Denise Truscello/WireImage/Getty
Matthew Perry, who charmed audiences across the globe as the sarcastic roommate Chandler Bing on the popular sitcom Friends, was reportedly found dead on Oct. 28 at his Los Angeles home from an apparent drowning, law enforcement sources confirmed to Rolling Stone. He was 54 years old. An LAPD spokesman said police responded at 4:10 this afternoon to a death investigation for a male in his 50s.
In addition to Friends which ran for 10 seasons and 236 episodes, and for a number of years was one of the most-watched television shows in America, earning Perry an Emmy nomination in 2002 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series the actor earned a pair of Emmy nods for his scene-stealing turn as Associate White House Counsel Joe Quincy on The West Wing, and had memorable performances on Scrubs, The Good Wife/The Good Fight, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, as well as the films Fools Rush In, The Whole Nine Yards series, and 17 Again opposite Zac Efron.
When the news of Perrys passing broke Saturday afternoon, a number of prominent right-wing/anti-vax accounts on X (formerly ) including Kandiss Taylor, a former Republican candidate for governor of Georgia and current GOP chair of Georgias 1st congressional district (and who also recently compared Taylor Swift to Satan) were quick to blame the actors death on Perry being vaccinated for Covid-19 even before an official cause of death had been established.
If that werent enough, anti-vaxxers edited Perrys Wikipedia page to say, It is unclear whether the drowning was due to complications from the COVID-19 vaccine. (It has since been deleted.)
While the anti-vax crowd loves few things more than rushing to baselessly blame the death of every vaccinated celebrity on the Covid-19 vaccine, and X has mutated into an ugly fount of disinformation under Elon Musks rule, their decision to do so with Perry is especially egregious given the stars long, detailed history of health problems stemming from his addiction issues.
Perry said his substance abuse began when he started drinking at the age of 14, and he later became addicted to Vicodin, OxyContin, and Xanax. He first entered rehab in 1997, at the height of his Friends fame, after he became addicted to Vicodin following a jet-ski accident. He estimated that he spent $9 million on his addiction battle.
I would fake back injuries. I would fake migraine headaches. I had eight doctors going at the same time, the actor told The New York Times in 2022. I would wake up and have to get 55 Vicodin that day, and figure out how to do it. When youre a drug addict, its all math. I go to this place, and I need to take three. And then I go to this place, and Im going to take five because Im going to be there longer. Its exhausting but you have to do it or you get very, very sick. I wasnt doing it to feel high or to feel good. I certainly wasnt a partier; I just wanted to sit on my couch, take five Vicodin and watch a movie. That was heaven for me. It no longer is Ive probably spent $9 million or something trying to get sober.
In previous interviews, Perry admitted to being in rehab at least 15 times and getting 14 surgeries on his stomach due to gastrointestinal perforation stemming from his opioid abuse. Then, at the age of 49, his colon burst from excessive opioid use and he spent two weeks in a coma and five months in the hospital, he wrote in his bestselling 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.
The doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live, Perry wrote in his memoir. I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And thats called a Hail Mary. No one survives that.
In late 2020, Perry had to pull out of filming a cameo in Adam McKays climate change satire Dont Look Up after his heart stopped for five minutes and his ribs had to be broken to resuscitate him, he detailed in his memoir.
All of the aforementioned health scares happened before Perry first posted about taking the Covid-19 vaccine in May 2021.
There are few things more ghoulish than cruelly exploiting a beloved strangers death to advance your bullshit agenda.
A new freedom-based Florida clinic aimed at patients suspicious of the mainstream medical establishment and staffed by doctors who were fired or disciplined for controversial stances on COVID-19, has drawn hundreds of patients in its first month, according to its owners.
The clinic, called We The People Health and Wellness Center, opened its doors in Venice, Florida on Sept. 7. In the last six weeks, 350 people have signed up to its subscription-model, which bypasses insurance companies, co-owner Vic Mellor told The Daily Beast.
The controversial backgrounds of some of the clinics staff, which includes doctors who were fired for their stances on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, is a point of pride for Mellor.
You cant work here unless youve been fired by the establishment for believing in your patients first, Mellor told The Daily Beast. Theyve all been fired for it.
Mellor, who made his money in the concrete business before becoming deeply involved in conservative activism in Florida, told The Daily Beast his motivation for founding the clinic was to offer health care to families and children he believes have been discriminated against by local doctors because they had chosen not to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Were not doing this for the money, were doing it for people and especially kids. Its just barbaric what theyre doing to kids with these vaccines, Mellor told The Daily Beast. To me, its evil. At some point they will have to answer for that.
Mellor believes We The People offers a blueprint for an alternative health-care system, one without the influence of insurance companies and 3rd party interference, and patients direct their own care. He hopes the model will be replicated across the country and will encourage doctors whose views diverge from the medical establishment.
Im hoping that other doctors will see the light and get the courage and realize they can do this on their own, Mellor said.
We The People is not Mellors first attempt to build a right-wing political community in Florida. After attending the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in support of Donald Trump, Mellor began to envisage a campground for kids based on the Constitution, according to a profile of him in the Washington Post.
He opened The Hollow 2A, a 10-acre lot in Venice that includes a campground, waterslides and a shooting range, where he offers lessons on the Constitution and gun safety for kids.
Consistent with the United States Constitution and the Florida Constitution, The Hollow 2A is mandate-free, mask-free and censor-free. Make plans now to attend the next events here, meet with other like-minded Americans, combine our collective influence, and rescue America! its website reads.
The new clinic shares a building with the recording studio where General Michael Flynn records his podcast, Michael Flynns Holy War. Mellor and Flynn are close, with Mellor recently becoming something of an unofficial spokesman for Flynn, according to the Washington Post.
