Science s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation
The questions are urgent, and the funding is in place. But a highly anticipated, $130 million clinical trial, meant to test the efficacy of the novel messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for COVID-19 against a key variant of the pandemic coronavirus as well as in people living with HIV and pregnant women, is stalled. It is ready to launch in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, yet neither maker of the vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, wants to participate or even provide their vaccines.
A group of prominent HIV advocates and activists in South Africa has written a letter complaining about the delay to U.S. government officials, including Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which agreed to pay for the study. They stress that COVID-19 strikes people living with HIV especially hard, and that dangerous variants of SARS-CoV-2 evolve in them because many have
Mechas | Burns White
PITTSBURGH – A lawsuit brought by a Bethel Park couple, who alleged that an at-home physical therapist’s negligence in conducting therapy without making use of personal protective equipment led to both of them contracting COVID-19, will now be heard in a federal court.
John Boyle and Cheryl McKinney of Bethel Park first filed suit in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on April 20 versus Judith Meyer and Orthopedic & Sports Physical Therapy Associates, Inc., of Charleroi.
The suit explained Meyer was employed by OSPTA as an at-home physical therapist and outlines the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that the majority of the virus’s fatalities were among the elderly population and those with underlying medical complications – along with methods of prevention, such as the use of masks, gloves and other PPE.
The COVID-19 vaccines have been the subject of peer-reviewed studies that found they were effective and safe, but a meme has been circulating on social media falsely claiming that no such studies have been conducted.