of nicotine.
TAXPAYER COMPLIANCE
- Provides $80 billion to the Internal Revenue Service over 10 years to improve tax enforcement on high-income taxpayers, in line with Biden’s proposal.
- Denies charitable deductions for conservation easements claimed by partnerships and other pass-through entities if the amount exceeds 2.5 times the sum of each partner’s cost basis in the donated property.
STATE AND LOCAL TAXES (SALT)
- The proposal did not address many Democrats’ calls for scrapping a cap on state and local tax deductions imposed in 2018.
Neal said in a statement he was committed to “meaningful SALT relief.”
Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-bid ... SL1N2QF234
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
REUTERS
"U.S. consumers' inflation expectations highest since 2013, NY Fed says"
By Jonnelle Marte
September 13, 2021
Sept 13 (Reuters) - U.S. consumers' expectations for how much inflation will change over the next year and the coming three years rose last month to the highest levels since 2013, according to a survey released on Monday by the New York Federal Reserve.
Year-ahead inflation expectations increased for the 10th straight month to a median of 5.2% in August, according to the monthly survey of consumer expectations.
Inflation expectations over the next three years increased to a median of 4.0%. Both metrics are at the highest they've ever been for the survey, which was launched in 2013.
U.S. central bank officials are keeping a close watch on inflation expectations as they try to evaluate whether the pricing pressures triggered by the coronavirus pandemic will pass or have more lasting effects on the economy.
Some policymakers say ending the massive asset purchases the Fed launched last year to support markets and the economy sooner rather than later will give officials more options for responding down the road if inflation lasts longer than anticipated.
Several policymakers said they expect the Fed to begin winding those asset purchases down later this year despite a weakening in jobs growth in August.
The New York Fed survey showed that consumers are raising their expectations for how much more they may have to spend on housing, food and other essentials over the next year.
Expectations for how much home prices will increase over the next year dropped again in August for the third straight month, but were still elevated at a median of 5.9%, the survey found.
Food prices are expected to grow by 7.9% over the next year, up from 7.1% in July.
Rent is expected to increase by 10% over the next 12 months and the price of medical care is expected to rise by 9.7% over the next year - both up 0.2 percentage point from July.
The report is based on a rotating panel of 1,300 households.
Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Editing by Paul Simao
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-con ... 021-09-13/
"U.S. consumers' inflation expectations highest since 2013, NY Fed says"
By Jonnelle Marte
September 13, 2021
Sept 13 (Reuters) - U.S. consumers' expectations for how much inflation will change over the next year and the coming three years rose last month to the highest levels since 2013, according to a survey released on Monday by the New York Federal Reserve.
Year-ahead inflation expectations increased for the 10th straight month to a median of 5.2% in August, according to the monthly survey of consumer expectations.
Inflation expectations over the next three years increased to a median of 4.0%. Both metrics are at the highest they've ever been for the survey, which was launched in 2013.
U.S. central bank officials are keeping a close watch on inflation expectations as they try to evaluate whether the pricing pressures triggered by the coronavirus pandemic will pass or have more lasting effects on the economy.
Some policymakers say ending the massive asset purchases the Fed launched last year to support markets and the economy sooner rather than later will give officials more options for responding down the road if inflation lasts longer than anticipated.
Several policymakers said they expect the Fed to begin winding those asset purchases down later this year despite a weakening in jobs growth in August.
The New York Fed survey showed that consumers are raising their expectations for how much more they may have to spend on housing, food and other essentials over the next year.
Expectations for how much home prices will increase over the next year dropped again in August for the third straight month, but were still elevated at a median of 5.9%, the survey found.
Food prices are expected to grow by 7.9% over the next year, up from 7.1% in July.
Rent is expected to increase by 10% over the next 12 months and the price of medical care is expected to rise by 9.7% over the next year - both up 0.2 percentage point from July.
The report is based on a rotating panel of 1,300 households.
Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Editing by Paul Simao
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-con ... 021-09-13/
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
SCIENCE INSIDER
"Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine — but vaccination remains vital; Israelis who had an infection were more protected against the Delta coronavirus variant than those who had an already highly effective COVID-19 vaccine"
BY MEREDITH WADMAN
26 AUG 2021
A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 373, Issue 6559.
