FDA Approves First COVID-19 Vaccine

The Blessing of Full Licensure
For many people in the vaccine world, today’s FDA granting of full licensure for the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine is a formality.  Nearly 5 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses—across the many differing vaccine products—have been administered across the world.  Closer to home, over 360 million doses have been administered in the U.S.  I know of no other vaccine campaign that has been so big and so fast.

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Biden Administration Likely to Approve Covid-19 Boosters at Six Months

Federal regulators are likely to approve a Covid-19 booster shot for vaccinated adults starting at least six months after the previous dose rather than the eight-month gap they previously announced, a person familiar with the plans said, as the Biden administration steps up preparations for delivering boosters to the public.

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A COVID-19 variant ‘more infectious than the delta variant’ will hit U.S. in 2-4 months, expert predicts

Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, predicted that the fall will have a dark turn in the coronavirus pandemic.
Redfield said on Fox News Channel’s “The Story” that he thinks the coronavirus will continue to replicate quickly among humans, and so the risk of variant evolution is high.

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Breakthrough Infections in BNT162b2-Vaccinated Health Care Workers

Hacisuleyman et al.1 described a cohort of 417 health care workers who had received the BNT162b2 (Pfizer–BioNTech) or mRNA-1273 (Moderna) mRNA vaccine. Two women in that cohort (0.48%) had breakthrough infections with SARS-CoV-2 variants.

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No Permanent Lung Damage Observed After COVID-19 Recovery

MONDAY, Aug. 23, 2021 (HealthDay News) — No postacute histopathologic changes indicative of permanent pulmonary damage were observed among a small sample of COVID-19 survivors who have recovered and become asymptomatic, according to a study published online July 31 in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

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Use of Hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir, and Dexamethasone Among US Adults Hospitalized With COVID-19

TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
This retrospective cohort study used data from 137,870 adults hospitalized with COVID-19 to examine patterns in the use of three pharmacologic treatments for COVID-19: dexamethasone, remdesivir, and hydroxychloroquine. During the study period, dexamethasone was used in a higher percentage of patients (39.1%) than either remdesivir (21.2%) or hydroxychloroquine (6.3%).

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