NEW DELHI: National Institutes of Health (NIH) principal deputy director Lawrence Tabak admitted to Congress on Thursday that US taxpayers funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Rep Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz) of the select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic questioned Dr Tabak, asking, Did NIH fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through [Manhattan-based nonprofit] EcoHealth [Alliance]? Tabak replied, If youre speaking about the generic term, yes, we did. This admission comes after more than four years of evasions from federal public health officials, including Tabak himself and former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Dr Anthony Fauci, regarding the controversial research practice that modifies viruses to make them more infectious. Tabak clarified that this type of research is widespread and poses no threat or harm, which is why it is not regulated, a New York Post report said. Dr Bryce Nickels, a genetics professor at Rutgers University, criticized Tabak's response, describing it as obfuscation and semantic manipulation. He accused the NIH official of resisting accountability for risky research that could create pathogens of pandemic potential. In July 2023, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) barred the Wuhan Institute of Virology from receiving federal grants for the next 10 years. Additionally, EcoHealth Alliance, which had its funding pulled by HHS for the next three years, has faced scrutiny for its involvement in the research. Tabak previously acknowledged in an October 2021 letter to Congress that NIH funded a "limited experiment" at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which tested whether spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses could bind to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model. This experiment, which involved modifying bat coronaviruses with SARS and MERS viruses, was not described as gain-of-function research, despite EcoHealth's failure to report that the modified viruses became 10,000 times more infectious, violating grant terms. Despite repeated denials by Dr Anthony Fauci, Republicans have consistently challenged the NIH's involvement in gain-of-function research. Sen Rand Paul (R-Ky) notably grilled Fauci in several hearings, demanding clarity on the NIH's funding practices. The House subcommittee continues to investigate whether Covid-19 accidentally leaked from a lab in Wuhan, which several US intelligence agencies and experts have suggested as the most likely cause of the pandemic. Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe have both supported this theory. Nickels concluded that the hearing underscored the lack of oversight for scientific research on pathogens, highlighting the need for stricter controls and accountability to prevent future pandemics. Dr Fauci is scheduled to testify about gain-of-function research and the origins of the pandemic in a public subcommittee hearing on June 3.
Singapore: Singapore is seeing a new COVID-19 wave as the authorities recorded more than 25,900 cases from May 5 to 11 even as Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on Saturday advised the wearing of masks again. We are at the beginning part of the wave where it is steadily rising, said Ong. So, I would say the wave should peak in the next two to four weeks, which means between mid- and end of June, The Straits Times newspaper quoted the minister as saying. The Ministry of Health (MOH) said the estimated number of COVID-19 cases in the week of May 5 to 11 rose to 25,900 cases, compared with 13,700 cases in the previous week.
The average daily COVID-19 hospitalisations rose to about 250 from 181 the week before. The average daily intensive care unit (ICU) cases remained low at three cases, compared with two cases in the previous week. The MOH said that to protect hospital bed capacity, public hospitals have been asked to reduce their non-urgent elective surgery cases and move suitable patients to transitional care facilities or back home through Mobile Inpatient Care@Home, an alternative inpatient care delivery model that offers clinically suitable patients the option of being hospitalised in their own homes instead of a hospital ward.
Ong urged those who are at greatest risk of severe disease, including individuals aged 60 years and above, medically vulnerable individuals and residents of aged care facilities, to receive an additional dose of the COVID-19 vaccine if they have not done so in the last 12 months. Ong said that if the number of COVID-19 cases doubles one time, Singapore will have 500 patients in its healthcare system, which is what Singapore can handle. However, if the number of cases doubles a second time, there will be 1,000 patients, and that will be a considerable burden on the hospital system, he pointed out.
One thousand beds is equivalent to one regional hospital, Ong said. So, I think the healthcare system has to brace ourselves for what is to come. There are no plans for any form of social restrictions or any other mandatory kind of measures for now, as COVID-19 is treated as an endemic disease in Singapore, he said, adding that imposing additional measures would be a last resort. Ong said that with Singapore being a transport and communications hub, it will be one of the cities to get a wave of COVID-19 earlier than others. So, COVID-19 is just something that we have to live with. Every year, we should expect one or two waves, he said.
