COVID-19 'Pandemic'
- Thread starter Ocean Breeze
- Start date
Wait for it. If the Republicans don't get their sh1t together we can pretty much guarantee that not walking the "woke" narrative will end up like the J6'ers - in jail with no way out & with no due process. One may as well be in a concentration camp since it's already happening. God help us all!
COVID caused brain damage in 2 infants infected during pregnancy: U.S. study
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Julie Steenhuysen
Published Apr 06, 2023 • 2 minute read
CHICAGO — Researchers at the University of Miami reported on Thursday what they believe are the first two confirmed cases in which the SARS-CoV-2 virus crossed a mother’s placenta and caused brain damage in the infants they were carrying.
Doctors previously had suspected this was possible, but until now, there was no direct evidence of COVID-19 in a mother’s placenta or an infant’s brain, the team told reporters at a news briefing.
The babies were born to young mothers who tested positive for the virus during their second trimester at the height of the pandemic’s Delta wave in 2020, before vaccines were available. The case studies were published in the journal Pediatrics.
Several viruses are known to be capable of crossing the placenta and causing fetal brain damage, including Cytomegalovirus, Rubella, HIV and Zika. The SARS-CoV-2 virus has been detected in adult brain tissue, and some experts had suspected it could also damage fetal brain tissue.
“This is the first time that we’ve been able to demonstrate the virus in a fetal organ with transplacental passage,” Dr. Michael Paidas, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Miami, told the briefing. “That’s why we think this is so important.”
The newborns had seizures from the first day of life. However, unlike Zika, the babies were not born with microcephaly, a condition marked by small head size. Instead, microcephaly developed over time as their brains stopped growing at a normal rate, the team said.
Both infants had severe developmental delays. One of the children died at 13 months, and the other was in hospice care, the team said.
Neither of the infants tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but they did have high levels of COVID antibodies in their blood, Dr. Merline Benny, a neonatologist and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Miami, told the briefing. She said that suggests the virus crossed from the mother, through the placenta and to the baby.
The team found evidence of the virus in both mothers’ placentas. An autopsy of the child’s brain who died revealed COVID virus in the brain, suggesting direct infection caused the injuries, Benny said.
As for the mothers, although both tested positive for the virus, one woman had only mild symptoms and carried the baby full term while the other was so sick that doctors had to deliver the baby at 32 weeks of gestation.
Dr. Shahnaz Duara, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the University of Miami, said she believed the cases were rare, but urged women who had been infected during their pregnancies to inform their children’s pediatricians to check for developmental delays.
“We know that things can be fairly subtle up to seven or eight years of age, until kids go to school,” she said.
The team also urged women who were considering pregnancy to get vaccinated against COVID, and said pregnant women should consider vaccination.
It was not yet clear whether the injuries caused during pregnancy were unique to the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 or could occur with Omicron-related variants.
For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to Healthing.ca – a member of the Postmedia Network.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Julie Steenhuysen
Published Apr 06, 2023 • 2 minute read
CHICAGO — Researchers at the University of Miami reported on Thursday what they believe are the first two confirmed cases in which the SARS-CoV-2 virus crossed a mother’s placenta and caused brain damage in the infants they were carrying.
Doctors previously had suspected this was possible, but until now, there was no direct evidence of COVID-19 in a mother’s placenta or an infant’s brain, the team told reporters at a news briefing.
The babies were born to young mothers who tested positive for the virus during their second trimester at the height of the pandemic’s Delta wave in 2020, before vaccines were available. The case studies were published in the journal Pediatrics.
Several viruses are known to be capable of crossing the placenta and causing fetal brain damage, including Cytomegalovirus, Rubella, HIV and Zika. The SARS-CoV-2 virus has been detected in adult brain tissue, and some experts had suspected it could also damage fetal brain tissue.
“This is the first time that we’ve been able to demonstrate the virus in a fetal organ with transplacental passage,” Dr. Michael Paidas, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Miami, told the briefing. “That’s why we think this is so important.”
The newborns had seizures from the first day of life. However, unlike Zika, the babies were not born with microcephaly, a condition marked by small head size. Instead, microcephaly developed over time as their brains stopped growing at a normal rate, the team said.
Both infants had severe developmental delays. One of the children died at 13 months, and the other was in hospice care, the team said.
Neither of the infants tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but they did have high levels of COVID antibodies in their blood, Dr. Merline Benny, a neonatologist and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Miami, told the briefing. She said that suggests the virus crossed from the mother, through the placenta and to the baby.
The team found evidence of the virus in both mothers’ placentas. An autopsy of the child’s brain who died revealed COVID virus in the brain, suggesting direct infection caused the injuries, Benny said.
As for the mothers, although both tested positive for the virus, one woman had only mild symptoms and carried the baby full term while the other was so sick that doctors had to deliver the baby at 32 weeks of gestation.
Dr. Shahnaz Duara, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the University of Miami, said she believed the cases were rare, but urged women who had been infected during their pregnancies to inform their children’s pediatricians to check for developmental delays.
“We know that things can be fairly subtle up to seven or eight years of age, until kids go to school,” she said.
The team also urged women who were considering pregnancy to get vaccinated against COVID, and said pregnant women should consider vaccination.
It was not yet clear whether the injuries caused during pregnancy were unique to the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 or could occur with Omicron-related variants.
For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to Healthing.ca – a member of the Postmedia Network.
COVID caused brain damage in 2 infants infected during pregnancy: U.S. study
Researchers reported what they believe are the first two confirmed cases in which the SARS-CoV-2 virus crossed a mother's placenta and caused brain damage in their infants.
Infamous Calgary anti-vaxxer ordered to pay $650,000 for defaming AHS worker
The judge said he wasn’t confident Johnston would pay the penalty
Author of the article:Kevin Martin
Published Apr 13, 2023 • Last updated 17 hours ago • 2 minute read
"The evidence reviewed earlier in these reasons shows that Mr. Johnston repeatedly spoke about Ms. Nunn in segments in his online talk show. He used pejoratives like 'terrorist' and 'fascist' to describe Ms. Nunn," the judge said.
"The evidence reviewed earlier in these reasons shows that Mr. Johnston repeatedly spoke about Ms. Nunn in segments in his online talk show. He used pejoratives like 'terrorist' and 'fascist' to describe Ms. Nunn," the judge said.
Notorious anti-vaxxer and one-time fringe Calgary mayoral candidate Kevin J. Johnston must pay $650,000 in damages to a public health inspector he continually harassed and defamed, a Calgary judge says.
