The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on May 21, 2024. 

 Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times 

by Zachary Steiber - June 27, 2024

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 27 recommended forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines for virtually all Americans.

“CDC recommends everyone ages 6 months and older receive an updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine to protect against the potentially serious outcomes of COVID-19 this fall and winter whether or not they have ever previously been vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine,” the agency said in a statement.

The COVID-19 vaccines now available, which are also broadly recommended, target the XBB.1.5 strain. But observational data indicate they provide short-lived protection against COVID-19 infection and hospitalization. 

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials, acting on advice from their advisers, recently directed vaccine manufacturers to produce COVID-19 vaccines with updated formulations.

Updated vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna will target the KP.2 variant, while an updated shot from Novavax will target the JN.1 variant.

 CDC advisers earlier Thursday unanimously advised the CDC to recommend the forthcoming vaccines to virtually all Americans, even though no clinical efficacy or safety data are available for them. 

Data from animal testing suggest that the vaccines trigger higher levels of antibodies than the shots currently available, manufacturers said previously.

CDC advisers considered a risk-based recommendation that would only say certain groups receive one of the vaccines but ultimately opted for what is known as a universal recommendation.

Dr. Jamie Loehr, one of the members, said before the vote that the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating young people, who are generally at little risk from COVID-19, had him leaning towards a risk-based approach. He changed his mind, though, after listening to a presentation from a CDC researcher.

Dr. Denise Jamieson, another member, said that members should not “get too caught up in cost-effectiveness currently.” She said, “If we compare it to other vaccine-preventable diseases it seems like a really good investment.”

Each dose of a new shot could cost up to $130, according to estimates presented during the meeting.

Pooled effectiveness estimates from studies of the currently available vaccines, which target the XBB strain, and the last slate of shots, which were bivalent, found that effectiveness against hospitalization due to COVID-19 was below 50 percent, the original threshold laid out by regulators.

Researchers with the CDC and other institutions have also found the protection wanes over time, one reason U.S. officials have turned the COVID-19 vaccine model into a once-a-year update similar to the influenza vaccination program.

Many Americans took the original COVID-19 vaccines but most have opted against receiving the newer shots. As of May 11, just 14.4 percent of children and 22.5 percent of adults have received one of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, according to CDC surveys, which also found that many doctors have stopped recommending the shots because they’re focused on promoting other vaccines and worry recommending COVID-19 vaccination could increase hesitancy among patients to receiving the other vaccines.

Experts said in Thursday’s meeting that the message needs to be that people need another shot.

“We have to keep saying that over and over and over again—you need this year’s vaccine to be protected against this year’s strain of the virus,” Carol Hayes, who represents the American College of Nurse-Midwives as a liaison to the CDC panel, said during the session.

The CDC estimated that up to 116,000 hospitalizations from COVID-19 will be prevented over the next year with universal vaccine recommendations, assuming an initial 75 percent effectiveness against hospitalization.

The effectiveness was projected in certain scenarios to drop to 50 percent after three months, the CDC said.

The KP.2 strain is the dominant strain in the United States as of May 25, according to CDC data. The closely related KP.3 strain, and the JN.1 variant, are also causing a number of cases.

Modeling through June 22 projects the rise of a new strain called LB.1.

A spokesperson for the CDC told The Epoch Times recently that LB.1 “has the potential to infect some people more easily based on a single deletion in a spike protein“ but ”there is currently no evidence that LB.1 causes more severe disease.”

Jack Phillips contributed to this report. 

by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
June 16, 2024

"Trust The Science!"

This is the mantra of the technocratic tyrants. The rallying cry of the Orwellian thought police. The injunction of the modern-day censors who would seek to rid the marketplace of ideas of any and all opposition.

If you're reading these words, you already know this. Or you should know this, given that the reason I was censored from ThemTube back in 2021 was because I dared to produce a podcast about the philosophy of science that sought to interrogate and dismantle the "Trust The Science!" injunction.

Let's cut to the chase: in this post-COVID era, anyone with their head screwed on straight knows that "Trust The Science!" is a stupid, baseless, self-refuting piece of nonsense that is wielded by authoritarians as a cudgel against political dissent.

But as stupid as the "Trust The Science" phrase is, it's about to get even stupider.

Why? Because a story emerged last month that completely undermines whatever misplaced faith the average propaganda-swallowing rube still harboured about the trustworthiness of "the" science and the supposedly self-correcting peer review process that "the" science is built on.

Strap in, folks. This story is bonkers. And it points to a future that's so horrifyingly dystopian that not even the "Trust The Science!" thugs will be able to defend it.

It’s just days after the hasty, and by insider accounts, coerced, approval of International Health Regulation (IHR) amendments and the dust has not yet settled. However, it is clear to me that these last minute additions to the IHR, incorporating aspects of the pandemic treaty negotiations, was a last ditch attempt to ensure WHO has coordinating power in the event the WHO Director General declares another ‘pandemic’, which he keeps telling us is coming soon.

How this international ‘agreement’ on a Saturday night could have occurred without fulfilling the requirements of Article 55 requiring that Member States receive proposed amendments at least 4 months before voting is not clear but coercion seems to be a factor.

On the most basic level, we should all be wondering what sort of authentic international agreement, involving people of many languages, can possibly be made when last minute changes were made available in the English language only?

However, the powers that shouldn’t be, puppeteering the WHO behind the scenes, may think they have achieved somewhat of a coup with PLAN B. The reason I say this is because the IHR is already a legally binding document. Adding country obligations related to pandemic emergencies, relevant health products, including gene therapies, and State Party measures to control disinformation without having agreed a treaty specific to pandemics may feel as if they have killed two birds for the WHO with one stone.

Specifically, among the so-called adopted changes are the following: