A new, highly contagious COVID subvariant has been detected in California. The risk of summer waves is increasing as recent moves by the Trump administration threaten to make vaccines more difficult and more expensive for many Americans.
Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced this week that he was withdrawing the federal recommendation that pregnant women and healthy children will be vaccinated against Covid.
Dr. Marty McCurry, Commissioner for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, also said he would not routinely approve Covid-19 vaccinations formulated annually for healthy people under the age of 65.
“We simply don’t know if a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI who has received three or three Covid-19 doses and six previous doses of the Covid-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose,” another FDA official, Dr. Vinay Prasad, wrote this month in the New England Journal month. “This policy enforces much-needed evidence generation.”
But some experts say mandating broader testing could slow access to the vaccine for many. Because these efforts may not be complete until the end of the upcoming winter flu and Covid season.
“Pregnant women, babies and young children are at a higher risk of hospitalization from Covid, and the safety of the Covid vaccine is widely demonstrated,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chairman of the American Board of Pediatrics Committee, in a statement.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States says that getting the latest vaccines will provide additional protection for children and adults from Covid-related emergency rooms and emergency care visits.
According to some experts, recent federal changes could encourage private and government insurers to stop paying for Covidshots for a wide range of segments of the population, including babies and children.
Without recommendations from federal officials, Americans could end up paying for the entire vaccine, experts say. For example, the out-of-pocket cost of the Covid vaccine at CVS is $198.99.
The emergency phase of the pandemic has been going a long way, but authorities have pointed out that Covid remains a public health concern. Dr. Peter Ching-Hong, an expert on UC San Francisco infectious diseases, said:
Its subvariant, NB.1.8.1, was first documented in January and was subsequently detected in California, including Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area. The World Health Organization designated it last week as a “surveillance variant.”
NB.1.8.1 has grown exponentially worldwide over the past few weeks. The Omicron subvariant represents 10.7% of virus samples that were genetically analyzed worldwide in the week ending April 27th. This has increased sharply since the week ended April 6th. At that time, sub-variants accounted for 2.5% of the world’s samples.
“It’s still a small number, but this is a huge rise,” Who said, adding “In some countries where NB.1.8.1 is widespread, cases and hospitalizations have risen simultaneously.”
NB.1.8.1 is not yet common enough in the US to be published by the CDC. Another strain, Lp.8.1, accounted for an estimated 73% of coronavirus specimens nationwide for the two weeks that ended Saturday.
The data suggest that NB.1.8.1 does not cause more severe illness, but “but it’s more susceptible to infection, at least from what we see around the world and from lab experiments,” says Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, an infectiousness expert at Stanford University.
In Taiwan, health officials reported to reporters that the outbreak of NB.1.8.1 fuel is “continuing to rise rapidly, with severe and fatal cases continuing to rise,” Central News reported, prompting a shortage of Covid test kits. Health officials said the factor behind Taiwan’s surge was the lack of major symbiotic waves during the winter, predicting that the island’s current spikes might not peak for another four to six weeks.
NB.1.8.1 has increased prevalence in three WHO regions that still consistently share genetic analysis of the Western Pacific (including East Asia, parts of Southeast Asia and parts of Australia). Europe; and Americas.
The percentage of positive Covid tests in Los Angeles County tests has increased slightly over the past few weeks, but the overall positive percentage remains at 3.5%, according to the county Department of Public Health. Coronavirus levels detected in the county’s wastewater have risen by 6% over the past three weeks, about an eighth of the peak last summer.
California experienced a mild winter season – the first season of the Covid era, but it followed the strongest powerful summer spikes of several years.
Many experts and officials have promoted Covid vaccines available as effective in avoiding infection and reducing the severity of symptoms. However, the need for healthy people to roll up their sleeves was a matter of debate.
In a video message on Tuesday at X, Kennedy is a prominent vaccine skeptic — “As of today, we cannot announce that the Covid vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC’s recommended vaccination schedule.”
Experts said they could not recall a time when political appointees circumvented the established process of creating vaccine recommendations.
“It’s a bit chilly,” Chinghong said. “It’s not a step away from the system we have learned to trust and follow.”