Globally, the predominant COVID-19 variants are still JN.1 and its sub-lineages, including KP.1 and KP.2. Currently, KP.1 and KP.2 account for over two-thirds of cases in Singapore. As of May 3, the World Health Organisation has classified KP.2 as a variant under monitoring. There are currently no indications, globally or locally, that KP.1 and KP.2 are more transmissible or cause more severe disease than other circulating variants, the MOH said.
However, members of the public are urged to stay updated with vaccinations to protect themselves against current and emerging virus strains. The MOH said that to date, about 80 per cent of the local population have completed their initial or additional dose, but have not received a dose within the last year. The ministry added that since COVID-19 vaccination started in 2020 to 2021, the vaccines have consistently been proven to be safe and effective in protecting individuals from severe illness. Billions of doses have been administered globally, and safety monitoring internationally has shown that the vaccine is safe, it said.
There have also been no long-term safety concerns with COVID-19 vaccination, and adverse effects from vaccines, including the mRNA vaccines, have all been observed to occur shortly after vaccination, the ministry added.
The nickname of the new variant, FLiRT, references the technical names of its mutations, F4561 and R346T, and are part of SARS-CoV-2s Omicron lineage. (Renee Schiavone/Patch)
MASSACHUSETTS The new KP.2 variant nicknamed FLiRT could cause an uptick in COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts and around the country this summer, disease experts are warning.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Friday showed the KP.2 variant represents 28 percent of new COVID infections from April 14-27, up from just 6 percent.
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The variants collectively known as FLiRT include KP.2 and another variant, KP.1.1, both of which are descendants of JN.1. They share the same mutation, changes in the spike protein that allows the virus to colonize in the body and make people sick
In Region 1, the region including Massachusetts, the KP.2 variant was responsible for 24.3 percent of COVID cases from April 27-May 5.
The nickname FLiRT references the technical names of its mutations, F4561 and R346T, and are part of SARS-CoV-2s Omicron lineage.
The CDC said there is no indication people will get any sicker with KP.2 than with other strains. The KP.2 variant overtook JN.1 as the dominant strain. Symptoms are similar, although the CDC cautioned they may vary among people and may change with new variants.
Laboratory research from Japan, which has not yet been peer-reviewed and was published as a preprint, suggests the mutations may be able to bypass vaccines.
It looks like those additional mutations make it more immune evasive, so its not a surprise that it would then dominate, Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told NBC News.
According to the research from Japan, the KP.2 variant may be less efficient than its predecessors at infecting cells. The current vaccines should provide some protection against KP.2, according to experts.
However, vaccine coverage is waning nationwide, with only 22.6 percent of U.S. adults currently protected by the updated 2023-24 COVID vaccine rolled out in September 2023, according to CDC data. Vaccine protection increased by age groups, with the highest coverage among adults 75 and older.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 reached record lows in April, and the CDC no longer requires hospitals to report admissions numbers. Experts say that while serious cases requiring hospitalization may increase this summer, as they have every summer since the pandemic began in 2020, the rise wont be nearly as dramatic.
The CDC updated its COVID-19 guidance in March, ending its recommendation that people who test positive for the virus isolate for five days. However, the agency still recommends that people take precautions to prevent the spread of COVID, or any other common respiratory disease, including staying home when theyre sick, staying up-to-date on vaccines and properly washing their hands.
In a recent study published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, researchers estimated hospitalization and mortality rates in people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the United States (US) in the pre-vaccination period.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused more than 20 million cases, 480,000 hospitalizations, and 350,000 deaths in the US until December 2020. COVID-19 case detection was considerably affected by commercial testing and at-home diagnostic tests beginning in mid-December 2020.