Mellors key ally in setting up the clinic is local conservative activist Tanya Parus.
Parus, a mother-of-two and president of the Sarasota chapter of Moms For America, says she was incensed by her childrens school requiring masks during the pandemic.
She told The Daily Beast that during the height of the pandemic she began working with families to find doctors who could write mask waivers for their children, or were willing to prescribe off-label ivermectin for COVID.
I was a conduit between people in the community and the doctors who were prescribing ivermectin and could treat them through telehealth or see them in their office, she said. I was seeing this huge, huge need.
Parus, a former EMT, volunteered at a mass mask waiver signing at Mellors site, The Hollow 2A, in Sept. 2021. The turn-out inspired them both.
Mellor and Parus joined forces to found the clinic, where they are now co-owners, along with a third person whom Mellor declined to name.
When Parus began looking for staff for the clinic, she reached out to doctors around the country who lost their jobs for their stances on COVID-19.
I really want to take the doctors letters of termination, and frame them, and put them all along this wall, Paris told the podcast, pointing to the front wall of the clinic.
A review of the career history of We The Peoples staff completed by The Daily Beast found that many of them had previously faced serious career consequences for their outspoken support of treatments of COVID-19 that were at odds with the rest of the medical community.
Dr. Joseph Chirillo, the clinics medical director for adults and pediatrics, said last year that he had treated his patients with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, according to the Herald-Tribune. (Both drugs received warnings from the FDA.) He also claimed during the pandemic that masks are ineffective and offered parents blank opt-out forms when Sarasota County schools mandated masks, the outlet reported.
Ivermectin is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat parasites in animals and in humans, but not to treat or prevent COVID-19. However, the agency does not prohibit physicians from prescribing the drug off-label, and it has a strong following on the right. In cases where people self-administer the drug or take large doses, the FDA said in 2021, they can become seriously unwell.
Hydroxychloroquine, another anti-malarial drug much touted by former President Trump, has been found to cause heart problems in patients with COVID-19, the FDA says.
The physician in charge of pediatrics at We The People, Dr. Renata Moon, previously worked in Spokane, Washington and taught at Washington State University. She relinquished her Washington state license after the university told her that based on her public comments about the dangers of the COVID vaccine, she would be reported to the Washington Medical Commission, according to the Daily News. The university told her this summer her contract would not be renewed, the outlet reported.
Moon appeared at a roundtable in Washington in Dec. 2022, hosted by the Senates foremost COVID-skeptic, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), testifying to her belief that the COVID vaccine endangered children.
We are being asked to inject this product into our nation's kids who have essentially a zero percent risk of harm, Moon told the roundtable. Other nations have banned this product because it's too dangerous for younger people. What are we doing?
While some countries, such as Denmark, Sweden and the UK, have issued guidance that some healthy children do not need to get a COVID vaccine, no country has banned children from receiving it if stocks are available.
In a video shared to We The Peoples TikTok page, Moon is shown addressing a meeting of Moms For America, describing how her own mothers experiences had influenced her opinions on vaccines.
Under communism, my mom was injected multiple times with whatever the school injected the children with, Moon says in the video, posted on Oct. 2. Tyrannical systems like, which is what we are experiencing, do not want parents involved.
Natalie Iverson, a nurse practitioner at the clinic, signed 137 mask exemptions forms in a single day in Sept. 2021, an investigation by the Herald-Tribune found. At the time she was working at Millennium Physician Group in Port Charlotte, the paper reported, which later investigated her actions.
She acted independently and did not request our authorization, and her actions should not be interpreted in any way as the guidance followed by Millennium Physician Group, a spokesperson for the company told the newspaper.
There appears to be little that local regulators can do to prevent the clinic from offering unproven treatments for COVID-19 such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, according to Dr. Steven P. Rosenberg, a physician who chairs the probable cause panel of the Florida Medical Board.
The Board can take action only when a complaint is referred to them about a physicians behavior, Rosenberg told The Daily Beast. These complaints are screened by the attorneys for the Health Department before they are referred, and Rosenberg says his panel has seen surprisingly few complaints regarding unproven COVID treatments.
Very few if any cases are coming to the board. I dont know whether they are inadequate complaints or why theyre not being pursued, Rosenberg told The Daily Beast. I think theres some direction that prosecutors are getting.
Although he cannot know for sure, Rosenberg believes that the prosecutors who handled the initial complaints within the Health Department are following recommendations that mean fewer COVID malpractice cases are being referred. In the past, he says, a lot of those cases would have been prosecuted more aggressively.
The change seems to track with a statewide turn against federal COVID advice. Floridas Gov. Ron DeSantis, has aggressively fought against federal COVID guidelines, and has made medical freedom a cornerstone of his campaign for the Republican nomination.
In May, DeSantis signed a series of bills aimed at protecting physicians who choose to break from the mainstream medical establishment. The bills included a ban on any new vaccine or mask mandates in Florida, increased protections for doctors who prescribe alternative treatments or who chose not to prescribe certain treatments based on moral, ethical or religious convictions, and the creation of a path for doctors to protect their license from medical or accreditation boards that are attempting to punish them for speaking out against the medical establishment.
These expanded protections will help ensure that medical authoritarianism does not take root in Florida, DeSantis said at the time.
For her part, Parus is proud of the doctors and nurses at her clinic who took a stand on COVID and suffered career consequences as a result.
Those are the doctors you want there. Those are the doctors that are going to stick up for you as a patient, she told The Daily Beast.
On Sept. 7, the day the clinic opened to the public, red, white and blue balloons festooned the entrance. Inside, Parus welcomed Ann Vandersteel, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and right-wing media presenter for a tour.