In a statement to the Times, the LA County Public Health urged Kennedy to listen to field experts, including the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Vaccination Practices, which he plans to meet next month.
As of Thursday, the CDC still had long-standing vaccine recommendations on its website. Everyone who has been in six months or longer should get the latest Covid-19 vaccine, officially known as the 2024-25 version introduced in September. The CDC also recommends that older people over the age of 65 receive a second dose of vaccine after the first six months.
In a statement, the California Department of Public Health supported the current vast recommendations for the Covid vaccine, which “continued federal conversations through this dynamic situation.”
“Being up to date with Covid-19 vaccinations can reduce the risk of illness, particularly more serious cases that result in hospitalization or death,” the department added.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that they didn’t know until the CDC posted Kennedy’s instructions, and officials were “in a hurry to find out what that meant.”
Experts who spoke with the Times warned that the practical effects of the decree (if it becomes official) could become a much more expensive vaccine for the affected group.
“If the CDC does not recommend a vaccine, insurance companies do not need to cover the costs,” the LA County Department of Public Health said in a statement.
As a result, vaccines may be less accessible to healthier people who still want them. Perhaps because they live or work with seniors and other high-risk people.
If the FDA withholds a license to receive an updated Covid vaccination for young, healthy adults, the group “will not receive it unless the provider chooses to give it ‘from the label’,” the county said.
When asked if healthy pregnant women and healthy children could still be vaccinated at pharmacies, Walgreens said the team operates “in full compliance with applicable laws.” The location “follows federal guidance on vaccine management and monitors any changes the government may make regarding vaccine eligibility.”
Kaiser Permanente Southern California said it was aware of the potential changes, but noted that no new formal guidance has been issued yet. As a result, Kaiser follows existing guidance. This recommends shots for everyone.
The LA County Public Health Department said as of Wednesday, “pregnant women and healthy children can be vaccinated for Covid-19,” according to existing recommendations from the Advisory Board and the CDC.
Chin-Hong noted that over the last year there have been 150 pediatric deaths in the US from Covid-19. This is in the same stadium as the 231 pediatric flu deaths recorded this season, with federal health officials recommending that everyone over six months get a shot of the flu annually.
“Most people would agree that kids should target the flu vaccine. It seems a bit odd that they have Covid as an outlier in that regard,” Chin-Hong said.
In a video released this week, McCurry said “most countries around the world have suspended recommendations for vaccines aimed at children.”
However, Maldonado said the US has not used other countries’ standards to determine vaccine recommendations. For example, the US recommends other types of vaccines with lower prevalence than Covid that people want to get, such as the meningococcal vaccine to prevent serious bacterial diseases that can infect the brain and spinal cord and cause death in time.
The effectiveness of the recommendations also varies from country to country. For example, Canada is recommending an updated COVID vaccine for older people and others who meet certain criteria, such as whether they are pregnant or a healthcare worker. However, the country’s universal healthcare system has made it possible for everyone over six months to get the latest Covid vaccine.
Maldonado of Stanford, who also serves on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Vaccination Practices, says that while it is true that children are generally at a lower risk of developing severe symbiotic disease, children under six months of age “has the same risk as the country’s population over 65.”
According to the CDC, COVID-related hospitalization rates are the highest among children eligible for vaccination between six months and four years old.
“So, will kids be the best risk group? No, not. But do you want to protect your child from illness that allows them to be put in the hospital and put them on a ventilator? Yes, I would like to make that choice for myself, Maldonado said.
According to the CDC, covid vaccination during pregnancy builds antibodies that help protect your baby. It has also been shown that breastfed vaccinated mothers have protective antibodies to milk, which may help protect the baby.
Dr. Fiona Havers, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC, said at a recent public meeting that “estimated 260,000 to 430,000 hospitalizations due to Covid have been caused by “covid since October,” causing “a huge strain on the health care system.” There were also 30,000-50,000 Covid-19 deaths over the same period.
“This is a major cause of morbidity and mortality, especially among older adults, but it affects others in the younger age group, especially those with underlying conditions.”
Covid is also a major cause of pediatric hospitalizations, even among otherwise healthy children, she said.
“If there’s a wave this summer, we’ll see kids being hospitalized with Covid as well,” she said.
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