COMMUNITY NEWS
NovaVax Vaccine Approved for Unvaccinated
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By Jondi Gumz
n July 13, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to the NovaVax Covid-19 vaccine for people 18 and older who are unvaccinated, and No-vavax said orders can be placed as of July 25. About 21% of the U.S. population and 20% of people in California are unvaccinated. Novavax won’t be available for a few more weeks, but state health officials urge Californi-ans who have not yet been vaccinated to make an appointment at myturn.ca.gov Unlike other vaccines using messenger RNA, Novavax injects a lab-made version of the coronavirus’ spike protein, with compounds from the Soapbark tree, to stimulate the im-mune system to produce antibodies and T-cells. According to the National Institutes of Health, the Novavax clinical trial recorded 63 cases among 10,000 people who got a placebo and 14 cases among 20,000 people who got a vaccine. Investigators classified 10 cases in the placebo group as moderate and four as se-vere. There were no moderate or severe cases in the vaccine group. In California, test positivity dipped from 16.4% to 15% while active cases in Santa Cruz County increased in the past 10 days from 2,040 to 2,197. Reinfections are a factor; 12% of cases in the United Kingdom are people getting Covid for a second or even a third time as the coronavirus evolves. About 78% of cases nationwide are BA.5, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Con-trol and Prevention. This variant is more contagious than the original 2020 coronavirus, evading protection from mRNA vaccines designed for the initial virus, which has mutated to become less deadly. In the past month, three more Santa Cruz County residents died, bringing the total to 268. The last six deaths were people who were vaccinated, according to the county dashboard, all 65 or older with medical conditions.
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Cases
anta Cruz County cases have rolled up and down, 1,715 on May 23, then 1,472 on May 26 and 1,705 on June 13, then 1,871 on June 30, then 2,040 on July 11 and now 2,197. Santa Cruz County reports 58,000+ cases since the pandemic began. Cases spurted up after Memorial Day, Father’s Day and Fourth of July; the highest daily count of the summer, 198 on July 5, is low compared to the Jan. 20 peak of 1,312.
Santa Cruz County updates the numbers on Mondays and Thursdays. On Tuesday, the state reported 23 people hospitalized with Covid in Santa Cruz County, none in intensive care. California reports 4,800 people hospitalized. The Department of Public Health says half are due to Covid, with the other half coming to the hospital for another reason and testing posi-tive. On the CDC Covid tracker, Santa Cruz County reports 91.5% of residents age 5 and up have at least one shot and 83.4% fully vaccinated. Fully vaccinated means having two shots (Pfizer or Moderna) or one Johnson & Johnson shot. All were developed for the initial Covid-19 strain, which is no longer circulating. Santa Cruz County is now rated “high” risk of transmission by the U.S. Centers for Dis-ease Control and Prevention on its Covid tracking map along with the rest of California and most of the U.S. Subvariants of omicron and waning immunity from vaccines are behind the latest wave of cases, affecting people who were vaccinated, including celebrity Kourtney Kardashian, ac-tor Hugh Jackman, and Mick Jagger. Workers in California testing positive with no symptoms can return to work in five days with a negative test; those with symptoms can return once 10 days have passed since symp-toms began. California test positivity, 23% in January from Omicron, fell to 1.7% then peaked at 16.4% and hospitalizations — 20,000 in January —dropped to 950 before rising.
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$3.2 Billion Deal
n June 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told Covid vaccinemakers that changes to booster shots for fall must target Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, as they then accounted for 52% of new cases. The FDA announcement came a day after the Biden administration announced a $3.2 bil-lion deal to buy 105 million doses of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for the fall. On July 5, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff struck down the Los An-geles Unified School District’s Covid-19 student vaccine mandate. He found that only the state – not a school board -- can require students to be vaccinated to attend in-person school. Attorney Arie Spangler, representing the father of a 12-year-old, said the ruling
“confirms that individual school districts do not have the authority to impose vaccination requirements in excess of statewide requirements.” In the Soquel Union Elementary School District, students will go back to school Aug. 10. In California’s 2022-23 school guidance, masks and vaccination are recommended, not re-quired.
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Misinformation Bill Hearing
n Aug. 1 hearing is scheduled for AB 2098, declaring it is “unprofessional conduct” for a doctor to give patients “misinformation” or “disinformation” about Covid-19, risks, preven-tion, treatment and vaccines. The hearing is before the Senate Appropriations Committee. Unprofessional conduct charges can result in discipline by the Medical Board. President Biden’s Sept. 9 order requiring 3.5 million federal employees to
be vaccinated for Covid-19 is on hold. The 17 judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orle-ans are expected to take up the matter the week of Sept. 17. Attorney Bruce Castor Jr., representing the American Federation of Government Employ-ees Local 918, said the Constitution doesn’t allow president to bypass Congress except in wartime.
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Young Children & Covid
n June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna for children 6 months to 5 years old, joining seven other countries. Eligibility starts at age 2 in Cuba and Venezuela, and age 3 in Chile, Argentina, Bahrain, Hong Kong and China. A Chile-based study of 500,000 children, not yet peer-reviewed, found the vaccine was 38% effective in preventing infections in kids ages 3-5 during the Omicron wave. “COVID Update” page 9
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www.tpgonlinedaily.com Aptos Times / August 1st 2022 / 7
