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| AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File |
The Biden administration plans to invest $5 billion in a program to develop the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, including nasal sprays that could thwart transmission and shots that protect against a range of coronaviruses.
The idea behind “Project Next Gen” is to keep the pandemic at bay with tools that remain effective against a mutating virus, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the effort.
“It’s been very clear to us that the market on this is moving very slowly,” Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus coordinator, told the newspaper. “There’s a lot that government can do, the administration can do, to speed up those tools.”
The Biden effort is a sequel of sorts to the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed,” which used government support to speed private-sector development of the original COVID-19 vaccines.
The new project would rebrand the effort for a new administration while looking farther afield than COVID-19, including a long-sought “pan-coronavirus” vaccine that could thwart a range of pathogens.
Beyond COVID-19, the original SARS outbreak in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, in the last decade have sparked concern about coronaviruses. --->READ MORE HERE
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| U.S. Department of Defense/Flickr |
Obesity is the single greatest barrier to recruitment in the American military today, and the problem is only getting worse.
The Associated Press reported last week nearly 10,000 active-duty Army servicemembers emerged from the coronavirus lockdowns obese, “pushing the rate to nearly a quarter of the troops studied.” Major weight gains were also seen in the Navy and Marines.
A pamphlet from the American Security Project (ASP) published last month raised the alarm over the nation’s runaway obesity epidemic jeopardizing national security. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 42 percent of the U.S. adult population was obese in 2017. Harvard researchers expect nearly half the adult population to become obese by the end of the decade.
“If trends in overweight and obesity continue, especially amongst the populations which are or soon will be within military service age,” the ASP literature read, “the military may no longer be able to recruit enough personnel to fulfill its national security obligations.”
Federal research shows excessive weight is already bearing down heavy costs on the American military, with more than 650,000 workdays lost each year from the extra pounds. The Department of Defense spends about $1.5 billion in obesity-related health-care costs each year for current and former servicemembers and their families. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
White House launching $5 billion program to speed coronavirus vaccines
California judge orders church that defied COVID rules to pay $1.2M
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
WSJ: Coronavirus Live Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
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