Paris showed Vandersteel the framed American flag behind the clinics reception desk, shelves displaying the clinics supplement line, and books by the late Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, (whose claims about unproven COVID treatments purportedly reached former President Trumps ear) and controversial pro-ivermectin figure Pierre Kory, co-founder of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.
Kory, who is scheduled to give a book signing at the clinic this month, also released a video in support of the opening.
This is exactly what we need in our health system right now. After everything that weve learned and been through in the last three years, it's clear that we need parallel health systems with full autonomy, no restrictions on practice, Kory said in the video, which was released on We The Peoples social media channels. Thats what this clinic is going to do. I think its model is terrific.
The clinic operates on a subscription-only model, meaning patients choose a membership plan and pay a monthly fee directly to We The People, rather than going through an insurance company.
Once the insurance is involved in your practice, they govern everything that you do as a provider, Parus told Vandersteel. We want it to just be the provider taking care of you, and you making the final decisions for everything you want for your body, without any third party overreach.
The clinic also offers a range of other services, including alternative therapies such as red light therapy, IV therapy, and vitamin shots.
Im signing up! Ditching my health insurance and signing up!, Vandersteel told Parus. She explained she was about to travel to a malaria zone near the Panama Canal. Ill be getting my immune system rebooted and obviously prophylacting with hydroxychloroquine. All those things that yall are going to take care of.
Vandersteel is not the only happy customer at We The People, according to the clinics social media and two patients who spoke with The Daily Beast.
Most of our patients, about 70 percent of our patients, havent been to a doctor since pre-COVID. So they have a lot of health problems that have not been addressed because theyve been scared to go in and see a doctor, Parus told The Daily Beast. These are people who have untreated high blood pressure, things like that they've let go because they didnt have anywhere to go.
Wendy and Tim Shearer, a couple from Venice, told The Daily Beast they had felt alienated by their previous medical care, where they felt unwanted treatment was forced on them.
You go in and they tell you should be having all these tests, when you dont know why they think you should have these. You pay a bunch of money and they come back normal, Wendy Shearer said. By contrast, she praised We The Peoples attitude.
The biggest draw is that they listen to us and we dont get forced into taking medication that we dont want to be taking, and doing different procedures we dont think is necessary, she said.
In a video posted to social media, another patient, only identified as Scott, shares his experience at We The People.
Ive had enough of the Kool Aid drinking doctors in this area and Im tired of hearing about the vaccines, Scott tells the camera, These guys here, completely opposite of where Ive been and I love it.
Parus and Mellor say there are plans to expand We The People to more locations.
I hope we can get more of our locations up nationwide or they can see our model and duplicate our model, so that people have a place to go, Parus said.
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Former health secretary Matt Hancock has talked about the injustice he faced after he was accused of corruption during the Covid-19 pandemic in the latest episode of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
In the penultimate episode of the series, airing on Sunday, the former health secretary is made to strip down to his boxers during an interrogation which sees him accused of having an attitude.
The 45-year-old had resigned from his position as health secretary in June 2021 after it emerged he had broken his own Covid-19 guidance by kissing and embracing his aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his office.
Matt Hancock leaves after testifying at the COVID-19 Inquiry,
(REUTERS)
During Sundays Survival episode, Hancock, singer Gareth Gates, English model Danielle Lloyd, Love Islands Teddy Soares, internet personality Amber Turner and athlete Perri Shakes-Drayton face two final tasks before they are interrogated by a specialist team in the resistance to interrogation phase of the course.
Early in the episode, Hancock is interviewed by Jason Fox and Chris Oliver about the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hancock: I know for a fact we did the right thing.
(Channel 4)
Fox asks Hancock about his vilification and says: Going back to the pandemic, you pretty much are in the limelight, well you were, for that period of time.
You were vilified, how have you dealt with that?
Hancock responds: I feel a sense of injustice at being made to be essentially accused of corruption, cause that is what, if you boil it down, the accusation is, when Ive essentially given my professional life so far in public service, and I know for a fact we did the right thing.
And I didnt benefit a drop from it and its just this sense of injustice that, hold on, I was doing the best I could in difficult circumstances and now I get a load of shit for it.
Course it has an impact on me professionally that I have to deal with, but it doesnt matter here (pointing to chest). What matters here is what I think of myself and also what the people I love and care about think of me and what people I respect think of me.
Asked if he sees the course as an opportunity for redemption, he adds: Well, I dont know about redemption the thing about this course is, as you say, it strips you back and youve got to leave it all on the line.
Matt Hancock punched in the face by ex-footballer on SAS: Who Dares Wins
(Channel 4)
Later, during the interrogation part of the episode, a female interrogator makes Hancock strip off, saying: Take all these clothes off, give me that number first.
We move at a pace, no moaning, no groaning, no pulling your face.
She then asks him to get his bag emptied nice and quickly and goes onto berate him for the way he says no to her when asked if he has any weapons in his bag.
She shouts at Hancock: Do not give me any f****** attitude.
The interrogator then picks on the former health secretarys appearance and says: I tell you something thats really fascinating me, really fascinating me, cause with all due respect, youre not a good-looking guy are you, pubes on your chest, moobs, so how did you do it? Matty babe? Huh?
Oh, youre not talking now, now you dont want to talk about it, do you?
You havent asked me a question, Hancock responds.
Before their jungle navigation task, the episode also sees the recruits pitted against each other once again in pontoon wrestling, a test of aggression and hand-to-hand combat.
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins continues on Channel 4.
Mark Schena engaged in elaborate ruses to convince investors of claims.