Further, the development of vaccines after mid-December 2020 has substantially reduced hospitalization and mortality rates. Studies have reported higher case fatality rates associated with specific individual-level, country-level, and clinical characteristics. Moreover, precise hospitalization and mortality estimates in SARS-CoV-2-nave populations are limited.
Study: Estimates of SARS-CoV-2 Hospitalization and Fatality Rates in the Prevaccination Period, United States. Image Credit:Photo Spirit / Shutterstock
In the present study, researchers estimated COVID-19 hospitalization and mortality rates before vaccines were available in the US. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received COVID-19 case reports from epidemiologists from 56 US jurisdictions (50 states, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and New York City).
Datasets of hospitalization and mortality were generated for jurisdictions with more than 80% of cases having non-missing CDC hospitalization and death queries for illnesses between May 1 and December 1, 2020. The team estimated COVID-19 case hospitalization and fatality rates by age group, sex, race/ethnicity, hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and symptom status. Demographic characteristics of cases were described.
Overall, more than 10.33 million COVID-19 cases were reported to the CDC during the study period. Of these, 58.8% and 63.5% had valid, non-missing data on hospitalization and death, respectively. Accordingly, hospitalization and death datasets included over 2.47 million and 4.7 million cases from 21 and 22 jurisdictions, respectively.
Upper and lower estimates of case-hospitalization (gray) and case-fatality (black) rates by age group of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection, United States, 2020.For case-hospitalization, lower bound was calculated by including cases with unknown hospitalization information as not hospitalized and upper bound by excluding cases with unknown hospitalization information. For case-fatality, lower bound was calculated by including cases with unknown death status as alive and upper bound by excluding cases with unknown death status information. Reports in which no response was provided about death or hospitalization were excluded from the respective rate calculation. Inset graph provides greater detail for younger age groups by using smaller y-axis values.
The resultant study populations closely matched the 2019 US Census population distribution by age group and sex, albeit were variable by race/ethnicity. The overall COVID-19 case hospitalization rate was 5.7%. It was < 8.3% in all age groups up to 64 years, viz., 5% in infants (< 1 year), 1.2% in those aged 14, and 0.6% in the 514 age group.
The hospitalization rate increased steadily in individuals aged 15 or older. It was 16.3% in those aged 6574 and 25.9% in 7584 and > 85 age groups. The hospitalization rate was 5.2% in females and 6.2% in males. Females had lower rates in all age groups except those aged 1534. Further, the hospitalization rate was 3.3% among asymptomatic cases and 6.3% among symptomatic individuals.
In addition, non-Hispanic African American or Black individuals had the highest hospitalization rate (11.4%). Consistently, it was the highest in non-Hispanic African American or Black individuals (14%) after adjusting for age, followed by those who were Asian or Pacific Islander (11%). Non-Hispanic White people showed the lowest hospitalization rate (6.8%).
The case fatality rate was 1.7% overall. It was below 1.6% in people aged up to 64 years, with 0.05% in infants, 0.01% in 14 and 514 age groups, 4.7% in people aged 6574, 12% in the 7584 age group, and 23.6% in those aged 85 or older. The fatality rate was 1.5% in females and 1.9% in males. Lower fatality rates were observed in all age groups except infants in females.
The fatality rate was the same (1.7%) in asymptomatic and symptomatic subjects. It was the highest in people who were Asian or Pacific Islander (3%), followed by non-Hispanic African American or Black individuals (2.7%). All racial/ethnic groups except non-Hispanic whites had higher fatality rates after adjusting for age. The fatality rates in non-hospitalized, hospitalized, and ICU patients were 0.6%, 17.6%, and 44.2%, respectively.
In sum, the study presented COVID-19 case hospitalization and fatality rates before vaccination or at-home testing was available in the US. Age was the primary driver of hospitalization and mortality. Rates exhibited a U-shaped curve, i.e., lower in infants (under one year), lowest in children aged 514, and highest among adults over 65. Overall, the findings underscore the severity of infections early in the pandemic and suggest that appropriate measures in historically underserved racial/ethnic groups and high-risk groups will be paramount.
