Vaccine Boosts Pfizer Revenue, By Jondi Gumz

COMMUNITY NEWS

Vaccine Boosts Pfizer Revenue

By Jondi Gumz

On Dec. 12, Pfizer said annual revenue from its mRNA vaccine portfolio could reach $10 billion to $15 billion by 2030, soothing investor fears about decline in Covid vaccine demand and expiring patents.

Pfizer shares rose to $52.59 in afternoon trading and helped lift the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 528 points, up 1.58% — the biggest one-day percentage gain since Nov. 30.

FiercePharma expects the drugmaker’s 2023 revenue to top $100 billion — a new record and more than double the prepandemic level — due to demand for its Covid-19 vaccine and oral treatment Paxlovid. The world’s largest pharmaceutical company by revenue, Johnson & Johnson, reported $82.6 billion revenue in 2020.

On Dec. 22, the Florida Supreme Court agreed to convene a grand jury as requested by Gov. Ron DeSantis to investigate any wrongdoing with respect to Covid-19 vaccines. The grand jury will meet for one year.

Studies funded by drugmakers that developed the vaccines have been published in peer-reviewed journals, and federal regulators granted emergency use authorization after reviewing data on their safety and effectiveness.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo pointed out that pharmaceutical companies have not provided their data on Covid-19 vaccines to independent researchers.

DeSantis contends drugmakers had a financial interest in creating a climate in which people believed that getting a coronavirus vaccine would ensure they would not spread the virus to others.

In the past two weeks of December, the less deadly Omicron subvariants shifted again, according to weekly Nowcast projections by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

BQ1.1: Down from 38.4% of cases to 35.7%.

BQ.1: Down from 30.7% to 27.4%.

XBB: Up from 7.2% to 18.3%

BA.5: Down from 10% to 6.9%.

The newest “bivalent” booster targets once-pervasive BA.5 variant along with the original 2020 coronavirus.

This is important because scientists in new independent studies published in Nature and the Lancet report the bivalent booster “did not produce robust neutralization against the newly emerged BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, or XBB.1” — in other words, these newer subvariants can evade immunity from infection and vaccination.

The CDC stopped reporting Covid cases on Sept. 21, recognizing 95% of Americans age 16 and up had some immunity from vaccination or infection.

Now that immunity may be in question.

The bivalent combo was expedited by federal officials who asked drug-makers to test on mice rather than humans.

Pfizer submitted data based on 8 mice, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization.

On Dec. 8, the FDA amended that emergency use authorization to allow bivalent Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer for children as young as 6 months.

California reports 60.7% of people have primary vaccinations and boosters, and 21.4% got the bivalent booster.

In Santa Cruz County, 60.7% have primary vaccinations and boosters, and 29.4% got the bivalent booster.

On Feb. 28, Gov. Newsom plans to lift the state of Covid-19 emergency in California.

Meanwhile in Uganda, health officials report they are not seeing Covid cases in the hospitals, not seeing people getting vaccinated, not seeing people with respiratory distress, according to John Campbell, a retired nurse educator with a PhD based in England who has been producing daily video reports on studies and data.

On Dec. 19, U.S. District Judge John Kness approved a $10.3 million settlement for about 500 workers fired by NorthShore University Healthsystem in Illinois for refusing to get a Covid-19 vaccine.

Each fired worker stands to receive $24,225. The named plaintiffs are in line for an extra $20,000.

Lawyers for Liberty Counsel, who represented the 13 initial named plaintiffs and won class action status for others, said Kness approved the settlement verbally.

NorthShore in a statement wrote, “We are pleased with the Court’s approval of a supportive resolution to this matter.”

Harry Mihet, vice president of legal affairs for Liberty Counsel, said in a statement, “This case should set a precedent for other employers who have violated the law by denying religious exemptions for their employees.”

On Dec. 12, the college football world was stunned that Mike Leach, the influential football coach at Mississippi State University, collapsed at home and died of complications from a heart condition at age 61. In 2021, he declined to reveal his vaccination status, and the MSU announcement did not say.

In 2021, Mississippi State University required Covid vaccination for faculty and staff to comply with President Biden’s executive order, the reason being not to jeopardize $271 million in federally funded research.

On Nov. 27, a published report by six pathologists from Heidelberg (Germany) University Hospital who performed autopsies on 25 individuals who died unexpectedly at home and within 20 days after Covid vaccination.

They found five cases where “autopsy findings indicated death due to acute arrhythmogenic cardiac failure. Thus, myocarditis can be a potentially lethal complication following mRNA-based antiSARS-CoV-2 vaccination.”

None had signs of a pre-existing heart disease.

The study, “Autopsy-based histopathological characterization of myocarditis after anti-SARS-CoV-2-vaccination,” appeared in Clinical Research in Cardiology, official journal of the German Cardiac Society.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website that deaths after COVID-19 vaccination are rare and that reports of adverse effects after vaccination, including deaths, “do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem.”

More Spreadable

Deaths per day in the U.S. at the end of December was 901, compared to 3,000 last winter when the Delta variant raged.

Santa Cruz County reports 51 Covid deaths after Omicron, compared to 225 as of Dec. 15, 2021, before Omicron.

Santa Cruz County reports 276 deaths since the pandemic began in 2020.

The nine deaths before Christmas were people who were vaccinated, according to the county dashboard, all 65 or older with medical conditions.

Researchers say the new Covid-19 variants are more spreadable, and the state’s test positivity rate rose to 11.9%, but there is little indication they are more deadly than previous versions.

According to CDC data, vaccinated people made up 42% of Covid deaths in January and February during the peak of the Omicron surge, compared with 23% during the Delta surge in September 2021.

Tests at Home

Santa Cruz County reports 901 active Covid cases, a dip from a week ago.

Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, contends Covid case data are not valuable for monitoring the virus because so many people buy tests sold at drugstores for use at home, which escape tracking by public health officials.

“COVID Update” page 19