A coordinated effort headed by the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute COVID-19-related frauds recently concluded its first major case. The CEO of Silicon Valley-based medical company, Arrayit, was sentenced to eight years of prison and ordered to pay $24 million in restitution to his victims.
Mark Schena worked to make a name for himself a few years before the pandemic, deceiving investors about a universal disease testing device he supposedly invented and securing business loans by claiming his company Arrayit could be valued at $4.5 billion. Once the pandemic broke out, he pitched the creation of a COVID-19 test to his investors, who gave him at least $70 million to develop it. When investors began to realize the tests were bogus, Schena released staged videos of busy labs and conducted press interviews to convince them that the tests were real and that he was not close to bankruptcy.
Every time theres a disaster of some type, scammers climb out of the woodwork with schemes to bilk people out of their money, said Postal Inspector in Charge of Criminal Investigations Eric Shen of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS). In this case, Mark Schena and the Arrayit Corporation were already involved in deceiving the public before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Sources: Department of Justice
Early in March 2020, I decided to write about the risks posed by COVID-19. I have no background in epidemiology or even health journalism, but I can multiply, divide and make charts, and was frustrated with the lack of quantification in most reporting and public health messaging on what was soon to be declared a pandemic.
In the resulting column, I took what seemed to be the most authoritative estimate of COVIDs per-infection fatality rate 1% and noted that this was about 10 times the 0.1% fatality rate of seasonal influenza, then conservatively multiplied a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate of 61,099 influenza-associated deaths in the U.S. in the pretty bad flu season of 2017-18 by five and 10 to get a range of 300,000 to 600,000 deaths.
Over the 12 months that followed, about 550,000 Americans died of COVID according to the CDCs provisional estimates, and 490,000 according to its tallies of the underlying cause of death listed on death certificates. Both are almost certainly undercounts, because in the early days the lack of testing meant many COVID-caused deaths were attributed to other maladies. My guesstimate was also more lucky than good in that actual seasonal flu fatality rates may be closer to 0.04%, and the 2017-18 influenza toll has since been revised downward to 52,000. Still, it was in the ballpark.
I was reminded of all this while reading a passage in a new book on the history of the pandemic, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind. In March 2020, the authors write, Stanford University health policy professor Jay Bhattacharya coauthored an article for the Wall Street Journal questioning the validity of the scary 2 to 4 percent fatality rate that the early models like Neil Fergusons were estimating and that were causing governments to panic. He believed (correctly, as it turns out), that the true fatality rate was much lower.
Well, my 1% fatality rate estimate came from a Feb. 10 paper out of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, then led by none other than Neil Ferguson. The March 24, 2020, Wall Street Journal op-ed by Bhattacharya and Eran Bendavid appropriately took aim at the 2% to 4% fatality rates that the World Health Organization was calculating using confirmed cases as the denominator, but ignored Fergusons estimate and went on to propose that the actual fatality rate might be as low as 0.01%, one-tenth of the flu mortality rate, and that in the U.S. COVID might be a 20,000- or 40,000-death epidemic.
Studies based on antibody testing later found that, in the early days, among hard-hit, immunologically naive populations with age distributions like those of East Asia, Europe and North America, COVID killed close to 1% of those infected. Fatality rates seemed to be lower where incidence of the disease was lower (although measurement was less reliable there too), and they have certainly declined over time, especially since vaccines were introduced. But the very early estimate by Ferguson and team, described as approximately 1% in the summary of their paper but either 0.9% or 0.8% (depending on assumptions about how long people with COVID kept testing positive for it) in the text, appears to have been quite accurate, and certainly much closer to the mark than Bhattacharya and Bendavids spitballing.
It was also not an outlier in early 2020.
The data so far suggest that the virus has a case fatality risk around 1%, well-informed amateur epidemiologist Bill Gates wrote on the New England Journal of Medicines website on Feb. 28. On the same day and in the same place, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and the heads of the National Institutes of Health and the CDC wrote that the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%, and on March 11, Fauci testified before Congress that it was somewhere around 1%. A study published March 30 in Lancet Infectious Diseases, again co-authored by Ferguson, put it at 0.66% overall, albeit much higher for those 60 and older and much lower for those under 50, with the fatality rate for children under 10 estimated at less than 0.002%.
So it wasnt a faulty expert consensus on the risks posed by COVID that drove the reaction to it. The expert consensus turns out to have been eerily on-target. But as The Big Fail makes maddeningly clear and no, I didnt stumble over any other mischaracterizations in it like the one described above the U.S. did an awful job of balancing COVIDs risks with the costs of fighting the disease. (I should disclose that the authors, Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean, are former colleagues of mine and current friendly acquaintances, although well have to see if the latter holds up after they read this column. Something I wrote comparing COVID mortality in California and Florida is cited approvingly in the book.)
The lockdowns at the outset of the pandemic which in the U.S. were mostly not literal lockdowns but did involve strongly urging people to stay home seem to have saved lives when implemented early enough. It is also undeniable that staying away from other people is an effective way to avoid catching or spreading COVID. But public policies aimed at encouraging and even requiring such behavior over extended periods were extremely costly and disruptive, and appear to have had at best a modest impact on COVID mortality. The biggest mismatch between risks and costs in the U.S. involved schooling, as many urban districts did not offer in-person classes for much or all of the 2020-2021 school year, with dire consequences for student performance.
How much of a role did misrepresentations of COVIDs mortality rate play in this faulty decision-making? It cant have helped that the World Health Organization and other data compilers continued throughout the pandemic to report fatality rates based on confirmed case numbers, which the news media usually passed on without adding context. But I also think that a disease with a mortality rate of a bit under 1% is just really hard for people, myself included, to get their heads around. Its in an uncomfortable middle ground between seasonal viruses that weve all grown accustomed to living with (as now seems to be happening with COVID) and high-fatality-rate ones such as Ebola and the original SARS virus that no one would encourage allowing to spread. The conservative meme that COVID is 99% survivable as if that made it a mere trifle was one indication of this confusion, but Faucis waffling over the course of summer 2020 on whether schools should reopen probably was too.
