Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking Joe Biden and the White House to make a travel exception for tennis star Novak Djokovic and let him into the U.S. to participate in the Miami Open, which goes from March 19 through April 2. “It’s time to put pandemic politics aside and give the American people what…
In the latest sign that the coronavirus pandemic is not yet over, the World Health Organization said this week that a panel of experts is reviewing whether COVID vaccines need to be updated. The WHO panel, which is called the Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition, outlined the process in commentary in the journal…
GSK PLC on Wednesday posted rising earnings and sales for the fourth quarter, which the company said were boosted by its specialty medicines and vaccines businesses. The British pharma major GSK, +0.58% GSK, +0.40% reported net profit of 1.50 billion pounds ($1.85 billion) in the fourth quarter, up from GBP749 million for the same quarter…
Outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is considering a presidential run, took a shot at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s call to investigate the COVID-19 vaccines, arguing that “we shouldn’t undermine the science.” Hutchinson, a Republican, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Arkansas didn’t have vaccine mandates, but that he and other medical experts…
A meeting by Chinese health officials on Tuesday had some sections of financial markets cheering, amid hopes that officials may start to shift toward more effective COVID-19 policies. China’s adherence to its strict zero-COVID plans appeared to reach a boiling point with citizens as demonstrations against the lockdown rules intensified over the weekend. Those protests…
As Americans brace for what could be a brutal flu season, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a report showing that Black, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native adults are less likely to receive flu vaccinations, and are more likely to be hospitalized with the illness, compared with white adults. The CDC…
President Joe Biden has said the pandemic is over, despite more than 300 people dying from COVID-related illness every day. Now cruise lines, which experienced severe disruptions during the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak and, in some cases were stranded offshore due to ports refusing them permission to dock due to coronavirus outbreaks onboard,…
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize new COVID-19 booster shots this week without a staple of its normal decision-making process: data from a study showing whether the shots were safe and worked in humans. The shots, modified to target the latest versions of the omicron variant, won’t have finished testing in humans when the FDA…
Moderna Inc. on Friday filed lawsuits against Pfizer Inc. and German partner BioNTech SE, alleging the pair infringed patents relating to its mRNA platform, a key technology behind all of their COVID vaccines. The suits were filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the Regional Court of Düsseldorf in…
Get ready for a big change in how the U.S. will pay for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. The Department of Health and Human Services is expected to hold a meeting later this month with drug makers, pharmacies, and state health departments to discuss moving coverage of pandemic therapies away from the U.S. government and into…
Novavax Inc. executives slashed their annual sales guidance in half Monday while wildly missing financial expectations, sending shares down more than 30% in after-hours trading. Novavax NVAX, -5.01% now projects total 2022 revenue of $2 billion to $2.3 billion, after previously stating a goal of $4 billion to $5 billion. The U.S. Food and Drug…
COVID-19 vaccine mandates at colleges were effective in saving lives, especially in colleges that largely comprised low-income and minority communities, researchers say. Vaccine mandates on college campuses reduced total U.S. COVID-19 deaths last fall by approximately 5%, according to a working paper released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research. In total, the…
Moderna MRNA, +3.81% and Pfizer PFE, -0.41% have not yet started clinical trials for the new COVID-19 shots that are expected to better target the BA.4 and BA.5 strains of the virus. It has long been expected that the COVID-19 vaccines need to be reformulated to better protect against currently circulating variants. The Food and…
Bavarian Nordic A/S said Friday that it has received a positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency, recommending that marketing authorization for the company’s Imvanex smallpox vaccine be extended to include protection against monkeypox. The Danish vaccine maker BAVA, +2.39% said the recommendation will be referred…
The rapid growth of BA.5 — the most transmissible form of SARS-CoV-2 yet — is scrambling America’s plans to elegantly move to the next stage of the pandemic with the virus under control. The omicron subvariant, which made up less than one-third of new cases a month ago, is now the most dominant strain in…
The administration of President Joe Biden on Tuesday outlined a strategy to manage the dominant BA.5 omicron subvariant that is based around expanding access to vaccines, treatments, tests and other tools, emphasizing the need for older people and the immunocompromised to get a second booster. “These tools — even in the face of BA.5 —…
A new, highly infectious subvariant of omicron is raising concerns among scientists and health experts as it spreads in India and other countries, including the U.S. Scientists say the variant — called BA.2.75 — may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infection, as the Associated Press reported. It’s…
The U.S. should pursue a COVID-19 booster strategy that focuses on developing new shots that better protect against omicron and its subvariants, according to a recommendation from a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee. The group of independent medical experts on Tuesday voted 19-2 that the COVID-19 boosters should include omicron and its subvariants. They…
Meet “Vaccinate Me Elmo.” The little red Sesame Street character revealed on Twitter on Tuesday that he just got his COVID-19 vaccine, a week after the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized the Pfizer PFE, -2.63% and Moderna MRNA, -2.51% shots for children under 5. “Elmo got the…
The Food and Drug Administration took the advice of a panel of advisers and authorized the COVID-19 vaccines developed by BioNTech and Pfizer and Moderna for children as young as six months old on Friday, adding the final group to the nation’s vaccine program. The regulator said Moderna’s MRNA, +2.12% two-dose vaccine is now authorized for…