Tag: Rochelle Walensky

Biden administration weighs declaring monkeypox a health emergency + Break Out the Condoms to Fight Monkeypox

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Biden administration weighs declaring monkeypox a health emergency

Related:

Doctors treating monkeypox complain of ‘daunting’ paperwork, obstacles

D.C. shifts monkeypox vaccine policy to focus on first dose

Break Out the Condoms to Fight Monkeypox (archived if you can read behind the advertisements)*

But we should also remember that we have never vaccinated our way out of any pandemic. In the West, measles, scarlet fever, and other childhood diseases stopped killing kids decades before vaccines—our preferred tool of mass salvation—arrived in the late 1950s. Smallpox was similarly largely controlled by the turn of the 20th century through public health measures.

We need to stop subordinating people to the virus. A single approach of surveillance, isolation, contact tracing, and vaccination worked very well for smallpox, which relied exclusively on a human host, could be diagnosed at 10 paces, and was prevented with a single vaccination. But even that approach relied not only on tests and vaccines but also, most of all, on trust—to be tested and vaccinated. Candor is a prerequisite for trust.

*Just a little deception behind the headline. Still touting vaccines (Jynneos), as a solution, though! Just use condoms, for prevention, and prescribe antivirals (TPOXX), for treatment, if needed!

Why America Doesn’t Trust the CDC

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Why America Doesn’t Trust the CDC

Most remarkably, it didn’t seem to matter to the CDC that 75.2 percent of children under age 11 already have natural immunity, according to a CDC study that concluded in February. Natural immunity is certainly much more prevalent today, given the ubiquity of the Omicron variant since February. CDC data from New York and California demonstrated that natural immunity was 2.8 times more effective in preventing hospitalization and 3.3 to 4.7 times more effective in preventing COVID infection compared to vaccination during the Delta wave. These findings are consistent with dozens of other clinical studies. Yet natural immunity has consistently and inexplicably been dismissed by the medical establishment.

…

Public health officials are expected to recommend COVID vaccines for children under 5 as soon as June 21st, despite the fact that the vast majority of children already have natural immunity. In a recent Kaiser survey, only 18 percent of parents said they were eager to vaccinate their child in that age group.

The CDC is sending monkeypox vaccines to people at high risk in a race to prevent the spread

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The CDC is sending monkeypox vaccines to people at high risk in a race to prevent the spread

The Biden administration has distributed 1,200 monkeypox vaccine doses for people who have had high-risk exposures to the virus, part of a nationwide public health response to stamp out the disease before it causes a major outbreak.

U.S. health officials, worried the virus is spreading faster than previously thought, have said the global outbreak of monkeypox is the largest ever. The World Health Organization said Wednesday that there are now more than 550 cases across 30 countries. In the U.S., at least 20 confirmed or suspected cases have been reported in 11 states, including California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Utah and Washington state, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

…

Last week, CDC official Dr. Jennifer McQuiston said the U.S. has 1,000 doses of Jynneos available. However, the Danish biotech company that makes the shots, Bavarian Nordic, said the U.S. actually has a supply of more than 1 million Jynneos frozen doses stored in the U.S. and Denmark under an order placed in April 2020. The shots have a shelf life of three years.

…

The U.S. government also has a stockpile of more than 100 million doses of ACAM2000, made by Emergent BioSolutions, McQuiston told reporters last week. The U.S. had released 500 doses of Jynneos and 200 doses of ACAM2000 as of Tuesday, according to the CDC. The U.S. has also sent out 100 courses of the oral antiviral tecovirimat to the states, health officials said Friday.

…

The CDC has said women who are pregnant or breast feeding, people with weak immune systems, those with skin conditions such as eczema or atopic dermatitis, and people with heart disease should not receive ACAM2000. In pregnant women, the virus can spread to the fetus and cause stillbirth. People with weak immune systems face a risk that the virus will grow uncontrollably and cause a dangerous infection, Slifka said. People with skin conditions such as eczema or atopic dermatitis are also at risk of the virus spreading on their skin which can turn into a life-threatening infection, he said.

…

Lewis said the WHO is not recommending mass vaccination against monkeypox because the current outbreak can still be contained. Most of the cases so far have been reported among men who have sex with men, developed symptoms and sought care at sexual health clinics, according to the WHO. Lewis said it is important to provide gay and bisexual men with the information they need to protect themselves from the virus and prevent it from spreading.

…

Monkeypox typically starts with symptoms similar to the flu including fever, headache, muscle aches, chills, exhaustion and swollen lymph nodes. Lesions then form on the body, and the virus spreads primarily through skin-to-skin contact with these lesions. Monkeypox can spread through respiratory droplets [not again!] if a person has lesions in their throat or mouth, but it does not transmit easily this way.

Related:

Read More »

The C.D.C. will undergo a comprehensive re-evaluation, the agency’s director said.

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The C.D.C. will undergo a comprehensive re-evaluation, the agency’s director said.

But the agency’s infrastructure was neglected for decades, like the nation’s public health system generally, and the pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges. Early on, the C.D.C. made key mistakes in testing and surveillance — for example, famously fumbling design of a diagnostic kit sent to state laboratories.

Officials were late to recommend masking, partly because agency scientists didn’t recognize quickly that the virus was airborne. In May of last year, Dr. Walensky announced that vaccinated people could take masks off indoors and outdoors; just weeks later, it became clear that vaccinated people could not only get breakthrough infections but also could transmit the virus.

In August, Dr. Walensky joined President Biden in supporting booster shots for all Americans, before scientists at the Food and Drug Administration or her own agency had reviewed the data on whether they were needed.

More recently, the highly contagious Omicron variant has led the C.D.C. to issue recommendations based on what once would have been considered insufficient evidence, amid growing public concern about how these guidelines affect the economy and education.

In December, the C.D.C. shortened the isolation period for infected Americans to five days, although it appears that many infected people can transmit the virus for longer. Over the past few weeks, some experts have criticized the agency for changing the metrics used to assess risk and determine appropriate local measures, in order to appease business and political interests.