It didnt help that some of those clamoring loudest for school reopening, such as then-President Donald Trump, so clearly underestimated COVIDs risks. An underappreciated reason why the October 2020 Great Barrington Declaration calling for an end to lockdowns generated such an allergic reaction in public health circles is that two of its three authors, Bhattacharya and University of Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta who in May 2020 argued that COVID has largely come and is on its way out in the U.K., with a fatality rate between 0.1% and 0.01% had been so spectacularly wrong in their early risk assessments. These were not people who had earned a lot of credibility on COVID.
It seems telling or at least ironic that Sweden, where public health officials greatly overestimated how quickly COVID was spreading early on and thus underestimated its fatality rate, ended up with one of the most successful and sustainable COVID management efforts among Western countries.
Swedens approach was never as laissez-faire as sometimes portrayed high schools and universities were closed early in the pandemic and large gatherings banned and the initial increase in deaths there was even sharper than in the U.S., but over time, the countrys light-touch policies were accompanied by excess mortality only moderately higher than in neighboring Denmark and Norway and much lower than in the U.S. and the rest of Europe. Getting the risks right may not have been essential to getting the response right.
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Stephen M. Bart, PhD1; Andrew P. Rothstein, PhD2; Casandra W. Philipson, PhD2; Teresa C. Smith, MPH1; Birgitte B. Simen, PhD2; Azaibi Tamin, PhD3; Lydia J. Atherton, DVM, PhD3; Jennifer L. Harcourt, PhD3; Allison Taylor Walker, PhD1; Daniel C. Payne, PhD1; Ezra T. Ernst4; Robert C. Morfino, MBA2; Ian Ruskey, MPA1; Cindy R. Friedman, MD1 (View author affiliations)
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During August 1314, 2023, a new SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariant with a large number of mutations compared with previously circulating BA.2 variants (>30 amino acid differences in its spike protein) was identified by genomic sequencing in Denmark and Israel and subsequently designated BA.2.86 (1,2). Given near-simultaneous detections in multiple countries, including the United States, further information was needed regarding geographic spread of BA.2.86. Since January 2022, submissions to SARS-CoV-2 sequence repositories have declined by 95%,* substantially decreasing global capacity to monitor new variants. To fill gaps in global surveillance, CDCs Traveler-based Genomic Surveillance (TGS) program was developed to provide early warning of new variants entering the United States by collecting samples from arriving international travelers (3).
The TGS program anonymously collects two nasal swab samples from consenting international travelers arriving at six major U.S. airports. Participants complete a brief questionnaire that collects information including travel history, COVID-19 vaccination status, and previous COVID-19 history. One sample collected from each traveler is pooled together with up to nine other travelers samples and tested for SARS-CoV-2 using reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction. If a pooled sample tests positive, it undergoes viral genomic sequencing. The second nasal samples from each traveler in that pool are then tested for SARS-CoV-2, and positive individual samples are sequenced. Select positive individual samples are sent to CDC laboratories for virus isolation and characterization. This activity was reviewed by CDC, deemed not research, and was conducted consistent with applicable federal law and CDC policy.
On August 17, 2023, genomic sequencing identified BA.2.86 in a pooled sample of swabs from 10 TGS participants collected on August 10 at Dulles International Airport near the District of Columbia. Testing and sequencing of the individual samples confirmed the presence of BA.2.86 in one individual sample on August 20. The sample was collected from a U.S. resident returning from a 1530-day trip to Japan; health authorities in Japan were notified upon confirmation. The traveler reported no previous COVID-19 infection and had last received a COVID-19 vaccine dose in October 2022. This sequence was the second publicly reported BA.2.86 sequence in the United States and the seventh reported globally, preceding the first BA.2.86 sequence submission reported from Japan by 17 days.** The TGS sample was sent to a CDC laboratory, but virus isolation was not successful. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that the TGS sample contained distinct genetic differences from other BA.2.86 sequences collected in August 2023 (Figure), consistent with BA.2.86 circulation and divergence from BA.2.86.1 viruses several months before detection (4,5).
As a component of comprehensive U.S. SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance, TGS detected the BA.2.86 variant within days of its first identification globally, highlighting its importance for the detection of variants entering the United States. This identification provided important context regarding BA.2.86 geographic spread and diversity. Although virus isolation was not successful in this case, continued surveillance and sample collection are important to enable rapid laboratory characterization of variant sensitivity to antibody neutralization and antiviral drugs. Early variant detection among travelers and laboratory characterization of new variants are essential components of CDCs respiratory illness surveillance, especially as global sequencing volumes decline.
Traveler-based Genomic Surveillance program participants and airports; Thomas Aichele, Claire Altieri, Tim Lyden, Xueting Qiu, Amy Schierhorn, Ginkgo Bioworks; Patti Ward, XpresCheck; Nicole Cohen, Lauren Elsberry, Heather Hicks, Brendan Jackson, Hannah Kirking, Anastasia Lambrou, Samantha Loh, Duncan MacCannell, Ryan Novak, Clinton Paden, CDC; originating and submitting laboratories for the BA.2.86 sequence data in the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data.
1Division of Global Migration Health, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, CDC; 2Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts; 3Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, CDC; 4XpresCheck, XWELL, New York, New York.
Abbreviation: GISAID = Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data.