In a written decision released Thursday, Justice Colin Feasby said Johnston’s relentless campaign against Sarah Nunn warranted a significant award of compensation.
But the Court of King’s Bench judge said he wasn’t confident Johnston would pay the penalty, also ordering the Calgary man to be permanently restrained from similar conduct aimed at the health inspector.
“While I have awarded damages for these causes of action, Mr. Johnston is unrepentant and I have no confidence that the damages award will function as any sort of disincentive to him continuing to defame and harass Ms. Nunn,” Feasby wrote.
“Indeed, the fact that he has not paid a significant previous defamation award suggests to me that financial penalties are insufficient to motivate Mr. Johnston to change his conduct. Accordingly, I conclude that a permanent injunction is a just and appropriate remedy that is required to prevent Mr. Johnston from continuing to defame and harass Ms. Nunn.”
Feasby noted Johnston repeatedly defamed the public health inspector on his online talk show and in comments to mainstream media outlets.
“The evidence reviewed earlier in these reasons shows that Mr. Johnston repeatedly spoke about Ms. Nunn in segments in his online talk show. He used pejoratives like ‘terrorist’ and ‘fascist’ to describe Ms. Nunn,” Feasby said.
“He mocked Ms. Nunn and her family while showing pictures of them harvested from her social media accounts. And, as discussed earlier in these reasons, Mr. Johnston’s statements could reasonably be interpreted as inciting his followers to violence against Ms. Nunn and her family. This behaviour was harassing and Mr. Johnston knew or ought to have known it was unwelcome.”
The judge said it was clear Johnston’s repeated defamatory comments about Nunn, which included a suggestion she was an alcoholic based on social media posts of her drinking, were untrue.
“Let me say clearly that Mr. Johnston’s statements about Ms. Nunn are both untrue and unfair. The pictures that Mr. Johnston harvested from her social media depict a person enjoying her life with her husband, family and friends. Nothing about the photos provides even a shred of support for the scorn heaped on Ms. Nunn by Mr. Johnston.”
Feasby also issued a permanent restraining order preventing Johnston from harassing other Alberta Health Services employees, but found AHS was a “government actor” and disentitled to sue Johnston for defamation.
KMartin@postmedia.com
Twitter: @KMartinCourts
torontosun.com
The judge said he wasn’t confident Johnston would pay the penalty
Author of the article:Kevin Martin
Published Apr 13, 2023 • Last updated 17 hours ago • 2 minute read
"The evidence reviewed earlier in these reasons shows that Mr. Johnston repeatedly spoke about Ms. Nunn in segments in his online talk show. He used pejoratives like 'terrorist' and 'fascist' to describe Ms. Nunn," the judge said.
"The evidence reviewed earlier in these reasons shows that Mr. Johnston repeatedly spoke about Ms. Nunn in segments in his online talk show. He used pejoratives like 'terrorist' and 'fascist' to describe Ms. Nunn," the judge said.
Notorious anti-vaxxer and one-time fringe Calgary mayoral candidate Kevin J. Johnston must pay $650,000 in damages to a public health inspector he continually harassed and defamed, a Calgary judge says.
In a written decision released Thursday, Justice Colin Feasby said Johnston’s relentless campaign against Sarah Nunn warranted a significant award of compensation.
But the Court of King’s Bench judge said he wasn’t confident Johnston would pay the penalty, also ordering the Calgary man to be permanently restrained from similar conduct aimed at the health inspector.
“While I have awarded damages for these causes of action, Mr. Johnston is unrepentant and I have no confidence that the damages award will function as any sort of disincentive to him continuing to defame and harass Ms. Nunn,” Feasby wrote.
“Indeed, the fact that he has not paid a significant previous defamation award suggests to me that financial penalties are insufficient to motivate Mr. Johnston to change his conduct. Accordingly, I conclude that a permanent injunction is a just and appropriate remedy that is required to prevent Mr. Johnston from continuing to defame and harass Ms. Nunn.”
Feasby noted Johnston repeatedly defamed the public health inspector on his online talk show and in comments to mainstream media outlets.
“The evidence reviewed earlier in these reasons shows that Mr. Johnston repeatedly spoke about Ms. Nunn in segments in his online talk show. He used pejoratives like ‘terrorist’ and ‘fascist’ to describe Ms. Nunn,” Feasby said.
“He mocked Ms. Nunn and her family while showing pictures of them harvested from her social media accounts. And, as discussed earlier in these reasons, Mr. Johnston’s statements could reasonably be interpreted as inciting his followers to violence against Ms. Nunn and her family. This behaviour was harassing and Mr. Johnston knew or ought to have known it was unwelcome.”
The judge said it was clear Johnston’s repeated defamatory comments about Nunn, which included a suggestion she was an alcoholic based on social media posts of her drinking, were untrue.
“Let me say clearly that Mr. Johnston’s statements about Ms. Nunn are both untrue and unfair. The pictures that Mr. Johnston harvested from her social media depict a person enjoying her life with her husband, family and friends. Nothing about the photos provides even a shred of support for the scorn heaped on Ms. Nunn by Mr. Johnston.”
Feasby also issued a permanent restraining order preventing Johnston from harassing other Alberta Health Services employees, but found AHS was a “government actor” and disentitled to sue Johnston for defamation.
KMartin@postmedia.com
Twitter: @KMartinCourts
Infamous Calgary anti-vaxxer ordered to pay $650,000 for defaming AHS worker
"I have no confidence that the damages award will function as any sort of disincentive to him continuing to defame and harass Ms. Nunn."
Canada's pledge to make more vaccines at home still work in progress
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Mia Rabson
Published Apr 14, 2023 • 6 minute read
OTTAWA — The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t even six months old, and not a single vaccine for it had been approved for use anywhere, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to a podium in Montreal to promise that Canada’s National Research Council would be able to start churning out millions of doses by the end of 2021.
Nearly 1,000 days later, it hasn’t produced even one dose for clinical use.
But that day is coming.
Earl Brown, a virologist and professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa, said getting a new plant from the ground up was never going to happen in less than a year.
“As soon as I heard that, I thought, ‘Well gee, that’s overly optimistic by a couple or three years.’ You have to have an objective, but that one wasn’t realistic.”
Still, Brown said if another coronavirus pandemic hits the world, Canada is now in a better position to make its own vaccines and medicines than it was when COVID-19 arrived three years ago.
“We are further ahead because we’ve taken initiative,” he said.
When Canada was negotiating contracts to buy COVID-19 vaccines in the summer of 2020, then-procurement minister Anita Anand asked every company if it could make their doses in Canada. All of them said no.
