Post by mhbruin on Jun 8, 2022 9:20:57 GMT -8
New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | New Hospitalizations 7-Day Average | |
Jun 7 | 104,511 | 291 | |
Jun 6 | 105,762 | 280 | 4,057 |
Jun 5 | 98,513 | 247 | 4,043 |
Jun 4 | 98,010 | 246 | 3,685 |
Jun 3 | 97,611 | 250 | 3,915 |
Jun 2 | 108,795 | 254 | 3,949 |
Jun 1 | 100,683 | 255 | 3,885 |
May 31 | 103,686 | 264 | 3,789 |
May 30 | 94,260 | 301 | 3,833 |
May 29 | 103,900 | 327 | 3,496 |
May 28 | 106,931 | 331 | 3,628 |
May 27 | 108,825 | 336 | 3,734 |
May 26 | 109,643 | 315 | 3,722 |
May 25 | 109,564 | 305 | 3,609 |
May 24 | 104,399 | 288 | 3,614 |
May 23 | 104,480 | 279 | 3,604 |
May 22 | 102,940 | 281 | 3,531 |
May 21 | 105,198 | 283 | 3,226 |
May 20 | 105,713 | 284 | 3,369 |
May 19 | 101,029 | 279 | 3,379 |
May 18 | 101,130 | 280 | 3,332 |
May 17 | 99,347 | 273 | 3,250 |
May 16 | 94,199 | 274 | 3,136 |
May 15 | 90,337 | 263 | 3,013 |
May 14 | 88,187 | 265 | 2,698 |
May 13 | 87,831 | 266 | 2,798 |
May 12 | 87,382 | 272 | 2,731 |
May 11 | 84,778 | 272 | 2,652 |
May 10 | 78,236 | 326 | 2,629 |
May 9 | 74,712 | 323 | 2,597 |
Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
Today's Worst Joke in the World
Save the Earth! It's the Only Planet with Chocolate.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Fox Has Found the Perfect Way to Make Sure No One Sees the Jan 6th Hearings.
They are airing them on Fox Business
Maybe Their Phones Weren't Working
Lynda Espinoza's 13-year-old son was fatally shot by a San Antonio police officer and she says it took the department five days to call her to let her know her son was dead.
Espinoza said she first found out that an officer killed her son, Andre Hernandez Jr., because she pieced together news articles about a police shooting of a teenager in her neighborhood around the time her son died.
“I really don’t understand what the police are hiding,” she said. “My son was 13 years old. That’s the key. He was a little boy, and he did not deserve to get shot and killed by a police officer.”
Police finally called Espinoza Tuesday evening after NBC News contacted them and she appeared on local news.
They told her they would allow her to view partial police bodycam footage of the encounter Monday morning, she said.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do when I see it, but I want to see why they shot my son.”
Just two weeks earlier, Espinoza had laid to rest her 16-year-old daughter, Naveah Martinez, who was found shot to death May 10 in a stolen car near the family’s home.
Show them the
By 5 PM ET Wednesday, attorney John Eastman must hand over nearly 200 emails to the Jan. 6 committee—many of which, a federal judge has ruled, indicate continued evidence of a “well-established” and “fully formed” plan by Eastman and former President Donald Trump to illegally overturn the 2020 election.
“The Court previously held that from January 4-7, 2021, President Trump and Dr. Eastman likely committed obstruction of an official proceeding, in violation of 18 U.S.C.§ 1512(c)(2), and conspiracy to defraud the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 when they attempted to disrupt the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” U.S. District Judge David Carter wrote in the 26-page order made public Tuesday. “Because the remaining protected documents pre-date that time period, the court now determines whether those attempted crimes began earlier… The current set of documents also confirm that the plan was established well before January 6, 2021.”
How Long Before Kyle Shoots Somebody Else?
The Would-Be Senator's Therapist
As most now know, there were a number of violent episodes involving his Herschel Walker's ex-wife Cindy Grossman, including verbal threats and threatening with a gun, culminating in a 2001 encounter with police, who were called by Walker’s therapist Jerry Mungadze, saying that Walker was threatening to kill his ex. Police, apparently, allowed Mungadze several minutes to talk with Walker and de-escalate the situation.