The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a large Israeli study that some scientists wish came with a “Don’t try this at home” label.
The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than never-infected, vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19.
The study demonstrates the power of the human immune system, but infectious disease experts emphasized that this vaccine and others for COVID-19 nonetheless remain highly protective against severe disease and death.
And they caution that intentional infection among unvaccinated people would be extremely risky.
“What we don’t want people to say is: ‘All right, I should go out and get infected, I should have an infection party,’” says Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University who researches the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 and was not involved in the study.
“Because somebody could die.”
The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated.
The new work could inform discussion of whether previously infected people need to receive both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the similar mRNA vaccine from Moderna.
Vaccine mandates don’t necessarily exempt those who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection already and the current U.S. recommendation is that they be fully vaccinated, which means two mRNA doses or one of the Johnson & Johnson adenovirus-based vaccine.
Yet one mRNA dose might be enough, some scientists argue.
And other countries including Germany, France, Italy, and Israel administer just one vaccine dose to previously infected people.
The study, conducted in one of the most highly COVID-19–vaccinated countries in the world, examined medical records of tens of thousands of Israelis, charting their infections, symptoms, and hospitalizations between 1 June and 14 August, when the Delta variant predominated in Israel.
It’s the largest real-world observational study so far to compare natural and vaccine-induced immunity to SARS-CoV-2, according to its leaders.
The research impresses Nussenzweig and other scientists who have reviewed a preprint of the results, posted yesterday on medRxiv.
“It’s a textbook example of how natural immunity is really better than vaccination,” says Charlotte Thålin, a physician and immunology researcher at Danderyd Hospital and the Karolinska Institute who studies the immune responses to SARS-CoV-2.
“To my knowledge, it’s the first time [this] has really been shown in the context of COVID-19.”
Still, Thålin and other researchers stress that deliberate infection among unvaccinated people would put them at significant risk of severe disease and death, or the lingering, significant symptoms of what has been dubbed Long Covid.
The study shows the benefits of natural immunity, but “doesn’t take into account what this virus does to the body to get to that point,” says Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington, Seattle.
COVID-19 has already killed more than 4 million people worldwide and there are concerns that Delta and other SARS-CoV-2 variants are deadlier than the original virus.
The new analysis relies on the database of Maccabi Healthcare Services, which enrolls about 2.5 million Israelis.
The study, led by Tal Patalon and Sivan Gazit at KSM, the system’s research and innovation arm, found in two analyses that never-infected people who were vaccinated in January and February were, in June, July, and the first half of August, six to 13 times more likely to get infected than unvaccinated people who were previously infected with the coronavirus.
In one analysis, comparing more than 32,000 people in the health system, the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 was 27 times higher among the vaccinated, and the risk of hospitalization eight times higher.
“The differences are huge,” says Thålin, although she cautions that the numbers for infections and other events analyzed for the comparisons were “small.”
For instance, the higher hospitalization rate in the 32,000-person analysis was based on just eight hospitalizations in a vaccinated group and one in a previously infected group.
And the 13-fold increased risk of infection in the same analysis was based on just 238 infections in the vaccinated population, less than 1.5% of the more than 16,000 people, versus 19 reinfections among a similar number of people who once had SARS-CoV-2.
No one in the study who got a new SARS-CoV-2 infection died — which prevented a comparison of death rates but is a clear sign that vaccines still offer a formidable shield against serious disease, even if not as good as natural immunity.
Moreover, natural immunity is far from perfect.
Although reinfections with SARS-CoV-2 are rare, and often asymptomatic or mild, they can be severe.
In another analysis, the researchers compared more than 14,000 people who had a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and were still unvaccinated with an equivalent number of previously infected people who received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The team found that the unvaccinated group was twice as likely to be reinfected as the singly vaccinated.
“We continue to underestimate the importance of natural infection immunity … especially when [infection] is recent,” says Eric Topol, a physician-scientist at Scripps Research.
“And when you bolster that with one dose of vaccine, you take it to levels you can’t possibly match with any vaccine in the world right now.”