Anand, who is now the defence minister, said they all concluded that Canada’s biomanufacturing capacity “was too limited to justify the investment of capital and expertise to start manufacturing in Canada.”
That left Canada beholden to imported vaccines, limited early supplies and forced up the cost. The government promised that would change.
Between May 2020 and April 2022, Canada promised more than $1.3 billion for 12 new or expanded biomanufacturing plants to make vaccines and antibody treatments.
Most are still in construction, but Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Friday things are moving well.
“I think we’re in a much better spot than we have ever been as a nation,” he said.
When he started as the minister in January 2021, he said Canada had capacity to make or at least complete the production on about 30 million doses of vaccine a year.
GlaxoSmithKline made seasonal flu vaccines at its plant in Quebec. Sanofi Pasteur was filling vials with polio vaccine in Toronto, but the vaccine itself was being made in Europe. Most other common immunizations, such as the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, are imported.
Sanofi is among the 12 companies expanding production capacity now. In March 2021 it received $415 million from Canada and another $55 million from the Ontario government, to build a flu vaccine plant at its Toronto campus by 2026.
Champagne said all together the new projects will get Canada close to 600 million doses a year, but most are still one to three years away from completion.
The National Research Council’s new Biologics Manufacturing Centre is one of the few that is ready to make vaccines as of spring 2023 — as many as two million doses a month. It just doesn’t have one to produce.
The brand-new, $126-million plant was built by June 2021, somewhat within the timeline Trudeau proposed. It took another 14 months to get a Health Canada licence to make vaccines.
But the only vaccine it has an agreement to produce is spluttering. Maryland-based Novavax said in February it may not be able to survive. It took too long to get its COVID-19 vaccine onto the market, and lost the race to Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
The NRC said it was up to Novavax to comment on the status of its Canadian production plan. The company has not yet responded to The Canadian Press.
BioVectra, a biopharmaceutical contract manufacturer in Prince Edward Island, is also looking for vaccine partners. It’s new manufacturing site in Charlottetown, built in part with a $39.8 million grant from the federal government could eventually make 160 million doses of vaccine a year.
CEO Oliver Technow said construction began in April 2022, and it’s expected the first engineering batches will be produced by the end of this year.
That time frame, he said, “is pretty remarkable.”
But as to when any vaccines that might end up in patients’ arms, “that largely depends on our clients,” said Technow.
He said BioVectra is in discussions now with various companies. The site can make multiple types of vaccine, including the popular mRNA vaccines. That technology was newly used for COVID-19 vaccines, but multiple trials are underway that use it to fight other infectious diseases, as well as cancers.
Technow said the demand for mRNA vaccines “is just getting started.”
Moderna is banking on that. The company was founded to bring an mRNA vaccine to market, and its COVID-19 vaccine is its first successful product. It had only limited production capacity at its Massachusetts headquarters, and relied on a partnership with Swiss contract drug maker Lonza to fill its non-U.S. orders, including Canada’s.
Patricia Gauthier, Moderna’s general manager in Canada, said the company is now building manufacturing plants in Canada, Kenya, Australia and the United Kingdom.
She said the Canadian plant in the Montreal suburb of Laval is going up very quickly. Announced just a year ago, the site was picked last summer and construction began in November. Now, she said, there are walls and a roof and the expectation doses can start coming off the line by the end of next year.
Health Canada’s licensing process will dictate when doses for patient use will be ready, but Gauthier said the hope is by late 2024 or early 2025.
The facility should be able to make up to 100 million doses a year, depending on the vaccine being produced. While manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines is the initial plan, Moderna is also planning to make its RSV and flu vaccines there, though neither has yet been authorized.
“We’re making sure Canada will have everything it needs,” said Gauthier.
Ottawa didn’t make a direct financial contribution to Moderna for the plant. Instead, it has an agreement to buy the vaccines that are to come off the plant’s manufacturing lines.
Eleven of the new projects involve vaccines. The twelfth one, AbCellera Biologics new manufacturing site, will make antibody therapies.
Vaccines help the body stimulate antibodies to a particular virus to ward off a potential future infection. Antibody treatments use antibodies produced in a lab to help the body fight off an infection after it has already started.
AbCellera partnered with Eli Lilly to make the first COVID-19 antibody treatment. The research and development happened at AbCellera in Vancouver but the manufacturing happened in the United States.
In May 2020, Canada funded AbCellera with $175.6 million to build Canada’s first antibody therapy manufacturing plant in Vancouver over the next five years. Murray McCutcheon, senior vice-president of corporate development at AbCellera, said the new 130,000-square plant is on schedule.
Construction began last summer, and should be completed in 2024. McCutcheon said the first clinical batches should be produced in 2025.
“In the early days of COVID, we recognized that there was no opportunity to produce these medicines here in Canada and we were reliant on foreign suppliers,” said McCutcheon.
“So we saw an opportunity to ensure that we could not only discover and develop these therapies here, but also manufacture them here so that Canadian patients could be the first to receive such therapies.”
The only project on the list that may completely fail is Medicago’s manufacturing site in Quebec City. The company got $173 million from Canada in 2020 to push its COVID-19 forward and build a new production plant.
The vaccine was successful in trials, but because the company was partly owned by tobacco giant Philip Morris, the World Health Organization refused to even consider its application for authorization.
Health Canada approved the vaccine, and Canada paid for 20 million doses, but Canada’s ongoing COVID-19 vaccine supply is being entirely filled by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Without the WHO authorization, Medicago couldn’t get approval for use elsewhere.
Philip Morris sold its share of the company in December but in February the remaining sole owner, Japan’s Mitsubishi, said it was closing Medicago’s operations.
Champagne said Friday he spoke to the Quebec City mayor about the issue this week, and he is hoping to find a new partner to at least save the research done by the company.
Medicago was the only company in the world making a vaccine grown in plants.
Champagne did not say whether Canada has any chance to get its investment back if the company does entirely disappear.
— With files from Marisela Amador in Montreal.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Mia Rabson
Published Apr 14, 2023 • 6 minute read
OTTAWA — The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t even six months old, and not a single vaccine for it had been approved for use anywhere, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to a podium in Montreal to promise that Canada’s National Research Council would be able to start churning out millions of doses by the end of 2021.
Nearly 1,000 days later, it hasn’t produced even one dose for clinical use.
But that day is coming.
Earl Brown, a virologist and professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa, said getting a new plant from the ground up was never going to happen in less than a year.