Later, in a 2008 book, Walker claimed his emotional difficulties stemmed from Dissociative Identity Disorder, and credited Mungadze’s therapy for his recovery. He even invited Mungadze to write the forward to the book, suggesting that the therapist was especially instrumental in Walker turning his life around, and a major influence on the former athlete.
So, well worth a google, right? And, wow, what a google. Here is his bio as shown on the website of the Christian TV Network Daystar:
Selected for a scholarship here in the United States, Dr. Mungadze received a BS in Bible from Dallas Bible College in Dallas, Texas, an MA in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, and a Ph.D. in counselor education with a minor in psychology from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.
Fair enough. A bit Jesus-centric, but an actual doctorate in counselor education with a minor in psych. And is Dissociative Identity Disorder Dr. Mungadze’s specialty? Well, not exactly.
In 2014, Dr. Christian Jensen went undercover to make a documentary on the world of “gay conversion therapy” and found Mr. Walker’s therapist peddling such “coversion” at his Texas clinic. Mungadze’s novel and original contributions to the field of gay conversion included the ability to analyze people’s degree of gayness based on the color of crayon they chose to fill in a drawing.
Ex-gay therapist Jerry Mungadze has a highly scientific way of determining if someone is possessed by demons -- by giving them a box of crayons and asking them to color in a picture of a human brain. Oh, he can also tell if you're gay by using this method, reports Right Wing Watch.
During an appearance on televangelist Benny Hinn's TV show, "This Is Your Day," Mungadze explained his method. “There’s a certain color someone uses that I won’t mention that tells me someone’s been demonized. Everything that I talk about is based on numbers, is based on studies, which is what you do is when you’re a scientist."
Did His Therapist Tell Him to Buy Votes?
King, a QAnon acolyte who unsuccessfully ran for Congress last year after she was pardoned by former President Donald Trump for a felony conviction linked to a car theft ring, called the vouchers a gift from Walker. Campaign flyers promoting the former NFL star, who has been endorsed by Trump, were also passed out to drivers waiting in line.
It’s a felony in Georgia to pay for votes or bribe voters.
Georgia election law states that “any person who gives or receives, offers to give or receive, or participates in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for the purpose of registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate in any primary or election shall be guilty of a felony.”
The state’s voting law even bans volunteers from handing out water to voters while they’re waiting in line at the polls.
Federal campaign laws also bars candidates from directly influencing or cooperating with PACs that support them.
He Wanted to Walk
Less than 48 hours from the start of the Jan. 6 hearings, The Washington Post detonated one of what will likely be many bombshells. It turns out that when Donald Trump wailed that the Secret Service wouldn’t let him follow through on his vow to join the MAGA horde as they marched to the Capitol, he wasn’t just blowing smoke.
According to Post sources briefed on witness accounts to House investigators, Trump had been badgering the Secret Service for some time before Jan. 6 to make a way for him to join the march. They resisted—only to have their hand forced when Trump made his now-infamous promise that when the insurrectionists walked to the Capitol, he would walk among them. This announcement set off a mad scramble for a way to secure a route for Trump—one that was abandoned in part because the Metropolitan Police were too busy tamping down the “wild” situation Trump himself had sparked.
According to witness accounts, Trump, through several of his aides, began pressing the Secret Service to find a way for him to join the march as early as New Year’s Eve. They initially reached out to Tony Ornato (who didn't record 'Knock Three Times on the Ceiling If You Love Me"), a Secret Service official who was serving as acting deputy White House chief of staff. Ornato was somewhat cool toward the idea, based on what happened after Trump dropped in at a “Stop the Steal” rally on Nov. 14. When Trump’s motorcade came rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue that morning, Ornato and several of his colleagues feared for the worst “because of how close Trump’s limo came alongside unscreened members of the public.” According to one of the sources, Trump’s Secret Service detail “really, really did not want him to go” to that rally.
It's All About the Clicks, 'Bout the Clicks
"This Is Going to Be HUGE!"
There Seems to Be a Lot of Illegal Lobbying Going On
The FBI has seized the electronic data of a retired four-star general who authorities say made false statements and withheld “incriminating” documents about his role in an illegal foreign lobbying campaign on behalf of the wealthy Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.
New federal court filings obtained Tuesday outlined a potential criminal case against former Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who led U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan before being tapped in 2017 to lead the influential Brookings Institution think tank.
