U.S. Hospitals May ‘Recalculate’ How They Report COVID Cases
Perhaps influenced by the lifting of COVID-19-related restrictions by several European countries—starting with Denmark—during the past two weeks, the United States seems to be on the verge of following Europe’s lead in declaring the pandemic over. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, White House chief medical advisor and director of the National Institute […]
Supreme Court Overturns Federal COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Companies, Reinstates Mandate for 10 Million Health Care Workers
The U.S. Supreme Court decided two matters involving vaccine mandates by the Biden administration. The oral arguments, which were heard back-to-back, addressed whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had the authority to enforce a federal mandate ordering private companies and organizations with 100 or more employees to compel their employees to get a […]
Microchip Embedded Under the Skin Acts as Vaccine Passport
“Imagine showing your COVID-19 passport with just a flash of your arm” captions a December 2021 video about a Swedish company that has developed a microchip inserted under a person’s skin in order to verify vaccine status.1 The microchip, developed by Swedish startup company Epicenter of Stockholm is approximately the size of a grain of […]
Pharmaceutical Industry Reaping Billions of Dollars in Profits from Coronavirus Tests
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials have urged widespread testing for the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is associated with COVID-19 disease. The two types of coronavirus tests used for diagnosis are laboratory tests and rapid tests, which can either be an antigen test or a Nucleic Acid Amplification Test […]
Sales of Pfizer COVID-19 Biologic for 2021-2022 May Near $70 Billion
Based on better than expected sales of its experimental messenger RNA (mRNA) BNT162b2 COVID-19 biologic, New York-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer, Inc. last summer revised projected sales of its experimental drug, also known as “Comirnaty,” from $26 billion to $33.5 billion in 2021. Characterizing second-quarter sales of BNT162b2 as “remarkable,” Pfizer’s chief executive officer (CEO) Albert […]
Study Finds SARS-CoV-2 Much Less Infectious After 20 Minutes in Air
A new study conducted by the University of Bristol Aerosol Research Centre in the United Kingdom found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus loses 90 percent of its virulence within 20 minutes after being exhaled into the air. Further, researchers concluded that the virus loses 50 percent of its ability to spread after only 10 minutes of […]