Covid-19 vaccine
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NBA star Kyrie Irving made his return to Brooklyn and took a shot at New York City Mayor Eric Adams in the process.
On Tuesday night (Feb. 6), the Dallas Mavericks went up against the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center with Kyrie Irving playing there for the first time since his acrimonious split with the team last season. During a 36-point performance, Irving was near the sideline when a fan known as Courtside Nets on X, formerly Twitter, asked the guard why he didn’t exhibit that while with the Nets. “Thank Mayor Adams for that, bro,” Irving replied.
The jab (no pun intended) was related to the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate enacted by Mayor Adams. Irving opted not to get vaccinated, and so the policy kept him from playing in the Nets’ home games during the majority of the 2021-2022 season. The team also sat him for most of its road games during the first two months of that season. The guard would appear in the Nets’ 75th game of the season after Mayor Adams created an exemption from the mandate for athletes. In total, Irving only played 29 games, costing him millions.
The Mavericks would go on to win the game 119-107, with Irving getting some boos from the crowd. Afterward, he reflected on his time with the team, which ended last February when they granted his request to be traded to Dallas. In his three and a half years with the team, the assembled “super team” of Irving, Kevin Durant and James Harden only once won a playoff series playing together.
“Obviously, I fell short in terms of the championship aspirations but, for me, I think it was bigger than a championship here,” Irving said, according to the Daily News. “I had to really take some moral stances that propelled me into a place in my life that I had to become accustomed to. There were some political things that were going on here as well that I couldn’t control, that I was responsible for. There were some things that I did on my own accord that I look back on, and they were mistakes, and I have to be accountable for those things. I’m not perfect, but one thing I can say is I’ve been able to learn from things.”
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As COVID-19 case numbers across the country begin to climb again, the federal government has given the go-ahead for two new boosters for the fall months.
According to reports, the Food and Drug Administration approved two new reformulated vaccine shots for COVID-19 from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could guide eligibility and the distribution of the shots as early as Tuesday (September 12th) after a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. If the green light is given, CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen could sign off to let vaccinations begin immediately.
These new mRNA vaccine shots differ from the most recent booster which was released last fall to combat the Omicron variant of Covid-19. That shot was bivalent, protecting individuals against the original version as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 variants comprising Omicron. The new ones will be monovalent, specifically crafted for protection against the XBB.1.5 variant. That variant, an offshoot of Omicron, appeared earlier this year but has given way to a newer dominant variant, EG.5.
Medical experts state that the new booster shots would protect against the EG.5 variant and other recently developed strains such as the BA.2.86 which has been showing up recently. There is also consideration for a third booster shot from Novovax, which would differ from these other two as it is protein-based and works differently. The new shots are focused solely on the new variants and don’t have full protection against the original version of Covid-19. “Our immune system, when we have seen something, is biased to seeing that again,” Columbia University Dr. David Ho said. “So if you include the original components, the immune system will react mostly to the original component and not to the new version of the virus.”
Once approved, drugstore chains such as Walgreens and CVS are ready to make the boosters available to the public. This time around, the cost of the shots will be negotiated by government groups such as Medicate and private insurance companies. Those with private or public health insurance should have no obstacles to getting a booster if the provider is in their network. For those uninsured, there is a “bridge” program that might help get them to get vaccinated for free until next year.
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Concern is growing as the rate of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 is increasing across the United States as summer winds down.
According to reports, recorded data shows that COVID-19 hospital admissions were at 9,056. That number is an increase of 12% from the week before. However, when compared to data recording peaks from the past—44,000 weekly hospital admissions at the beginning of January, almost 45,000 in late July 2022, and the 150,000 admissions during the Omicron variant surge of January 2022—this surge isn’t worrying some in public health.
One reason is that while the rising amount of COVID-19 found in the wastewater of cities across the U.S. since June has been noticed, especially in the Northeast and the South, the rate is still 2.5 times lower than last summer according to Biobot Analytics epidemiologist Cristin Young, who is working with the Centers For Disease Control (CDC). Levels of the virus are currently being monitored at over 1,300 sewage treatment plants across the nation.
Another factor is the rate of immunity and vaccinations that have already taken place and the preparation of a newly updated COVID-19 vaccine for the fall which will address the Omicron XBB.1.5 strain. This differs from previous vaccines that contained a combination of the original and more common Omicron variants.
There is a newly detected COVID-19 variant, EG.5 which is being unofficially dubbed “Eris”. This variant is believed to be behind 17% of all new COVID-19 cases in the states. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently called the Eris variant “one of interest”. So far, researchers are noting that it doesn’t seem to be presenting a serious issue. “The virus does not appear to be evolving to become either more transmissible or more lethal at this point,” said Dr. Jay Varma, an epidemiologist at Weill Cornell Medical College.
“It is ticking up a little bit, but it’s not something that we need to raise any alarm bells over,” said Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health infectious disease specialist Dr. David Dowdy. Health officials are again advising people to take precautions, such as masking up and sanitizing thoroughly. “I’m not sure if it’s a surge, per se, or just uptick,” said Dr. David Boulware, a professor of medicine specializing in infectious diseases at the University of Minnesota Medical School before adding that it’s a reminder “that, yes, Covid still exists.”
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Republican congressman George Santos has reportedly introduced a bill named for Nicki Minaj as part of his re-election announcement.
The controversial politician announced his intent to run for re-election for New York’s 3rd Congressional District based in Queens in 2024 on Monday (April 17th). On Tuesday (April 18th), he also introduced seven new bills – one of which has been named “The Minaj Act” after rapper Nicki Minaj. According to political reporter Kadia Goba, the purpose of the “Medical Information Nuanced Accountability Judgement Act” is to create “a development period for new vaccines in order to generate public confidence.”
According to a statement from Santos, the proposed bill also “seeks to prohibit any Federal Government from imposing any mandate requiring an individual to receive a vaccine that has not been authorized for marketing for at least ten years.”
The news of naming the bill after the Pinkprint rapper and Queens native raised some eyebrows. Minaj has been vocal in the past about the COVID-19 vaccine, expressing reluctance to take it through social media. “They want you to get vaccinated for the Met. if I get vaccinated it won’t for the Met. It’ll be once I feel I’ve done enough research. I’m working on that now. In the meantime my loves, be safe. Wear the mask with 2 strings that grips your head & face. Not that loose one”, she wrote in 2021.
She would continue in another tweet that her cousin declared that he would never get the COVID-19 vaccine, saying his friend took it and “became impotent,” and experienced “swollen testicles” as a result leading to his fiancée calling off their wedding. According to the Centers for Disease Control, testicular swelling is not a side effect of taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Minaj would then claim she had been invited to The White House to discuss her skepticism about the vaccines, but then-Press Secretary Jen Psaki would clarify that the artist was only offered an early-stage phone call. Representatives for Nicki Minaj didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The introduction of the bill is the latest head-scratching moment from Santos while he has been in office. The congressman, who has been accused of multiple fabrications about his background and career (which include lying about having Jewish roots and his mother dying in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks), is now under investigation for allegedly stealing $3,000 from a GoFundMe set up through his charity meant to benefit a disabled veteran and his dying dog.
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