It’s part of an expanding investigation that has ensnared Richard G. Olson, a former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan who pleaded guilty to federal charges last week, and Imaad Zuberi, a prolific political donor now serving a 12-year prison sentence on corruption charges. Several members of Congress have been interviewed as part of the investigation.
The court filings detail Allen’s behind-the scenes efforts to help Qatar influence U.S. policy in 2017 when a diplomatic crisis erupted between the gas-rich Persian Gulf monarchy and its neighbors.
“There is substantial evidence that these FARA violations were willful,” FBI agent Babak Adib wrote in a search warrant application, referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Why Is Everyone Violating FARA. (At Least They Aren't Violating Farah.)
Christina Pushaw, the press secretary of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), has registered as a foreign agent who worked for former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili from 2018 to 2020, upon a Department of Justice request.
Michael Sherwin, Pushaw’s lawyer, told The Washington Post Pushaw’s responsibilities included writing op-eds, reaching out to supporters and “advocating on his behalf in Georgia and in the United States.”
“The work ended in 2020,” Sherwin told the Post. “Ms. Pushaw was notified recently by the DOJ that her work on behalf of Mr. Saakashvili likely required FARA registration. Ms. Pushaw filed for the registration retroactively as soon as she was made aware.”
Sherwin added that Pushaw originally worked on a voluntary basis and made about $25,000 in total over the two years.
Pushaw has been DeSantis’ press secretary since May 2021.
Don't Bring Out Tom Cruise to Talk About Mental Health
Fox News’ Jesse Watters was called out Tuesday after he mocked the White House for hosting actor Matthew McConaughey to speak about gun control.
“What are the White House going to do now? They going to put Tom Cruise out to talk inflation?” he said.
McConaughey, who was born in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 kids and two teachers were massacred in a May 24 school shooting, was arguably a relevant celebrity to speak to the issue. He had argued for more responsible gun laws in the past, and he stood at the White House lectern on Tuesday to call for reforms to gun legislation in the wake of the attack in his hometown.
And as Twitter user and media observer @acyn promptly noted, Watters actually discussed inflation with a celebrity guest himself not long ago.
In a widely mocked segment in April, the Fox News host chatted to reality TV star DJ Pauly D about the rising cost of living.
“What are we doing about this inflation? Does Joe Biden understand how much this is killing this country?” he asked the “Jersey Shore” alum as the chyron “DJ Pauly D on inflation” appeared on screen.
Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Heart of Pride Month? The Ricky Knows.
Former child actor turned far-right extremist Ricky Schroder made a bizarre claim about Pride Month.
Instead of a celebration of LGBTQ communities, Schroder wrote in his Instagram story that it was something much more sinister.
PatriotTakes, which monitors right-wing social media, shared a screenshot:
Was Allison's Aim True?
Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, allegedly expressed interest in carrying out terrorist attacks in the United States in support of ISIS on six separate occasions between 2014 and 2017, according to court documents unsealed in February.
Fluke-Ekren, who also used the name Umm Mohammed al-Amriki, moved to Syria in 2012 and married a "prominent" ISIS leader, court documents said. She can reportedly speak four languages, and the documents alleged she rose up the ranks to command her own all-female battalion.
She pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.
"Fluke-Ekren’s alleged ISIS-related conduct includes, but is not limited to, planning and recruiting operatives for a potential future attack on a college campus inside the United States and serving as the appointed leader and organizer of an ISIS military battalion located in Syria, known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, in order to train women on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts," court documents filed in January said.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
American Workers Are Smarter Than I Thought (At Least Those Eligible for 401K's)
More workers are following experts’ advice in saving for retirement, even when finances feel precarious. It’s happening because 401(k) plans are using a simple human trait to guide us: our inclination to do nothing.
More workers are putting more money into their 401(k) accounts, and they’re more often putting it into a reasonable mix of investments. That’s according to Vanguard’s latest look at the nearly 5 million accounts of 401(k) and similar plans that it keeps records on.
Even amid heavy uncertainty about the economy last year, retirement savers socked away an average of 7.3% of their pay, not including employer matches, according to Vanguard. That’s the same level as a year earlier, when the pandemic first struck and threw everything into doubt. And it’s up from 6.9% in 2012. Vanguard recommends workers save 12% to 15% of their pay, including any employer match.