“As soon as I heard that, I thought, ‘Well gee, that’s overly optimistic by a couple or three years.’ You have to have an objective, but that one wasn’t realistic.”
Still, Brown said if another coronavirus pandemic hits the world, Canada is now in a better position to make its own vaccines and medicines than it was when COVID-19 arrived three years ago.
“We are further ahead because we’ve taken initiative,” he said.
When Canada was negotiating contracts to buy COVID-19 vaccines in the summer of 2020, then-procurement minister Anita Anand asked every company if it could make their doses in Canada. All of them said no.
Anand, who is now the defence minister, said they all concluded that Canada’s biomanufacturing capacity “was too limited to justify the investment of capital and expertise to start manufacturing in Canada.”
That left Canada beholden to imported vaccines, limited early supplies and forced up the cost. The government promised that would change.
Between May 2020 and April 2022, Canada promised more than $1.3 billion for 12 new or expanded biomanufacturing plants to make vaccines and antibody treatments.
Most are still in construction, but Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Friday things are moving well.
“I think we’re in a much better spot than we have ever been as a nation,” he said.
When he started as the minister in January 2021, he said Canada had capacity to make or at least complete the production on about 30 million doses of vaccine a year.
GlaxoSmithKline made seasonal flu vaccines at its plant in Quebec. Sanofi Pasteur was filling vials with polio vaccine in Toronto, but the vaccine itself was being made in Europe. Most other common immunizations, such as the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, are imported.
Sanofi is among the 12 companies expanding production capacity now. In March 2021 it received $415 million from Canada and another $55 million from the Ontario government, to build a flu vaccine plant at its Toronto campus by 2026.
Champagne said all together the new projects will get Canada close to 600 million doses a year, but most are still one to three years away from completion.
The National Research Council’s new Biologics Manufacturing Centre is one of the few that is ready to make vaccines as of spring 2023 — as many as two million doses a month. It just doesn’t have one to produce.
The brand-new, $126-million plant was built by June 2021, somewhat within the timeline Trudeau proposed. It took another 14 months to get a Health Canada licence to make vaccines.
But the only vaccine it has an agreement to produce is spluttering. Maryland-based Novavax said in February it may not be able to survive. It took too long to get its COVID-19 vaccine onto the market, and lost the race to Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
The NRC said it was up to Novavax to comment on the status of its Canadian production plan. The company has not yet responded to The Canadian Press.
BioVectra, a biopharmaceutical contract manufacturer in Prince Edward Island, is also looking for vaccine partners. It’s new manufacturing site in Charlottetown, built in part with a $39.8 million grant from the federal government could eventually make 160 million doses of vaccine a year.
CEO Oliver Technow said construction began in April 2022, and it’s expected the first engineering batches will be produced by the end of this year.
That time frame, he said, “is pretty remarkable.”
But as to when any vaccines that might end up in patients’ arms, “that largely depends on our clients,” said Technow.
He said BioVectra is in discussions now with various companies. The site can make multiple types of vaccine, including the popular mRNA vaccines. That technology was newly used for COVID-19 vaccines, but multiple trials are underway that use it to fight other infectious diseases, as well as cancers.
Technow said the demand for mRNA vaccines “is just getting started.”
Moderna is banking on that. The company was founded to bring an mRNA vaccine to market, and its COVID-19 vaccine is its first successful product. It had only limited production capacity at its Massachusetts headquarters, and relied on a partnership with Swiss contract drug maker Lonza to fill its non-U.S. orders, including Canada’s.
Patricia Gauthier, Moderna’s general manager in Canada, said the company is now building manufacturing plants in Canada, Kenya, Australia and the United Kingdom.
She said the Canadian plant in the Montreal suburb of Laval is going up very quickly. Announced just a year ago, the site was picked last summer and construction began in November. Now, she said, there are walls and a roof and the expectation doses can start coming off the line by the end of next year.
Health Canada’s licensing process will dictate when doses for patient use will be ready, but Gauthier said the hope is by late 2024 or early 2025.
The facility should be able to make up to 100 million doses a year, depending on the vaccine being produced. While manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines is the initial plan, Moderna is also planning to make its RSV and flu vaccines there, though neither has yet been authorized.
“We’re making sure Canada will have everything it needs,” said Gauthier.
Ottawa didn’t make a direct financial contribution to Moderna for the plant. Instead, it has an agreement to buy the vaccines that are to come off the plant’s manufacturing lines.
Eleven of the new projects involve vaccines. The twelfth one, AbCellera Biologics new manufacturing site, will make antibody therapies.
Vaccines help the body stimulate antibodies to a particular virus to ward off a potential future infection. Antibody treatments use antibodies produced in a lab to help the body fight off an infection after it has already started.
AbCellera partnered with Eli Lilly to make the first COVID-19 antibody treatment. The research and development happened at AbCellera in Vancouver but the manufacturing happened in the United States.
In May 2020, Canada funded AbCellera with $175.6 million to build Canada’s first antibody therapy manufacturing plant in Vancouver over the next five years. Murray McCutcheon, senior vice-president of corporate development at AbCellera, said the new 130,000-square plant is on schedule.
Construction began last summer, and should be completed in 2024. McCutcheon said the first clinical batches should be produced in 2025.
“In the early days of COVID, we recognized that there was no opportunity to produce these medicines here in Canada and we were reliant on foreign suppliers,” said McCutcheon.
“So we saw an opportunity to ensure that we could not only discover and develop these therapies here, but also manufacture them here so that Canadian patients could be the first to receive such therapies.”
The only project on the list that may completely fail is Medicago’s manufacturing site in Quebec City. The company got $173 million from Canada in 2020 to push its COVID-19 forward and build a new production plant.
The vaccine was successful in trials, but because the company was partly owned by tobacco giant Philip Morris, the World Health Organization refused to even consider its application for authorization.
Health Canada approved the vaccine, and Canada paid for 20 million doses, but Canada’s ongoing COVID-19 vaccine supply is being entirely filled by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Without the WHO authorization, Medicago couldn’t get approval for use elsewhere.
Philip Morris sold its share of the company in December but in February the remaining sole owner, Japan’s Mitsubishi, said it was closing Medicago’s operations.
Champagne said Friday he spoke to the Quebec City mayor about the issue this week, and he is hoping to find a new partner to at least save the research done by the company.
Medicago was the only company in the world making a vaccine grown in plants.
Champagne did not say whether Canada has any chance to get its investment back if the company does entirely disappear.
— With files from Marisela Amador in Montreal.