Journal reference:
New research shows mental health insurance claims have continued to rise after the peak impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mental health claims soared by 83% from 2019 to 2023 and continued to rise post-pandemic, increasing 11% from 2022 to 2023, according to a report from LexisNexis Risk Solutions.
The demand for virtual mental health services skyrocketed even more dramatically during this period, jumping 9,500%, though virtual claims are now starting to level off.
Mental health claims continue to rise, indicating a growing demand and utilization of mental health care, despite ongoing provider and medication shortages, Adam Mariano, president and general manager of health care at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said in a statement.
The sharp increase in telehealth visits caused by the pandemic has begun to level off, but the number of virtual mental health claims remains high. Overall virtual mental health claims increased by 3% from 2022 to 2023, although these visits declined by 14% among children.
The shift away from virtual and back to in-office care is most evident among children and teens under 18, the reports authors wrote. This is a clear indication that healthcare organizations should be prepared with adequate resources for both care venues, with a particular focus on engaging with the younger generation in person.
Research has shown telehealth mental health visits are as beneficial as in-person visits. Still, some COVID-era flexibilities that allow mental health providers to offer telehealth may expire at the end of 2024 unless the federal government takes action.
In-office claims, which dropped a dramatic 46% from 2019 to 2020, are now rebounding, increasing 59% from 2021 to 2023. In-person claims are now only 10% lower than where they stood pre-pandemic in 2019.
Within rising mental health claims, some conditions saw more claims increases than others, with stress, developmental disorders, anxiety and depression experiencing the highest increases.
Stress-related claims increased by 86% from 2019 to 2023, followed by developmental disorder claims, which jumped by 75%, anxiety claims, which increased by 72% and depression-related claims, which climbed by 52%.
ADHD claims surged dramatically among adults in the last five years, with 101% more claims among people ages 18 to 44.
There was a sharp rise in insurance claims related to gender identity and eating disorders among minors in the past five years. Compared to 2019 levels, claims for gender identity issues among patients under 18 increased by 152%, while claims for eating disorders in the same age group went up by 131%.
Other mental health condition claims also jumped among minors. Claims related to phobic disorders saw a 98% increase compared to 2019. Anxiety disorder claims went up by 82%, and those for developmental disorders increased by 77%.
Editors note: This article has been updated to reflect the most recently available data. It originally included data published in 2023.
Timing of COVID-19 vaccination has been found to affect the menstrual cycle differently during distinctive phases, according to late-breaking research presented at the 2024 ACOG Annual Clinical and Scientific Meeting.
In an interview with Contemporary OB/GYN, Alison Edelman, MD, MPH, professor and ob-gyn at Oregon Health and Science University, shed light on the effects of COVID-19 vaccines on menstrual cycles, offering critical insights for both patients and health care providers.
As 1 of 5 teams sponsored by the National Institutes of Health during the pandemic, Edelman and her team investigated whether COVID-19 vaccines cause menstrual cycle disturbances. According to Edelman, their initial findings confirmed a signal indicating that the vaccines do cause changes, although temporary and minor. The latest research aimed to understand why these changes occur.
Key findings from the study revealed that the timing of vaccination during the menstrual cycle is crucial. Vaccination during the follicular phasethe beginning of the menstrual cyclecan lead to a slight lengthening of the cycle by approximately 1 day. However, vaccination during the luteal phasethe second half of the cycledoes not seem to affect cycle length. These findings align with existing knowledge that events occurring in the follicular phase can influence menstrual cycle length, said Edelman.
She emphasized the importance of these findings in addressing public concerns. "If we all remember back, [patients] had a lot of questions and were coming into the offices having questions about menstrual cycle disturbances, and we just didn't really have any information to offer them because this was something that hadn't really been looked at before," she said.
The study underscores the need for health care providers to listen to their patients, noted Edelman. "The number one thing is to be listening to your patients and, and if they do report a change, that very well could happen because of the COVID-19 vaccine," Edelman advised. While the data suggest that menstrual changes due to the COVID-19 vaccine are generally small and temporary, individual experiences may vary. Edelman advises clinicians to consider other causes if patients report prolonged or significant menstrual changes.