More than four out of five workers eligible to contribute to their 401(k) were doing so last year, at 81%. That also held steady from a year earlier, and it was up from 74% in 2012.
FINALLY! Someone Is Doing Something About Belching Sheep. Every Time I Try to Count Them, One Belches & I Have to Start Over.
New Zealand on Wednesday released a draft plan to put a price on agricultural emissions in a bid to tackle one of the country’s biggest sources of greenhouse gases, belching sheep and cattle.
The proposal would make New Zealand, a large agricultural exporter, the first country to have farmers pay for emissions from livestock, the Ministry for Environment said.
New Zealand, home to 5 million people, has about 10 million cattle and 26 million sheep.
Nearly half its total greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, mainly methane, but agricultural emissions have previously been exempted from the country’s emissions trading scheme, drawing criticism of the government’s commitment to stop global warming.
Plastic People. Oh, Baby, Now You're Such a Drag
The U.S. Interior Department said on Wednesday it will phase out single-use plastic products on public lands by 2032, including on national parks, in a move aimed at tackling a major source of U.S. plastic waste as recycling efforts falter.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued a secretarial order that calls for the agency to reduce the procurement, sale and distribution of single-use plastic products and packaging on 480 million acres of Interior Department-managed lands by 2032.
The department produced nearly 80,000 tons of municipal solid waste in fiscal year 2020. The U.S. recycling rate has fallen close to 5% as some countries stopped accepting U.S. waste exports and as plastic waste generation surged to new highs.
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Invasions Have Consequences
Day 105
Fighting
Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu said 97 percent of the Luhansk region, one of the two provinces that make up Ukraine’s Donbas, is under Russian control, adding that Russian forces “liberated” the residential quarters of Severodonetsk.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces have made no significant advances in the eastern Donbas region over the past day, and that “the absolutely heroic defence of the Donbas continues”.
Soldiers are “successfully holding back the assault in the city of Severodonetsk” and were holding off attacks in Toshkivka and Ustynivka, the Ukraine general staff said
However, the governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, said the defenders were finding it hard to repel Russian attacks in the centre of Severodonetsk.
At least three people were killed and six more injured after Russian forces shelled Kharkiv and its regional villages of Cherkaska Lozova, Slatyne and Korobochkyne on Tuesday, Governor Oleh Synyehubov said.
A stalemate with Russia is “not an option” and “victory must be achieved on the battlefield”, Zelenskyy told Britain’s Financial Times, repeating the call for Western military support.
The next winter will be “the most difficult” since Ukraine gained independence in 1991, Zelenskyy said, adding that Kyiv was setting up a headquarters to centralise the running of winter heating.
More than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in Mariupol have been transferred to Russia for investigation, Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency reported.
Russia has returned the bodies of 210 Ukrainian fighters, most of whom who died defending Mariupol at a vast steelworks, Ukraine’s military said.
Diplomacy
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met with Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Dmytro Senik in Seoul on Tuesday to discuss the war’s impact on global food security and how to get Ukraine’s grain to international markets, according to a US state department statement.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Ankara for a two-day visit to Turkey for talks on unblocking grain exports from Ukraine. The Russian parliament passed two bills ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in the country.
Russia’s former president and deputy chairman of its security council Dmitry Medvedev made some strong remarks against his enemies, calling them “b******s” and saying he would do his “best to make them disappear”, but did not specify who his words were directed at.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her record on Russia, saying she had “nothing to apologise for” and that she had tried to prevent the situation in Ukraine from reaching the current state. She added that she had been against letting Ukraine into NATO because she wanted to prevent escalation with Russia and Ukraine was not ready for NATO.
Economy
Ukraine will only be able to export a maximum of 2 million tonnes of grains a month if Russia does not lift its blockade of its Black Sea ports, Ukraine’s first deputy minister for agrarian policy and food said.
The World Bank said its board of executive directors approved $1.49bn in additional financing for Ukraine to help pay wages for government and social workers, expanding the bank’s total pledged support for Kyiv to more than $4bn.
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said it is “virtually impossible” for the US to insulate itself from oil market shocks such as those caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so it is important to shift towards renewable energy sources.