* https://gisaid.org
Consensus genome sequences from BA.2.86 GISAID submissions on or before August 21, 2023, were aligned, and mutational profiles were generated using Nextclade (version 2.14.1; https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.03773). Consensus reference genomes for BA.2 were available at https://github.com/corneliusroemer/ncov-simplest/tree/main/data. A maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree was generated using iqTREE software (version 1.6.12) with 1,000 bootstraps. Using the iqTREE model finder tool, the HKY+F+I model was selected as the most appropriate model according to Bayesian Information Criterion. The maximum likelihood tree was visualized and annotated using iTOL (version 6; https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/49/W1/W293/6246398). Branch labels indicate confidence in phylogenetic placement as a percentage.
https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/34/23/4121/5001388
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/32/1/268/2925592
** The BA.2.86 sample identified through the Traveler-based Genomic Surveillance program (hCoV-19 USA VA-GBW-H20-330-6734 2023 EPI ISL 18121060 2023-08-10) was collected at Dulles International Airport on August 10, 2023.
Suggested citation for this article: Bart SM, Rothstein AP, Philipson CW, et al. Notes from the Field: Early Identification of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2.86 Variant by the Traveler-Based Genomic Surveillance Program Dulles International Airport, August 2023. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2023;72:11681169. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7243a3.
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Today in The Lancet Regional Health Europe, a group of multinational researchers conclude that most Scandinavians who have long-COVID symptoms at 2 years had severe infections.
The observational study, led by Tongji University in China, compared the prevalence of 15 physical symptoms, assessed using the 15-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-15) among 64,880 adults with or without a COVID-19 diagnosis from Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden from April 2020 to August 2022. Participants were from four cohorts in the COVIDMENT Consortium.
During up to 27 months of follow-up, 22,382 of 64,880 participants (34.5%) tested positive for COVID-19, and less than 1% were hospitalized. Relative to uninfected adults, those with COVID-19 had a 37% higher rate of severe physical symptoms (PHQ-15 score, 15 or higher; adjusted prevalence ratio [PR]).
The 9.6% of COVID-19 survivors who were bedridden for at least 7 days had the highest prevalence of symptoms (PR, 2.25), while those never bedridden had similar rates to uninfected participants (PR, 0.92). A higher prevalence was also noted in those hospitalized for their infections 2 to 22 months after diagnosis.
The prevalence of symptoms was significantly elevated among COVID-19 survivors for 8 of the 15 measured symptoms, including shortness of breath (PR, 2.15), dizziness (1.58), rapid heartbeat (1.55), headache (1.38), chest pain (1.34), back pain (1.10), low energy/fatigue (1.08), and sleep problems (1.04).
Our results show the long-term health consequences of the pandemic and highlight the importance of monitoring physical symptoms for up to two years after diagnosis, especially in people who experienced severe COVID-19.
Most participants had been partially or fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and the findings were comparable in analyses limited to vaccinated people. Symptoms were more prevalent among participants without depression or anxiety, which the study authors said indicates that the link between severe COVID-19 and the risks of long-term physical symptoms may be independent of mental symptoms.
"Long COVID has grown into a major public health problem since a large proportion of the global population has been infected," co-first author Emily Joyce, a doctoral student at Karolinska Institutet, said in an institute news release. "Our results show the long-term health consequences of the pandemic and highlight the importance of monitoring physical symptoms for up to two years after diagnosis, especially in people who experienced severe COVID-19."
The COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed health care systems across the United States. More than 100 million cases and one million deaths later, clinicians and researchers are still unraveling the lessons learned from this global public health crisis.
In a recent publication in AIDS and Behavior, scientists from the University of South Carolina identified seven lessons regarding health care system resilience learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, these takeaways detail ways that AIDS service organizations in South Carolina were able to persevere through the pandemic. Taken together, these facilitators may offer a roadmap for organizational resilience when faced with the next public health crisis.
Throughout the pandemic, South Carolina has been categorized as highly vulnerable to COVID-19 infections, complications and deaths due to our unemployment levels, limited income, housing and transportation instability, crowded living and working conditions, and aging population, saysShan Qiao, associate professor ofhealth promotion, education, and behaviorand a core faculty member with theSouth Carolina SmartState Center for Healthcare Quality. These conditions worsened existing health disparities and put a strain on the local health care systems that vulnerable groups depend on to manage chronic conditions, such as HIV/AIDS.
With the eighth highest rate of HIV/AIDS incidence in the country, South Carolina has a population of nearly 18,000 residents who are living with HIV. Supply chain disruptions (e.g., safety equipment, pharmaceuticals used prevent and treat HIV), staffing shortages, capacity limitations and other challenges resulted in disruptions to services offered by 82 percent of the states HIV clinics at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Researchers at the Center for Healthcare Quality have been examining impacts of the pandemic on people living with HIV, including service delays/interruptions, mental health, co-infection with COVID-19, vaccine efficacy, stigma, viral suppression, and more. Qiaos study sought to identify recurring themes among AIDS service organizations who were better able to overcome many of these challenges. Their analysis resulted in seven facilitators of organizational resilience.
These facilitators are unique to the context of the COVID-19 pandemic yet are relevant going forward, as this study highlights their importance in providing a continuity of care to people living with HIV and other vulnerable groups under circumstances requiring nontraditional methods of treatment, Qiao says. Our findings highlight the importance of effective health care system policies, management, and leadership that have clear and preemptive protocols to facilitate organizational resilience. This work necessitates organizational, local, state, and federal policies, drafted in times of crisis, to consider their immediate and long-term impacts on health care settings serving vulnerable populations and, more broadly, organizational resilience.
This research was fundedby NIH/NIAID (R01AI174892).