Canada's pledge to make more vaccines at home still work in progress
OTTAWA — The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t even six months old, and not a single vaccine for it had been approved for use anywhere, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to…
Cambridge pharma facility to help make Moderna mRNA vaccines
The province is putting $4 million toward the project.
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Published May 04, 2023 • 1 minute read
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has announced that Moderna Inc. is partnering with a facility in Cambridge to complete the final steps of manufacturing for its mRNA vaccines.
He says the province is putting $4 million toward the project.
Novocol Pharma is set to prepare and package respiratory mRNA vaccines for distribution in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.
Moderna says vaccines produced at its plant that is under construction in Laval, Que., will be finished into vials and syringes in Novocol’s Cambridge facility.
Ford says the investment will create good-paying jobs and provide people with better access to vaccines, ensuring Ontario doesn’t have to rely on other jurisdictions.
Novocol says it is expanding its operations with the help of the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund and the agreement with Moderna will take advantage of the company’s new operations for the final stages of vaccine production, called “fill and finish.”
torontosun.com
The province is putting $4 million toward the project.
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Published May 04, 2023 • 1 minute read
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has announced that Moderna Inc. is partnering with a facility in Cambridge to complete the final steps of manufacturing for its mRNA vaccines.
He says the province is putting $4 million toward the project.
Novocol Pharma is set to prepare and package respiratory mRNA vaccines for distribution in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.
Moderna says vaccines produced at its plant that is under construction in Laval, Que., will be finished into vials and syringes in Novocol’s Cambridge facility.
Ford says the investment will create good-paying jobs and provide people with better access to vaccines, ensuring Ontario doesn’t have to rely on other jurisdictions.
Novocol says it is expanding its operations with the help of the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund and the agreement with Moderna will take advantage of the company’s new operations for the final stages of vaccine production, called “fill and finish.”
Cambridge pharma facility to help make Moderna mRNA vaccines
Ford says the investment will create good-paying jobs and provide people with better access to vaccines
Lack of Ontario long COVID strategy risks care: Ministry documents
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Allison Jones and Liam Casey
Published May 03, 2023 • 4 minute read
Ontario’s lack of a long COVID strategy has led the health sector to cobble together “fragmented” clinics that are at risk of closure and may lead to little to no support for patients, internal Ministry of Health documents warn.
Long COVID is not yet well understood, but the current and likely rising volume of patients will have an effect on Ontario’s recovery and may place added pressures on emergency rooms, say the documents obtained under a Freedom of Information request.
“Ontario does not have a coordinated approach to care for patients with PCC (Post COVID-19 Condition),” the health ministry’s strategic policy branch wrote last June.
“While some providers are responding to the immediate demand for post-COVID care, these offerings are insufficient, fragmented, and unsustainable without dedicated funding.”
Between 10 and 20 per cent of people who have had COVID-19 still experience symptoms 12 or more weeks post-infection, the documents note. Researchers estimate 1.4 million Canadians are living with long COVID. The documents highlight possible effects on both the health-care system and the economy, with a survey suggesting more than 70 per cent of long COVID patients have had to take time off work.
Other provinces are “national leaders in PCC care,” the document says, pointing to British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec.
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore have made conflicting statements as to whether a long COVID strategy is in the works, so The Canadian Press submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents include an undated 34-page record withheld in its entirety because it would reveal cabinet deliberations, a two-part presentation to the health minister’s office from the strategic policy branch in October, and an almost entirely redacted document from December titled, “Ministry of Health Proposed Announcement/Opportunity: Post COVID-19 Condition (PCC).”
Jones’ office would not say what long COVID announcement was in the works in December or why it never happened, and a spokesperson also declined to shed any further light on what the ministry is doing to develop a long COVID strategy.
Instead, Hannah Jensen noted that the government had implemented a long COVID fee code for doctors to use when assessing and managing patients.
“We will continue to work with our healthcare partners to better connect Ontarians to the high-quality care they need when they need it,” she wrote.
Dr. Kieran Quinn, a clinician-scientist at Sinai Health System who researches long COVID, said developing a provincial strategy to support people with long COVID is essential, though it won’t be easy.
“It will help to minimize potential inequities in health and social outcomes that we see in many conditions, including long COVID,” he said in an interview.
“There are challenges in the timing and design of that strategy, which are related to a poorly understood condition — there are probably multiple subtypes of long COVID — and an evolving definition, as our knowledge and understanding of it evolves with that.”
There are concerted national and provincial efforts to review the best evidence to inform care pathways, he said.
“I hope that in the near future we will have some meaningful discoveries to support (long COVID patients) and there will be some progress on what this strategy will look like from the provincial government,” Quinn said.
A ministry briefing in October to the minister’s office — in order to “seek minister’s office approval on a proposed approach to supporting Ontarians with Post COVID-19 Condition” — said that standardization in diagnostic assessment, referral criteria and educational resources are essential to ensure consistency in care.
“The PCC care model needs to be nimble and responsive to emerging evidence,” the document said. “A provincially coordinated approach would be most effective.”
In the absence of a co-ordinated provincial strategy, several hospitals have established long COVID clinics, but they have mostly relied on redeployed resources and shifting funding from other areas of the hospital.
“This model is not sustainable and could result in little to no support for Ontarians with PCC,” the briefing warned. “These clinics are currently at risk of closure due to lack of funding.”
At least one of those clinics has already closed.
Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare in Windsor, Ont., set up a long COVID clinic in the summer of 2021 by moving around some resources from other outpatient programs, but by the next summer it was increasing wait times for those other programs too much and they had to close it.
Janice Dawson, the hospital’s vice-president of restorative care and chief nursing executive, said government funding was “a little bit all over the map,” with only some clinics receiving money — not including Hotel-Dieu Grace.
The ministry briefing documents say that in 2021-22 the government gave Ontario Health $2.3 million to reimburse expenses for eight hospitals that operated long COVID clinics.
For 2022-23, the documents say no funding commitments had been made.
Dawson said the Hotel-Dieu Grace clinic found the most common symptoms they were treating were brain fog, chronic fatigue, anxiety and regaining taste and smell. The hospital is still taking referrals for long COVID patients, and directing them for treatment based on their symptoms, such as sending a patient to their cardiac or pulmonary clinic, Dawson said.
But having a co-ordinated approach and a provincial strategy would greatly benefit patients, she said.
“It opens the door to have a better collaborative effort between sectors,” Dawson said.
“Mental health can be talking to rehab, we can be talking to acute care … It probably also opens the door to how (Ontario Health Teams) could support this type of strategy, and it opens the door to the conversation around needing dedicated funding in which to do it.”