Nussenzweig says the results in previously infected, vaccinated people confirm laboratory findings from a series of papers in Nature and Immunity by his group, his Rockefeller University colleague Paul Bieniasz and others — and from a preprint posted this month by Bieniasz and his team.
They show, Nussenzweig says, that the immune systems of people who develop natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and then get vaccinated produce exceptionally broad and potent antibodies against the coronavirus.
The preprint, for example, reported that people who were previously infected and then vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine had antibodies in their blood that neutralized the infectivity of another virus, harmless to humans, that was engineered to express a version of the coronavirus spike protein that contains 20 concerning mutations.
Sera from vaccinated and naturally infected people could not do so.
As for the Israel medical records study, Topol and others point out several limitations, such as the inherent weakness of a retrospective analysis compared with a prospective study that regularly tests all participants as it tracks new infections, symptomatic infections, hospitalizations, and deaths going forward in time.
“It will be important to see these findings replicated or refuted,” says Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University.
She adds: “The biggest limitation in the study is that testing [for SARS-CoV-2 infection] is still a voluntary thing — it’s not part of the study design.”
That means, she says, that comparisons could be confounded if, for example, previously infected people who developed mild symptoms were less likely to get tested than vaccinated people, perhaps because they think they are immune.
Nussenzweig’s group has published data showing people who recover from a SARS-CoV-2 infection continue to develop increasing numbers and types of coronavirus-targeting antibodies for up to 1 year.
By contrast, he says, twice-vaccinated people stop seeing increases “in the potency or breadth of the overall memory antibody compartment” a few months after their second dose.
For many infectious diseases, naturally acquired immunity is known to be more powerful than vaccine-induced immunity and it often lasts a lifetime.
Other coronaviruses that cause the serious human diseases severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome trigger robust and persistent immune responses.
At the same time, several other human coronaviruses, which usually cause little more than colds, are known to reinfect people regularly.
https://www.science.org/content/article ... ains-vital
"Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine — but vaccination remains vital; Israelis who had an infection were more protected against the Delta coronavirus variant than those who had an already highly effective COVID-19 vaccine"
BY MEREDITH WADMAN
26 AUG 2021
A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 373, Issue 6559.
The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a large Israeli study that some scientists wish came with a “Don’t try this at home” label.
The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than never-infected, vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19.
The study demonstrates the power of the human immune system, but infectious disease experts emphasized that this vaccine and others for COVID-19 nonetheless remain highly protective against severe disease and death.
And they caution that intentional infection among unvaccinated people would be extremely risky.
“What we don’t want people to say is: ‘All right, I should go out and get infected, I should have an infection party,’” says Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University who researches the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 and was not involved in the study.
“Because somebody could die.”
The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated.
The new work could inform discussion of whether previously infected people need to receive both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the similar mRNA vaccine from Moderna.
Vaccine mandates don’t necessarily exempt those who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection already and the current U.S. recommendation is that they be fully vaccinated, which means two mRNA doses or one of the Johnson & Johnson adenovirus-based vaccine.
Yet one mRNA dose might be enough, some scientists argue.
And other countries including Germany, France, Italy, and Israel administer just one vaccine dose to previously infected people.
The study, conducted in one of the most highly COVID-19–vaccinated countries in the world, examined medical records of tens of thousands of Israelis, charting their infections, symptoms, and hospitalizations between 1 June and 14 August, when the Delta variant predominated in Israel.
It’s the largest real-world observational study so far to compare natural and vaccine-induced immunity to SARS-CoV-2, according to its leaders.
The research impresses Nussenzweig and other scientists who have reviewed a preprint of the results, posted yesterday on medRxiv.
“It’s a textbook example of how natural immunity is really better than vaccination,” says Charlotte Thålin, a physician and immunology researcher at Danderyd Hospital and the Karolinska Institute who studies the immune responses to SARS-CoV-2.
“To my knowledge, it’s the first time [this] has really been shown in the context of COVID-19.”
Still, Thålin and other researchers stress that deliberate infection among unvaccinated people would put them at significant risk of severe disease and death, or the lingering, significant symptoms of what has been dubbed Long Covid.