Read the full paper:Facilitators of Organizational Resilience Within South Carolina AIDS Service Organizations: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
Vaccines for COVID-19 and influenza may slightly increase the risk of strokes caused by blood clots in the brains of older adults, particularly when the two vaccines are given at the same time and when they are given to adults who are age 85 and older, according to a new study.The safety signal was detected by experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who analyzed data from Medicare claims.It is the second study to find an elevated risk of stroke for seniors after COVID-19 and flu vaccinations given together. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and FDA issued a public communication in January explaining that one of their near real-time vaccine safety monitoring studies called the Vaccine Safety Datalink had picked up a small risk of stroke for older adults who received a dose of Pfizers bivalent COVID-19 vaccine and a high-dose or adjuvanted flu shot on the same day. That study triggered the FDAs broader look at strokes after vaccination noted in the medical records of seniors on Medicare.That said, the risk identified in the FDAs study appears to be very small roughly 3 strokes or transient ischemic attacks for every 100,000 doses given and the study found it may be primarily driven by the high-dose or adjuvanted flu vaccines, which are specially designed to rev up the immune system so it mounts a stronger response to the shot.In additional analysis of the Medicare claims data, the FDA researchers found a slightly increased risk of stroke in adults ages 65 and older whod only gotten a high dose flu shot. In absolute terms, the extra risk from high-dose flu shots amounted to 1-2 strokes for every 100,000 doses.The absolute risk is miniscule, said Dr. Steve Nissen, a cardiologist and researcher at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. I mean it is trivial in comparison to the risk for people over 85 of dying from COVID. At least five other recent studies many launched to try to tease out this link, have not found any additional risk of stroke after vaccination for COVID-19, influenza or both.Available data do not provide clear and consistent evidence of a safety problem for ischemic stroke with bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccines when given alone or given simultaneously with influenza vaccines, said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the Immunization Safety Office at the CDC in a public presentation of the data on Wednesday to the CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.Researchers say they are continuing to probe the possible link, but in the meantime, they say everyone should still get vaccinated since an increase in risk of a stroke after vaccination is dwarfed by the increased risk of stroke or other serious outcomes following either a flu or COVID-19 infection.The risk of serious disease associated with both influenza and COVID for the population at highest risk, which is of course, older persons, is so much greater than the potential increased risk associated with a vaccine, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University.Thats a hard equation for the average person to do, Schaffner said. Spread out your shots?Schaffner said people who are worried could consider getting each shot at different times rather than together.Thats a reasonable thing to do, he said.Schaffner, who is in his mid-80s, said he got both his COVID and flu vaccines at the same time, in the same arm, and had very little reaction afterwards.A few weeks ago, however, Dr. Peter Marks, head of FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said he was planning to get his COVID-19 vaccine first, followed by his influenza vaccine about two weeks later.If you want to minimize the chance of interactions and minimize confusing the side effects from one with another, you wait about two weeks between the vaccines, Marks said on an FDA stakeholder call in September.Other experts said they hoped the information wouldnt confuse people or deter them from getting their vaccines, since the benefits of getting them still greatly outweigh the risks.The bottom line is that these are small signals. Were not entirely sure whether they are valid, and they certainly do not lead themselves to any change in the recommendations for people getting either COVID or influenza vaccines at the present time, Schaffner said.For the study, FDA investigators looked at the medical claims of more than 5.3 million adults ages 65 and older who were enrolled in Medicare and received a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer or Moderna. They saw no increased risk of stroke in the overall group after COVID-19 vaccination.When they looked at adults ages 85 and older, they found an elevated risk of strokes caused by blood clots in those whod had Pfizer vaccines, but not in those who got Moderna shots.Seniors age 65 and older who got a bivalent vaccine and high-dose or adjuvanted flu shot at the same time also had an increased risk of blood clots in their brains.The study is observational, meaning it can only show associations, it cant prove cause and effect. It was also posted as a preprint ahead of peer review by outside experts and publication in a medical journal.Study sees link to seizures in young kidsA separate FDA investigation of more than 4 million records from three large commercial insurance databases, found a small and tenuous link between seizures in children between the ages of 2 and 5 and COVID-19 vaccination. Children this age appeared to be slightly more likely to have seizures after COVID-19 vaccination compared with background seizure rates in the general population in 2020 a year when infectious diseases were lower in kids because of masks and social distancing.The signal disappeared, however, when researchers compared it with background rates of seizures reported in U.S. children in 2022, a year when infections in kids rebounded.That study was also posted as a preprint.The study authors said their findings should be interpreted with caution, since most were associated with fevers, which are common in kids. Vaccination can also cause kids to run fevers.They said they hoped their findings would be investigated in a more robust epidemiological study.About 4% of children experience seizures triggered by fevers, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.Dr. Phillip Yang, a cardiologist at Stanford Health Care, said the findings didnt look particularly concerning.Its not unusual after COVID vaccine that we have little bit of a fever that could trigger a seizure, and kids who are more susceptible to it. So again, its not a surprising finding, Yang said.
Vaccines for COVID-19 and influenza may slightly increase the risk of strokes caused by blood clots in the brains of older adults, particularly when the two vaccines are given at the same time and when they are given to adults who are age 85 and older, according to a new study.
The safety signal was detected by experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who analyzed data from Medicare claims.
It is the second study to find an elevated risk of stroke for seniors after COVID-19 and flu vaccinations given together. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and FDA issued a public communication in January explaining that one of their near real-time vaccine safety monitoring studies called the Vaccine Safety Datalink had picked up a small risk of stroke for older adults who received a dose of Pfizers bivalent COVID-19 vaccine and a high-dose or adjuvanted flu shot on the same day. That study triggered the FDAs broader look at strokes after vaccination noted in the medical records of seniors on Medicare.