The hospital had a preliminary conversation with Ontario Health about possible funding in December, but has not heard anything since then, Dawson said.
“We’re talking about $200,000,” she said. “It’s not a huge amount of money to be able to do this.”
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Allison Jones and Liam Casey
Published May 03, 2023 • 4 minute read
Ontario’s lack of a long COVID strategy has led the health sector to cobble together “fragmented” clinics that are at risk of closure and may lead to little to no support for patients, internal Ministry of Health documents warn.
Long COVID is not yet well understood, but the current and likely rising volume of patients will have an effect on Ontario’s recovery and may place added pressures on emergency rooms, say the documents obtained under a Freedom of Information request.
“Ontario does not have a coordinated approach to care for patients with PCC (Post COVID-19 Condition),” the health ministry’s strategic policy branch wrote last June.
“While some providers are responding to the immediate demand for post-COVID care, these offerings are insufficient, fragmented, and unsustainable without dedicated funding.”
Between 10 and 20 per cent of people who have had COVID-19 still experience symptoms 12 or more weeks post-infection, the documents note. Researchers estimate 1.4 million Canadians are living with long COVID. The documents highlight possible effects on both the health-care system and the economy, with a survey suggesting more than 70 per cent of long COVID patients have had to take time off work.
Other provinces are “national leaders in PCC care,” the document says, pointing to British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec.
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore have made conflicting statements as to whether a long COVID strategy is in the works, so The Canadian Press submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents include an undated 34-page record withheld in its entirety because it would reveal cabinet deliberations, a two-part presentation to the health minister’s office from the strategic policy branch in October, and an almost entirely redacted document from December titled, “Ministry of Health Proposed Announcement/Opportunity: Post COVID-19 Condition (PCC).”
Jones’ office would not say what long COVID announcement was in the works in December or why it never happened, and a spokesperson also declined to shed any further light on what the ministry is doing to develop a long COVID strategy.
Instead, Hannah Jensen noted that the government had implemented a long COVID fee code for doctors to use when assessing and managing patients.
“We will continue to work with our healthcare partners to better connect Ontarians to the high-quality care they need when they need it,” she wrote.
Dr. Kieran Quinn, a clinician-scientist at Sinai Health System who researches long COVID, said developing a provincial strategy to support people with long COVID is essential, though it won’t be easy.
“It will help to minimize potential inequities in health and social outcomes that we see in many conditions, including long COVID,” he said in an interview.
“There are challenges in the timing and design of that strategy, which are related to a poorly understood condition — there are probably multiple subtypes of long COVID — and an evolving definition, as our knowledge and understanding of it evolves with that.”
There are concerted national and provincial efforts to review the best evidence to inform care pathways, he said.
“I hope that in the near future we will have some meaningful discoveries to support (long COVID patients) and there will be some progress on what this strategy will look like from the provincial government,” Quinn said.
A ministry briefing in October to the minister’s office — in order to “seek minister’s office approval on a proposed approach to supporting Ontarians with Post COVID-19 Condition” — said that standardization in diagnostic assessment, referral criteria and educational resources are essential to ensure consistency in care.
“The PCC care model needs to be nimble and responsive to emerging evidence,” the document said. “A provincially coordinated approach would be most effective.”
In the absence of a co-ordinated provincial strategy, several hospitals have established long COVID clinics, but they have mostly relied on redeployed resources and shifting funding from other areas of the hospital.
“This model is not sustainable and could result in little to no support for Ontarians with PCC,” the briefing warned. “These clinics are currently at risk of closure due to lack of funding.”
At least one of those clinics has already closed.
Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare in Windsor, Ont., set up a long COVID clinic in the summer of 2021 by moving around some resources from other outpatient programs, but by the next summer it was increasing wait times for those other programs too much and they had to close it.
Janice Dawson, the hospital’s vice-president of restorative care and chief nursing executive, said government funding was “a little bit all over the map,” with only some clinics receiving money — not including Hotel-Dieu Grace.
The ministry briefing documents say that in 2021-22 the government gave Ontario Health $2.3 million to reimburse expenses for eight hospitals that operated long COVID clinics.
For 2022-23, the documents say no funding commitments had been made.
Dawson said the Hotel-Dieu Grace clinic found the most common symptoms they were treating were brain fog, chronic fatigue, anxiety and regaining taste and smell. The hospital is still taking referrals for long COVID patients, and directing them for treatment based on their symptoms, such as sending a patient to their cardiac or pulmonary clinic, Dawson said.
But having a co-ordinated approach and a provincial strategy would greatly benefit patients, she said.
“It opens the door to have a better collaborative effort between sectors,” Dawson said.
“Mental health can be talking to rehab, we can be talking to acute care … It probably also opens the door to how (Ontario Health Teams) could support this type of strategy, and it opens the door to the conversation around needing dedicated funding in which to do it.”
The hospital had a preliminary conversation with Ontario Health about possible funding in December, but has not heard anything since then, Dawson said.
“We’re talking about $200,000,” she said. “It’s not a huge amount of money to be able to do this.”
Lack of Ontario long COVID strategy risks care: Ministry documents
Ontario's lack of a long COVID strategy has led the health sector to cobble together "fragmented" clinics that are at risk of closure.
Moderna is the last shot I'd take. The Military was forced to take it and many of the soldiers had bad reactions and are still experiencing negative affects currently. In addition, those who saw what was happening & refused to take the shots are now gone so our military is decimated between not taking the shots & not wanting to be part of a "woke" military who cares more about gender than becoming a military fighting unit. But, the Liberals are likely happy as hell cuz they hate the military anyway. Just saying...Cambridge pharma facility to help make Moderna mRNA vaccines
The province is putting $4 million toward the project.
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Published May 04, 2023 • 1 minute read
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has announced that Moderna Inc. is partnering with a facility in Cambridge to complete the final steps of manufacturing for its mRNA vaccines.
He says the province is putting $4 million toward the project.
Novocol Pharma is set to prepare and package respiratory mRNA vaccines for distribution in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.
Moderna says vaccines produced at its plant that is under construction in Laval, Que., will be finished into vials and syringes in Novocol’s Cambridge facility.
Ford says the investment will create good-paying jobs and provide people with better access to vaccines, ensuring Ontario doesn’t have to rely on other jurisdictions.
Novocol says it is expanding its operations with the help of the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund and the agreement with Moderna will take advantage of the company’s new operations for the final stages of vaccine production, called “fill and finish.”