The US has taken command of the Russian-owned superyacht in Fiji and taken it after winning a legal battle to seize the $325m vessel, amid a move to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs.
Russian state flagship airline Aeroflot plans to raise up to 185.2 billion roubles ($3bn) in an emergency share issue triggered by Western sanctions and airspace bans, Reuters reported.
The first 15 outlets of the rebranded “McDonald’s” will open in Moscow and its surrounds on June 12 after McDonald’s pulled out of Russia in May and sold the license for all 850 restaurants across the country to local businessman Alexander Govor.
With Great Weapons Comes Great Responsibility
There’s a reason Ukraine’s western allies gave serious preference to Soviet-era weapons systems. People fixate too much on learning to operate weapons systems, when the real challenge is in maintaining them.
Joshi is talking about the M777, the towed artillery system Ukraine has received from the United States, Canada, and Australia. It’s not a very complicated system. In fact, the initial training for an artillery mechanic is only 15 weeks—just over three months.
Canada spent several weeks training Ukrainians on operating the M777 in Poland, but I never did see anything about training maintenance crews. It certainly hasn’t been three months since these units were delivered to Ukraine.
What's more, those 15 weeks are only the initial training. Graduates from AIT (advanced individual training) then go to their units where they continue their training under experienced NCOs (non-commissioned officers, or sergeants), many with over a decade of experience doing the job. The training is ongoing, for years. That’s how you keep complex military gear up and running The operators are only a small part of the equation, and quite irrelevant if their equipment can’t run.
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It Would Taste Just As Good As The Rations Did in 1944.
A museum believes a D-Day ration pack held in its collection is the only complete one of its kind in the world.
The sealed box at the Keep Military Museum in Dorchester, Dorset, was originally thought to date from the 1950s.
But a re-examination found it to be "the extremely rare assault rations of the Second World War", the museum said.
Its contents include chocolate, biscuits, tea and four pieces of toilet paper.
The pack is currently being held in storage due to its fragile state.
Assault ration packs were issued to British and Commonwealth soldiers for the D-Day landings.
The museum said: "Their small size allowed them to be carried in a mess tin. They were a lightweight solution to providing a soldier with the 4,000 calories he needed in a day.
"It is believed to be the only surviving complete assault ration pack in the world."
An X-ray on the waxed cardboard box by experts at Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex revealed all the original contents were still intact.
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Bad News If You Wanted to Buy Some Gazprom Stock
The Biden administration has issued new investment restrictions that prohibit Americans from buying Russian stocks and bonds.
The ban is the latest step by US officials to crank up the financial pressure on Russia in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
New guidance issued Monday by the Treasury Department explains that US investors are prohibited from buying “both new and existing debt and equity securities issued by an entity in the Russian Federation.”
Up until now, Americans were able to buy Russian stocks and bonds that change hands in secondary markets.
Americans will still be allowed to sell Russian stocks and bonds, although only to a “non-US person,” Treasury said. The guidance explains that Americans are not “required” to divest Russian securities and may continue to hold them.
US investors can also still invest in US funds that own Russian securities, as long as those Russian holdings are not the bulk of the fund’s assets.
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Money Will Cost You More Money
Mortgage rates are back on the upswing, after a brief decline in May, and the housing market is still suffering from a lack of listings. As a result, mortgage demand continues to drop.
Total mortgage application volume fell 6.5% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. Demand hit the lowest level in 22 years.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) increased to 5.40% from 5.33%, with points rising to 0.60 from 0.51 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment.
Refinance demand, which is most sensitive to weekly rate moves, fell another 6% for the week and was 75% lower than the same week one year ago. The vast majority of mortgage holders now have rates considerably lower than the current one, and even those who would like to pull cash out of their homes are choosing second mortgages, rather than refinancing their first liens.
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They Are Coming for Omicron. But Can It Mutate Faster Than We Can Innovate?
The firm’s researchers tested a booster dose combining the original vaccine with one targeted specifically against Omicron, the variant that became dominant last winter. They found that among those with no evidence of prior coronavirus infection, the combination produced 1.75 times the level of neutralizing antibodies against Omicron as the existing Moderna vaccine did alone.
While those results seem encouraging on their face, many experts worry that the virus is evolving so fast that it is outpacing the ability to modify vaccines — at least as long as the United States relies on human clinical trials for results.