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CENTRAL TEXAS (KXXV) These recent rains have done more than just damage properties and roads, but its ramped up peoples allergies.
But after speaking to a Baylor Scott and White doctor, 25 News learned that allergies are not the main reason that Central Texans are seeing their doctors right now.
I would say up to 30 to 40 percent of the cases that were seeing in an urgent care setting are due to rhino virus, or maybe another virus thats very similar" said Dr. Greg Newman DO.
Dr. Newman is the Medical Director for Central Texas Marketplace Convenient Care.
He says rhino virus is part of the common cold family but why are we seeing cases now in May during allergy season?
"It decided that it was going to be the virus of the month or the last few weeks, and so it should hopefully fade out here in the next few weeks," Dr. Newman said.
"We may be on to a a new virus thats circulating around, and thats kind of been the pattern since we've kind of gotten out of the big COVID waves.
Dr. Newman says allergy cases are actually down compared to last month, but these recent storms are flaring up peoples allergies."
Molds are always present in Texas because its usually kind of warm and humid in the Central Texas area, but particularly in the last few weeks, weve gotten a lot of rains so molds have really gone on the increase for allergies."
Dr. Newman says you can treat allergies caused by outdoor molds just as you would seasonal allergies, and for rhino virus the same as you would treat the common cold.
He says if that doesnt work go ahead and see a doctor especially if youre having lung issues, and maybe even a fever thats lasting multiple days.
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Response to updated vaccine is shaped by earlier vaccines yet generates broadly neutralizing antibodies
Health-care workers received the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020. A study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that repeat vaccination with updated versions of the COVID-19 vaccine promotes the development of antibodies that neutralize a wide range of variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, as well as related coronaviruses.
The COVID-19 pandemic is over, but the virus that caused it is still here, sending thousands of people to the hospital each week and spinning off new variants with depressing regularity. The viruss exceptional ability to change and evade immune defenses has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to recommend annual updates to COVID-19 vaccines.
But some scientists worry that the remarkable success of the first COVID-19 vaccines may work against updated versions, undermining the utility of an annual vaccination program. A similar problem plagues the annual flu vaccine campaign; immunity elicited by one years flu shots can interfere with immune responses in subsequent years, reducing the vaccines effectiveness.
A new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis helps to address this question. Unlike immunity to influenza virus, prior immunity to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, doesnt inhibit later vaccine responses. Rather, it promotes the development of broadly inhibitory antibodies, the researchers report.
The study, available online in Nature, shows that people who were repeatedly vaccinated for COVID-19 initially receiving shots aimed at the original variant, followed by boosters and updated vaccines targeting variants generated antibodies capable of neutralizing a wide range of SARS-CoV-2 variants and even some distantly related coronaviruses. The findings suggest that periodic re-vaccination for COVID-19, far from hindering the bodys ability to recognize and respond to new variants, may instead cause people to gradually build up a stock of broadly neutralizing antibodies that protect them from emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and some other coronavirus species as well, even ones that have not yet emerged to infect humans.
The first vaccine an individual receives induces a strong primary immune response that shapes responses to subsequent infection and vaccination, an effect known as imprinting, said senior author Michael S. Diamond, MD, PhD, the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine. In principle, imprinting can be positive, negative or neutral. In this case, we see strong imprinting that is positive, because its coupled to the development of cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies with remarkable breadth of activity.
Imprinting is the natural result of how immunological memory works. A first vaccination triggers the development of memory immune cells. When people receive a second vaccination quite similar to the first, it reactivates memory cells elicited by the first vaccine. These memory cells dominate and shape the immune response to the subsequent vaccine.
In the case of the flu vaccine, imprinting has negative effects. Antibody-producing memory cells crowd out new antibody-producing cells, and people develop relatively few neutralizing antibodies against the strains in the newer vaccine. But in other cases, imprinting can be positive, by promoting the development of cross-reactive antibodies that neutralize strains in both the initial and subsequent vaccines.