Cambridge pharma facility to help make Moderna mRNA vaccines
Ford says the investment will create good-paying jobs and provide people with better access to vaccines
What is long COVID? For the first time, a new study defines it
Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Amanda Morris, The Washington Post
Published May 25, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 4 minute read
More than 200 lingering symptoms have been reported in patients who suffer ongoing health problems after a COVID infection.
More than 200 lingering symptoms have been reported in patients who suffer ongoing health problems after a COVID infection.
More than 200 lingering symptoms have been reported in patients who suffer ongoing health problems after a COVID infection. Now a new study has identified 12 key symptoms that best define the debilitating condition known as long COVID.
The findings, published Thursday in JAMA, are based on 9,764 participants in a study called the RECOVER initiative, which stands for researching covid to enhance recovery, a four-year, $1.15 billion study of long covid funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The research is expected to help standardize the definition of long COVID and have a significant impact on how the condition is diagnosed and studied, said Leora Horwitz, a physician and co-principal investigator for the RECOVER Clinical Science Core at NYU Langone Health.
“If you look up simple questions like ‘how many people get long COVID,’ the answers are all over the place because people define it differently,” Horwitz said. “To really advance the science, we need a common language.”
Article content
In addition to identifying the key symptoms of long COVID, the study used a point scoring system based on how likely the symptom was a true signal of long COVID versus another condition.
For instance, when researchers analyzed patients’ self-reported symptoms, they found that some symptoms were more common in people who had been infected with COVID, but were less common in people who never had COVID.
These included loss of taste or smell or post-exertional malaise, which is a worsening of symptoms following even minor physical or mental exertion. Other symptoms, such as brain fog or chest palpitations, were found to be common in long-covid patients, but were also common in other conditions, so those symptoms received fewer points.
The 12 symptoms of long COVID
To meet the study’s definition of long COVID, a participant needed to score a total of 12 points once all their symptoms were added up. The 12 key symptoms and their corresponding scores are:
-Loss of smell or taste: 8 points.
-Post-exertional malaise: 7 points.
-Chronic cough: 4 points.
-Brain fog: 3 points.
-Thirst: 3 points.
-Heart palpitations: 2 points.
-Chest pain: 2 points.
-Fatigue: 1 point.
-Dizziness: 1 point.
-Gastrointestinal symptoms: 1 point.
-Issues with sexual desire or capacity: 1 point.
-Abnormal movements (including tremors, slowed movements, rigidity, or sudden, unintended and uncontrollable jerky movements): 1 point.
In general, the higher someone’s score was, the worse their ability to carry out every day activities, said Tanayott Thaweethai, study lead author and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Higher symptom scores also correlated with a lower quality of life, he said.
“This offers a unifying framework for thinking about long COVID, and it gives us a quantitative score we can use to understand whether people get better or worse over time,” he said.
Researchers cautioned that the findings are preliminary, and that it is too soon to use the symptom list and scoring system to diagnose long covid or determine eligibility for disability benefits.
Horwitz said she expects the definition of long COVID will continue to evolve and get refined by researchers, but called this study a “huge first step” toward creating a standard definition. The next step is for researchers to validate the study results and compare them against lab tests and imaging.
Currently, the World Health Organization defines long COVID as having any new symptoms three months after an initial COVID infection, where the symptoms have lasted for at least two months with no other explanation. While the definition is inclusive and flexible, it doesn’t clearly define long covid for researchers, Horwitz said.
Based on the 12 defining symptoms, the rate of long COVID among different groups in the study ranged from 10 to 23 percent, depending on when they were infected and whether they had entered the study already having a diagnosis of long COVID.
The high end of the range may be largely due to an over representation of people who had long COVID before they enrolled in the study, said Andrea Foulkes, senior study author and principal investigator of the RECOVER Data Resource Core at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Researchers say that they suspect the real world incidence of long covid is closer to about 10% of people who contract the illness, based on the rates seen in people who joined the trial within 30 days of contracting covid and who didn’t yet know if they might develop long COVID.
This study also found that long COVID was more common in people who were unvaccinated and in people who had been infected with covid more than once.
Some of the most distinguishing symptoms for long covid were not necessarily the most common, or the most debilitating, researchers said.
“There are many other symptoms that participants are experiencing above and beyond those 12 symptoms,” Foulkes said.
For example, symptoms such as headaches and muscle aches are very common among long-COVID patients, but are also not uncommon in people who have never had covid. Thirst and abnormal movements, such as tremors or seizures, are not common, even among people with long covid, she said, but the symptoms were significantly more present in people who have had COVID versus people who never had the illness.
While some patients expressed concern that the 12-symptom list could exclude some long-COVID patients, Nitza Rochez, 45, who lives in the Bronx, said she is grateful to finally have a definition.
“Personally I think that the list of symptoms is too small, but I understand that you have to start somewhere,” she said. “At least it’s more than what we’ve had in the last two years.”
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Amanda Morris, The Washington Post
Published May 25, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 4 minute read
More than 200 lingering symptoms have been reported in patients who suffer ongoing health problems after a COVID infection.
More than 200 lingering symptoms have been reported in patients who suffer ongoing health problems after a COVID infection.
More than 200 lingering symptoms have been reported in patients who suffer ongoing health problems after a COVID infection. Now a new study has identified 12 key symptoms that best define the debilitating condition known as long COVID.
The findings, published Thursday in JAMA, are based on 9,764 participants in a study called the RECOVER initiative, which stands for researching covid to enhance recovery, a four-year, $1.15 billion study of long covid funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The research is expected to help standardize the definition of long COVID and have a significant impact on how the condition is diagnosed and studied, said Leora Horwitz, a physician and co-principal investigator for the RECOVER Clinical Science Core at NYU Langone Health.
“If you look up simple questions like ‘how many people get long COVID,’ the answers are all over the place because people define it differently,” Horwitz said. “To really advance the science, we need a common language.”
Article content
In addition to identifying the key symptoms of long COVID, the study used a point scoring system based on how likely the symptom was a true signal of long COVID versus another condition.
For instance, when researchers analyzed patients’ self-reported symptoms, they found that some symptoms were more common in people who had been infected with COVID, but were less common in people who never had COVID.
These included loss of taste or smell or post-exertional malaise, which is a worsening of symptoms following even minor physical or mental exertion. Other symptoms, such as brain fog or chest palpitations, were found to be common in long-covid patients, but were also common in other conditions, so those symptoms received fewer points.
The 12 symptoms of long COVID
To meet the study’s definition of long COVID, a participant needed to score a total of 12 points once all their symptoms were added up. The 12 key symptoms and their corresponding scores are:
-Loss of smell or taste: 8 points.
-Post-exertional malaise: 7 points.
-Chronic cough: 4 points.
-Brain fog: 3 points.
-Thirst: 3 points.
-Heart palpitations: 2 points.
-Chest pain: 2 points.
-Fatigue: 1 point.
-Dizziness: 1 point.
-Gastrointestinal symptoms: 1 point.
-Issues with sexual desire or capacity: 1 point.
-Abnormal movements (including tremors, slowed movements, rigidity, or sudden, unintended and uncontrollable jerky movements): 1 point.
In general, the higher someone’s score was, the worse their ability to carry out every day activities, said Tanayott Thaweethai, study lead author and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Higher symptom scores also correlated with a lower quality of life, he said.
“This offers a unifying framework for thinking about long COVID, and it gives us a quantitative score we can use to understand whether people get better or worse over time,” he said.
Researchers cautioned that the findings are preliminary, and that it is too soon to use the symptom list and scoring system to diagnose long covid or determine eligibility for disability benefits.
Horwitz said she expects the definition of long COVID will continue to evolve and get refined by researchers, but called this study a “huge first step” toward creating a standard definition. The next step is for researchers to validate the study results and compare them against lab tests and imaging.
Currently, the World Health Organization defines long COVID as having any new symptoms three months after an initial COVID infection, where the symptoms have lasted for at least two months with no other explanation. While the definition is inclusive and flexible, it doesn’t clearly define long covid for researchers, Horwitz said.
Based on the 12 defining symptoms, the rate of long COVID among different groups in the study ranged from 10 to 23 percent, depending on when they were infected and whether they had entered the study already having a diagnosis of long COVID.
The high end of the range may be largely due to an over representation of people who had long COVID before they enrolled in the study, said Andrea Foulkes, senior study author and principal investigator of the RECOVER Data Resource Core at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Researchers say that they suspect the real world incidence of long covid is closer to about 10% of people who contract the illness, based on the rates seen in people who joined the trial within 30 days of contracting covid and who didn’t yet know if they might develop long COVID.
This study also found that long COVID was more common in people who were unvaccinated and in people who had been infected with covid more than once.
Some of the most distinguishing symptoms for long covid were not necessarily the most common, or the most debilitating, researchers said.
“There are many other symptoms that participants are experiencing above and beyond those 12 symptoms,” Foulkes said.
For example, symptoms such as headaches and muscle aches are very common among long-COVID patients, but are also not uncommon in people who have never had covid. Thirst and abnormal movements, such as tremors or seizures, are not common, even among people with long covid, she said, but the symptoms were significantly more present in people who have had COVID versus people who never had the illness.
While some patients expressed concern that the 12-symptom list could exclude some long-COVID patients, Nitza Rochez, 45, who lives in the Bronx, said she is grateful to finally have a definition.
“Personally I think that the list of symptoms is too small, but I understand that you have to start somewhere,” she said. “At least it’s more than what we’ve had in the last two years.”
What is long COVID? For the first time, a new study defines it
A new study has identified 12 key symptoms that best define the debilitating condition known as long COVID.
hang 'em high!
Privy Council advocated downplaying COVID vaccine injuries or deaths
The Privy Council memo was obtained under Access to Information
Author of the article
ostmedia News
Published Jun 06, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 1 minute read
A secret Privy Council office memo recommended that any COVID vaccine-related injuries or deaths be carefully managed with “winning communication strategies” as to not “shake public confidence,” according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
The May 2021 memo released through access-to-Information legislation came five months after the Department of Health licensed the first Pfizer-BioNTech pandemic vaccine.
“Events related to a COVID-19 vaccine may be minor or severe,” said the memo called “Testing Behaviourally-Informed Messaging In Response To Severe Adverse Events Following Immunization.”
“News reports of adverse events following immunization and the government’s response to them have strong potential to influence public confidence in vaccines and their safety.”
The memo also suggested skewing stats to minimize the impact of vaccine-related deaths or injuries, such as stating the “chance of it happening to me is one in a million” rather than “it has happened five times.”
The Public Health Agency said of the 97.6 million vaccine doses administered at the time of the report, there were 20,428 “serious adverse event reports.”
The reports included laboured breathing and heart attacks (55 reports), kidney damage (78), spontaneous abortions (87), facial paralysis (187), strokes (281), deaths (427), blood clots (848) and incidents of heart inflammation (1,153).
A federal compensation fund to date has paid out millions on injury and death claims.
“Of the 427 death reports, it was not possible to assess causality for 112 reports due to missing information,” said the agency in a statement.
A separate $75 million Vaccine Injury Support Program received 1,299 claims due to vaccine-related deaths and injuries with a total 50 claims paid to date, totalling nearly $2.8 million.
torontosun.com
The Privy Council memo was obtained under Access to Information
Author of the article
ostmedia NewsPublished Jun 06, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 1 minute read
A secret Privy Council office memo recommended that any COVID vaccine-related injuries or deaths be carefully managed with “winning communication strategies” as to not “shake public confidence,” according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
The May 2021 memo released through access-to-Information legislation came five months after the Department of Health licensed the first Pfizer-BioNTech pandemic vaccine.
“Events related to a COVID-19 vaccine may be minor or severe,” said the memo called “Testing Behaviourally-Informed Messaging In Response To Severe Adverse Events Following Immunization.”
“News reports of adverse events following immunization and the government’s response to them have strong potential to influence public confidence in vaccines and their safety.”
The memo also suggested skewing stats to minimize the impact of vaccine-related deaths or injuries, such as stating the “chance of it happening to me is one in a million” rather than “it has happened five times.”
The Public Health Agency said of the 97.6 million vaccine doses administered at the time of the report, there were 20,428 “serious adverse event reports.”
The reports included laboured breathing and heart attacks (55 reports), kidney damage (78), spontaneous abortions (87), facial paralysis (187), strokes (281), deaths (427), blood clots (848) and incidents of heart inflammation (1,153).
A federal compensation fund to date has paid out millions on injury and death claims.
“Of the 427 death reports, it was not possible to assess causality for 112 reports due to missing information,” said the agency in a statement.
A separate $75 million Vaccine Injury Support Program received 1,299 claims due to vaccine-related deaths and injuries with a total 50 claims paid to date, totalling nearly $2.8 million.
Privy Council advocated downplaying COVID vaccine injuries or deaths
A Privy Council office memo recommended carefully managing COVID vaccine-related injuries or deaths with “winning communication strategies.”