 |
| AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File |
Americans are hearing they need another dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The news is as unwelcome as an annoying jingle that keeps repeating unbidden in the brain. It is also puzzling since the pandemic and its attendant panic are subsiding. Before submitting for another jab — and another and another — the nation’s medical establishment should come clean on what it knows about troubling spikes in death that have followed recurring waves of frightened citizens crowding pharmacies for their turn to get vaccinated.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CBS’ “Face the Nation” a week ago the three-dose vaccine his company has manufactured “is good enough — actually quite good for hospitalizations and deaths.” Protection against variants like omicron is short-lived, though, and “it is necessary, a fourth [dose] for right now,” he said.
There are certain effects associated with the Pfizer shot and the similarly formulated Moderna injection that raise questions — sometimes described darkly as “vaccine hesitancy” — among reasonable individuals.
One anomaly that fairly shouts for attention arises from a graphic published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing dramatic surges in the excess death rate among Americans of the 25-44 age group during the pandemic. --->READ MORE HERE
 |
| REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo |
The worldwide toll of deaths from COVID-19 has just hit 6 million, nearly 1 million of which are in the United States. Few science stories are more important than understanding where the COVID virus came from. Yet the science writers’ section of the press corps has proved strangely incapable of telling the story straight.
Two hypotheses have long been on the table. One is that the virus jumped naturally from some animal host, as many epidemics have done in the past. The other is that it escaped from a lab in Wuhan, where researchers are known to have been genetically manipulating bat viruses in order to predict future epidemics. Both hypotheses are plausible but, so far, no direct evidence exists for either.
The rule for covering such a story is obvious: write about both possibilities as evenhandedly as possible until the truth emerges. But science writers have consistently trumpeted any developments favoring natural emergence while downplaying or ignoring those pointing to a lab leak.
Press reports have abounded in the last few days about new studies claiming to prove that all early cases of COVID were associated with a wet market in Wuhan and hence that the virus must have jumped to people from an animal there.
“Two new papers make the case robustly,” ran the credulous headline in The Economist, typical of many articles implying that the case was closed.
“The lab leak theory is dead,” declared The New Republic, with great exaggeration. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
FDA schedules April 6 meeting to devise next steps on COVID-19 boosters
New COVID variant is spreading across the US. Here's what you need to know about BA.2
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
WSJ: Coronavirus Live Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
If you like what you see, please "Like" and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK here, GETTR here, and TWITTER here.
No comments:
Post a Comment