Lacking vaccines

: The Quad is working “ assiduously” to get Indian regulatory approvals to get the Quad Vaccine Initiative (QVI) off the ground, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said. The initiative of the four Quad countries (India, the U.S., Australia and Japan), which aims to manufacture and distribute at least a billion COVID-19 vaccines for the Asia region by the end of 2022, has run into challenges. The Hindu had reported that the original plan, which was launched in March 2021 and sought to supply Johnson & Johnson vaccines from the Biological E facility in Hyderabad ,has had trouble taking off due to legal indemnity issues with Indian law, safety concerns around the vaccine, lack of World Health Organisation (WHO) approvals for the facility (in the context of another vaccine, Corbevax) and lower demand for vaccines in South East Asia. “We are working assiduously to get the necessary approvals because we think there still is the need for supply,” Mr Sullivan said … [Read more...] about Quad working ‘assiduously’ to get Indian regulatory approvals for vaccine initiative: U.S. NSA Jake Sullivan

Yesterday, a CDC panel discussed whether smallpox vaccines should be offered more widely as a preventive measure against monkeypox. The panel made no decision. But getting those shots into patients’ arms—and particularly gay and bisexual men’s arms—is an urgent matter. Since May 13 , more than 3,300 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 58 countries, including the United States, where the disease was not previously thought to be endemic. The CDC is reporting at least 172 cases . Before this outbreak, monkeypox had usually been reported from West and Central Africa, or in travelers from those regions. The new cases are occurring on all inhabited continents, mainly among men who have sex with men (MSM). The U.S. is underreacting to the monkeypox outbreak. Given that a vaccine is available for the infection—and can be targeted toward the people most at risk—public-health authorities and health-care providers need to move more quickly and forcefully to change the outbreak’s … [Read more...] about The U.S. Is Underreacting to Monkeypox

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 2 ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen called Thursday for tax cuts and a clampdown on government spending and regulations to help Minnesotans cope with the highest inflation rate in 40 years. Inflation is already dominating election campaigns nationwide. Republicans see it as a potent issue for trying to build up their ranks at the Minnesota Capitol and other statehouses across the country, as well as in Congress. “We need to put more money in the pocketbooks and the checkbooks of everyday Minnesotans now,” Jensen said at a news conference. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz a day earlier renewed his call for legislators to approve one-time tax rebate checks of $1,000 for individual filers and $2,000 for couples to return part of the state's remaining $7 billion budget surplus to taxpayers to help them cope with high gas and other prices. That got Walz a … [Read more...] about Jensen seeks tax cuts to help Minnesota cope with inflation

In a virtual press conference Thursday attended by fewer than 30 people—including the PR consultants hosting the event—former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani compared his son, who is hoping to be elected New York’s GOP candidate for governor next week, to Donald Trump, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and…himself. Giuliani, who appeared to encounter brief technical issues when logging onto the sparsely populated Zoom meeting, described Andrew , 36, as “tough as nails,” boasting that his boy had been endorsed by Trump cronies and convicted felon Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon, who was charged with felony fraud in 2021 but pardoned by Trump hours before the ex-president left office. However, Giuliani also said that Trump’s endorsement could potentially be detrimental to Andrew’s already slim chances, claiming that Trump has withheld his blessing out of his own benevolence. In rambling remarks that focused primarily on his own accomplishments running New York City, Giuliani took a … [Read more...] about Giuliani Sounds Like He’s Ready to Put His Kid on Mount Rushmore

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 WASHINGTON (AP) — A lack of clear, concise and consistent messaging about the seriousness of the novel coronavirus in the earliest months of its spread created a false sense of security among Americans that the pandemic would not be serious and resulted in inaction early on across the federal government. That was the assessment of Dr. Deborah Birx, who served as the COVID response coordinator under former President Donald Trump and testified for the first time Thursday before a House panel about her time in the Trump administration. “It wasn't just the president, many of our leaders, were using words like ‘we could contain,' and you cannot contain a virus that cannot be seen," Birx said. “And it wasn't being seen because we weren't testing." Birx appeared before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, whose partisan divide was evident throughout the hearing as … [Read more...] about Birx describes a White House divided on COVID response