Moderna’s new findings, from a clinical trial involving 814 volunteers, indicate that the updated vaccine produced a significantly stronger immune response against Omicron than the existing vaccine a month after the booster shot was given. The booster shots followed three earlier doses of Moderna’s vaccine.
But Omicron has been spawning subvariants for months, and some vaccine experts say what matters now is how well a new booster formulation would protect against the latest subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, not Omicron itself. First detected in South Africa early this year, those two subvariants now account for 13 percent of new cases in the United States and are spreading fast. By some estimates, within a month they could outcompete the two other Omicron subvariants BA.2 and BA.2.12.1, which are dominant now.
Moderna did not release any data on how the updated vaccine worked against BA.4 or BA.5. In a presentation Wednesday morning, Dr. Stephen Hoge, the firm’s president, said researchers were still gathering data on those and other subvariants.
But he said that a very small sample, together with isolated other studies, suggested that the levels of neutralizing antibodies triggered by the updated vaccine were two to threefold lower against the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, compared to against Omicron.
Nor can Moderna’s researchers yet say whether the reconfigured vaccine will offer more lasting protection than the existing one.
The newest subvariants seem to spread even more quickly than earlier versions of Omicron, and may be better at dodging the immune system’s defenses. It is unclear whether they cause more severe disease. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the White House, said in an interview Tuesday that South Africa, where BA.4 and BA.5 have been widespread, had “seen a slight uptick in hospitalizations, but I.C.U. utilization and deaths are really staying stably low.”
In any case, given how fast the virus is mutating, some vaccine experts say it makes more sense to target its most recent versions, rather than forms of the virus that have already been overtaken or soon will be.
The problem is that Moderna and Pfizer, the maker of the other main coronavirus vaccine in the United States, do not have enough time to run more human clinical trials and still manufacture shots before the fall, when the Biden administration is hoping to be able to offer an updated vaccine to counter what public health experts predict will be a winter surge.
That might force regulators to choose updated vaccines based on data from laboratory tests and trials involving mice or other animals, rather than robust human trials. It is also possible that a new variant or subvariant of concern will appear by the fall.
Outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration are scheduled to meet June 28 to discuss which vaccine formulation would work best as a fall booster; vaccine manufacturers have said they would need to start production soon.
“Of course, the final decision is always left to the F.D.A.,” Dr. Fauci said. “But what the F.D.A. will likely do is keep as many irons on the fire as they possibly can. And they may need to revert to alternative pathways of decision, which are laboratory data and possible animal data.”
Asked if Americans would accept a booster formulation without robust human trials, he said, “People who really are very concerned about protecting themselves will.”
Moderna’s trial of the vaccine targeting Omicron began in late February. The average age of the participants was 57. All volunteers had received three shots of Moderna’s existing vaccine — two shots, followed by a booster dose given an average of eight months after the second shot.
About four-and-a-half months after that first booster, 377 volunteers received a second booster with the existing vaccine, while 437 received the booster designed to work against Omicron. The updated booster produced a stronger immune response among both those who had previously been infected with the virus and those who had not.
Overall, those who got the updated booster had a 59 percent higher level of neutralizing antibodies than those who got the existing booster, according to data released by Moderna. Antibodies are the body’s first line of defense in warding off infection from the coronavirus. Other immune responses that also defend against Covid-19 disease were not measured; those tests are far more complex and time-consuming to conduct.
Dr. Paul Burton, Moderna’s chief medical officer, described the results as highly encouraging. “We really feel like this is a sort of fundamental turning point in our fight against this virus — that we can adapt to a variant,” said. “It works.”
But John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, said a less than twofold increase in neutralizing antibodies over the existing vaccine is “only a modest benefit.”
“Does that justify switching vaccine composition given the cost and the logistics and everything else that involved,” he asked. “That’s what the argument is going to be about.”
Pfizer and BioNTech, its German partner, are also testing an Omicron-specific vaccine and are expected to release their results soon.
In April, Moderna released preliminary results on a vaccine retooled to attack the Beta variant, which was first detected in late 2020. The firm said then that the combination provided a stronger defense not only against Beta, but also against the Delta and Omicron variants. But officials said they expected an Omicron-specific vaccine would be a better candidate.
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