To understand how imprinting influences the immune response to repeat COVID-19 vaccination, Diamond and colleagues including first author Chieh-Yu Liang, a graduate student, studied the antibodies from mice or people who had received a sequence of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters targeting first the original and then omicron variants. Some of the human participants also had been naturally infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.
The first question was the strength of the imprinting effect. The researchers measured how many of the participants neutralizing antibodies were specific for the original variant, the omicron variant or both. They found that very few people had developed any antibodies unique to omicron, a pattern indicative of strong imprinting by the initial vaccination. But they also found few antibodies unique to the original variant. The vast majority of neutralizing antibodies cross-reacted with both.
The next question was how far the cross-reactive effect extended. Cross-reactive antibodies, by definition, recognize a feature shared by two or more variants. Some features are shared only by similar variants, others by all SARS-CoV-2 variants or even all coronaviruses. To assess the breadth of the neutralizing antibodies, the researchers tested them against a panel of coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 viruses from two omicron lineages; a coronavirus from pangolins; the SARS-1 virus that caused the 2002-03 SARS epidemic; and the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus. The antibodies neutralized all the viruses except MERS virus, which comes from a different branch of the coronavirus family tree than the others.
Further experiments revealed that this remarkable breadth was due to the combination of original and variant vaccines. People who received only the vaccines targeting the original SARS-CoV-2 variant developed some cross-reactive antibodies that neutralized the pangolin coronavirus and SARS-1 virus, but the levels were low. After boosting with an omicron vaccine, though, the cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies against the two coronavirus species increased.
Taken together, the findings suggest that regular re-vaccination with updated COVID-19 vaccines against variants might give people the tools to fight off not only the SARS-CoV-2 variants represented in the vaccines, but also other SARS-CoV-2 variants and related coronaviruses, possibly including ones that have not yet emerged.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world population was immunologically nave, which is part of the reason the virus was able to spread so fast and do so much damage, said Diamond, also a professor of molecular microbiology and of pathology & immunology. We do not know for certain whether getting an updated COVID-19 vaccine every year would protect people against emerging coronaviruses, but its plausible. These data suggest that if these cross-reactive antibodies do not rapidly wane we would need to follow their levels over time to know for certain they may confer some or even substantial protection against a pandemic caused by a related coronavirus.
Liang CY, Raju S, Liu Z, Li Y, Arunkumar GA, Case JB, Scheaffer SM, Zost SJ, Acreman CM, Gagne M, Andrew SF, Carvalho dos Anjos DC, Foulds KE, McLellan JS, Crowe JE, Douek DC, Whelan SPJ, Elbashir SM, Edwards DK, Diamond MS. Imprinting of serum neutralizing antibodies by Wuhan-1 mRNA vaccines. Nature. May 15, 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07539-1
This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant number R01 AI157155; the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)s Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response, contract numbers 75N93021C00014 and 75N93019C00051; NIAIDs Vaccine Research Center; and a sponsored research agreement with Moderna. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
About Washington University School of Medicine
WashU Medicine is a global leader in academic medicine, including biomedical research, patient care and educational programs with 2,900 faculty. Its National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding portfolio is the second largest among U.S. medical schools and has grown 56% in the last seven years. Together with institutional investment, WashU Medicine commits well over $1 billion annually to basic and clinical research innovation and training. Its faculty practice is consistently within the top five in the country, with more than 1,900 faculty physicians practicing at 130 locations and who are also the medical staffs of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals of BJC HealthCare. WashU Medicine has a storied history in MD/PhD training, recently dedicated $100 million to scholarships and curriculum renewal for its medical students, and is home to top-notch training programs in every medical subspecialty as well as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and audiology and communications sciences.