That said, the risk identified in the FDAs study appears to be very small roughly 3 strokes or transient ischemic attacks for every 100,000 doses given and the study found it may be primarily driven by the high-dose or adjuvanted flu vaccines, which are specially designed to rev up the immune system so it mounts a stronger response to the shot.
In additional analysis of the Medicare claims data, the FDA researchers found a slightly increased risk of stroke in adults ages 65 and older whod only gotten a high dose flu shot. In absolute terms, the extra risk from high-dose flu shots amounted to 1-2 strokes for every 100,000 doses.
The absolute risk is miniscule, said Dr. Steve Nissen, a cardiologist and researcher at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. I mean it is trivial in comparison to the risk for people over 85 of dying from COVID.
At least five other recent studies many launched to try to tease out this link, have not found any additional risk of stroke after vaccination for COVID-19, influenza or both.
Available data do not provide clear and consistent evidence of a safety problem for ischemic stroke with bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccines when given alone or given simultaneously with influenza vaccines, said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the Immunization Safety Office at the CDC in a public presentation of the data on Wednesday to the CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Researchers say they are continuing to probe the possible link, but in the meantime, they say everyone should still get vaccinated since an increase in risk of a stroke after vaccination is dwarfed by the increased risk of stroke or other serious outcomes following either a flu or COVID-19 infection.
The risk of serious disease associated with both influenza and COVID for the population at highest risk, which is of course, older persons, is so much greater than the potential increased risk associated with a vaccine, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University.
Thats a hard equation for the average person to do, Schaffner said.
Schaffner said people who are worried could consider getting each shot at different times rather than together.
Thats a reasonable thing to do, he said.
Schaffner, who is in his mid-80s, said he got both his COVID and flu vaccines at the same time, in the same arm, and had very little reaction afterwards.
A few weeks ago, however, Dr. Peter Marks, head of FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said he was planning to get his COVID-19 vaccine first, followed by his influenza vaccine about two weeks later.
If you want to minimize the chance of interactions and minimize confusing the side effects from one with another, you wait about two weeks between the vaccines, Marks said on an FDA stakeholder call in September.
Other experts said they hoped the information wouldnt confuse people or deter them from getting their vaccines, since the benefits of getting them still greatly outweigh the risks.
The bottom line is that these are small signals. Were not entirely sure whether they are valid, and they certainly do not lead themselves to any change in the recommendations for people getting either COVID or influenza vaccines at the present time, Schaffner said.
For the study, FDA investigators looked at the medical claims of more than 5.3 million adults ages 65 and older who were enrolled in Medicare and received a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer or Moderna. They saw no increased risk of stroke in the overall group after COVID-19 vaccination.
When they looked at adults ages 85 and older, they found an elevated risk of strokes caused by blood clots in those whod had Pfizer vaccines, but not in those who got Moderna shots.
Seniors age 65 and older who got a bivalent vaccine and high-dose or adjuvanted flu shot at the same time also had an increased risk of blood clots in their brains.
The study is observational, meaning it can only show associations, it cant prove cause and effect. It was also posted as a preprint ahead of peer review by outside experts and publication in a medical journal.
A separate FDA investigation of more than 4 million records from three large commercial insurance databases, found a small and tenuous link between seizures in children between the ages of 2 and 5 and COVID-19 vaccination. Children this age appeared to be slightly more likely to have seizures after COVID-19 vaccination compared with background seizure rates in the general population in 2020 a year when infectious diseases were lower in kids because of masks and social distancing.
The signal disappeared, however, when researchers compared it with background rates of seizures reported in U.S. children in 2022, a year when infections in kids rebounded.
That study was also posted as a preprint.
The study authors said their findings should be interpreted with caution, since most were associated with fevers, which are common in kids. Vaccination can also cause kids to run fevers.
They said they hoped their findings would be investigated in a more robust epidemiological study.
About 4% of children experience seizures triggered by fevers, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Dr. Phillip Yang, a cardiologist at Stanford Health Care, said the findings didnt look particularly concerning.
Its not unusual after COVID vaccine that we have little bit of a fever that could trigger a seizure, and kids who are more susceptible to it. So again, its not a surprising finding, Yang said.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The final of three MU Health Caredrive-thru vaccine clinics began at 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. Saturday at South Providence Medical Park.
At the event, patients were able to receive the updated COVID-19 vaccine and a flu vaccine. According to an email from MU Health spokesman Eric Slusher, at the previous two clinics, there were a combined 1,679 doses of the COVID-19 administered and 1,781 influenza vaccines given.
A MU Health Care pharmacist told ABC 17 News that the updated COVID-19 vaccine is available for children ages five and older. Flu vaccines are available for those six months and older. According to previous reporting, only those 12 years old and older were able to receive theupdated COVID-19 vaccine.
People who went to the drive-through clinic remained in their cars, presented their insurance cards and signed a consent form. It was also encouraged to bring your COVID-19 vaccination card as well.
Patients were then guided by workers at the clinic to a vaccine station where they were administered the shots and vaccinations. They were asked to wait a few minutes before driving out of the clinic site.
Slusher also stated vaccines can be available at primary care clinics and Mizzou Quick Cares.
The Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services previously stated that flu and updated COVID-19 vaccines were also available by appointment at its Worley Street location.
According to PHHS spokesman Ryan Sheehan, as of Tuesday, there have been 40 doses of the updated COVID-19 vaccines administered.
Sheehan also stated there were 3,200 doses of the flu vaccine given at school-based clinics in the county, another 500 were administered at outreach clinics and 300 were given at the PHHS building.