The study shows the benefits of natural immunity, but “doesn’t take into account what this virus does to the body to get to that point,” says Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington, Seattle.
COVID-19 has already killed more than 4 million people worldwide and there are concerns that Delta and other SARS-CoV-2 variants are deadlier than the original virus.
The new analysis relies on the database of Maccabi Healthcare Services, which enrolls about 2.5 million Israelis.
The study, led by Tal Patalon and Sivan Gazit at KSM, the system’s research and innovation arm, found in two analyses that never-infected people who were vaccinated in January and February were, in June, July, and the first half of August, six to 13 times more likely to get infected than unvaccinated people who were previously infected with the coronavirus.
In one analysis, comparing more than 32,000 people in the health system, the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 was 27 times higher among the vaccinated, and the risk of hospitalization eight times higher.
“The differences are huge,” says Thålin, although she cautions that the numbers for infections and other events analyzed for the comparisons were “small.”
For instance, the higher hospitalization rate in the 32,000-person analysis was based on just eight hospitalizations in a vaccinated group and one in a previously infected group.
And the 13-fold increased risk of infection in the same analysis was based on just 238 infections in the vaccinated population, less than 1.5% of the more than 16,000 people, versus 19 reinfections among a similar number of people who once had SARS-CoV-2.
No one in the study who got a new SARS-CoV-2 infection died — which prevented a comparison of death rates but is a clear sign that vaccines still offer a formidable shield against serious disease, even if not as good as natural immunity.
Moreover, natural immunity is far from perfect.
Although reinfections with SARS-CoV-2 are rare, and often asymptomatic or mild, they can be severe.
In another analysis, the researchers compared more than 14,000 people who had a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and were still unvaccinated with an equivalent number of previously infected people who received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The team found that the unvaccinated group was twice as likely to be reinfected as the singly vaccinated.
“We continue to underestimate the importance of natural infection immunity … especially when [infection] is recent,” says Eric Topol, a physician-scientist at Scripps Research.
“And when you bolster that with one dose of vaccine, you take it to levels you can’t possibly match with any vaccine in the world right now.”
Nussenzweig says the results in previously infected, vaccinated people confirm laboratory findings from a series of papers in Nature and Immunity by his group, his Rockefeller University colleague Paul Bieniasz and others — and from a preprint posted this month by Bieniasz and his team.
They show, Nussenzweig says, that the immune systems of people who develop natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and then get vaccinated produce exceptionally broad and potent antibodies against the coronavirus.
The preprint, for example, reported that people who were previously infected and then vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine had antibodies in their blood that neutralized the infectivity of another virus, harmless to humans, that was engineered to express a version of the coronavirus spike protein that contains 20 concerning mutations.
Sera from vaccinated and naturally infected people could not do so.
As for the Israel medical records study, Topol and others point out several limitations, such as the inherent weakness of a retrospective analysis compared with a prospective study that regularly tests all participants as it tracks new infections, symptomatic infections, hospitalizations, and deaths going forward in time.
“It will be important to see these findings replicated or refuted,” says Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University.
She adds: “The biggest limitation in the study is that testing [for SARS-CoV-2 infection] is still a voluntary thing — it’s not part of the study design.”
That means, she says, that comparisons could be confounded if, for example, previously infected people who developed mild symptoms were less likely to get tested than vaccinated people, perhaps because they think they are immune.
Nussenzweig’s group has published data showing people who recover from a SARS-CoV-2 infection continue to develop increasing numbers and types of coronavirus-targeting antibodies for up to 1 year.
By contrast, he says, twice-vaccinated people stop seeing increases “in the potency or breadth of the overall memory antibody compartment” a few months after their second dose.
For many infectious diseases, naturally acquired immunity is known to be more powerful than vaccine-induced immunity and it often lasts a lifetime.
Other coronaviruses that cause the serious human diseases severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome trigger robust and persistent immune responses.
At the same time, several other human coronaviruses, which usually cause little more than colds, are known to reinfect people regularly.
https://www.science.org/content/article ... ains-vital