Wyoming has the fifth-lowest percentage of residents vaccinated for influenza at 43%, according to recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The Wyoming Department of Health wishes that figure was higher, though its typical for Wyoming to be among the lowest states for flu vaccination, the departments spokeswoman said Thursday in response to a Cowboy State Daily inquiry.
Unfortunately, Wyoming typically does not have high rates for influenza vaccines, Kim Deti, Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) spokeswoman told Cowboy State Daily in a Thursday email. Our rates for most other vaccinations such as for polio and the measles are much higher.
Deti said vaccines help prevent many serious illnesses, and WDH will keep encouraging Wyoming residents to follow its vaccine recommendations. She said influenza vaccines have increased in availability in recent years.
Deti noted that the data is based on two nationally conducted surveys, and said the states low population and a possible low number of participants could have affected the data.
Nope, Never
Wyoming anti-vaccine-mandate lawmaker Sen. Anthony Bouchard, R-Cheyenne, told Cowboy State Daily hes not surprised Wyomings flu vaccination rates are so low. He said it amounts to Wyomingites mistrust toward the shots.
He also pointed to Wyomingites growing suspicion in the wake of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, an oft-politicized event accompanied by federal and tribal government vaccine mandates and ultimatums.
Wyomings flu vaccine uptake exceeded half the population (51.45%) just as COVID-19 was starting, in the 2019-2020 flu season.
But amid the 2021 COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the states figures dipped back down to 43.9%, then plunged to 40% in the 2021-2022 flu season.
Bouchard said he has never taken the flu vaccine: Nope, never.
He also pointed to the shots occasional side effects.
For Example...
Wyoming people reported 13 medical incidents stemming from seasonal flu vaccines administered in the state in 2023 and 2024, to the CDCs voluntary reporting database the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
For example:
One patient had a sore arm months after vaccination, at the injection site, according to VAERS data. A mother reportedly submitted data about her childs full body shaking and leg twitch for four days following the childs Feb. 19, 2024 flu vaccination. The child was seen in the emergency room on Feb. 26, the database says.
Another mother reported a childs arm was swollen and too painful to move, but five-to-six days later, the arm was back to normal.
One patient was diagnosed with palsy after vaccination in December, 2023.
Another simply called to report that he tested positive for flu on Nov. 1, 2023.
One patient whose arm became infected after vaccination was adamant that her medical provider understand the vaccine was the culprit.
I informed her that this is a risk of a vaccination because bacteria can get under the skin whenever we break it, the medical staffer wrote in the VAERS report. I told patient I would report this event and she agreed that was alright.
One patient who had been on birth control, stomach acid and allergy medications when vaccinated became unable to form (a) sentence and developed slurred speech and nausea, reportedly. The report doesnt say how or if those symptoms resolved.
None of these events is listed as resulting in death, serious bodily injury or permanent disability.
Idaho Lowest
Wyomings flu vaccination rates among adults in the 2022-23 season were even lower than its all-age average, at 38.2%.
Idaho is the only state lower for adult flu vaccinations, at 34%. Idaho also had the lowest rate for kids flu vaccinations at 39.95%.
Next came Mississippi, in which kids received flu vaccinations at a 40.5% rate; then Nevada (41.6% kids flu vaccination rate) and Oklahoma (42.75%).
Wyoming was the fifth-lowest in the kids category, at 42.95%.
Massachusetts Highest
Massachusetts had the highest all-age vaccination rate at 68.85% - with 62.4% of adults vaccinated for flu and 75.3% of kids.
Next came Rhode Island, as 68.35% (60.7% for kids and 76% for adults) and Washington, D.C., at 68.3% (59.9% for adults and 76.7% for kids).
Same For COVID Shots
Wyoming shows even more hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines, ranking lowest in percentage of people who have had at least one COVID-19 vaccination dose, according to aUSAFacts.org vaccination tracker.
That figure is 59.8%, for Wyoming, as of April 26, 2024, the tracker says, adding that 81% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose.
Vermont, D.C., Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut all have greater than a 95% partial-complete-or-boosted vaccination rate, the tracker reports.
