WHEELING, W.Va. The day had finally arrived.
After nearly a year in lockdown for the residents of Good Shepherd Nursing Home eating meals in their rooms, playing bingo over their television sets and isolating themselves almost entirely from the outside world their coronavirus vaccinations were finished and the hallways were slowly beginning to reawaken.In a first, tentative glimpse at what the other side of the pandemic might look like, Betty Lou Leech, 97, arrived to the dining room early, a mask on her face, her hair freshly curled.
“I’m too excited to eat,” she said, sitting at her favorite table once again.
“My jaw dropped when I saw the table of outcomes,” said Dr. Myron Cohen, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a principal investigator who helped design and implement the study.
Although the study has ended, Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, Eli Lilly’s chief scientific officer, said the company would continue to rush to nursing homes in its study network when an outbreak is detected. “Everyone will get the drug,” he said.
Experts who were not part of the study were enthusiastic, but emphasized that they had not yet seen complete data. “I see only positives here,” said Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the precision vaccine program at Boston Children’s Hospital. “This is a win.”
Vaccine Skepticism Helped Put Them in Power. Can They Inoculate Italy?
The Five Star Movement’s long history of sowing doubt about vaccines may have made Italy’s mass inoculation program that much harder. The irony is not lost on Italians.
Vaccinations underway at a hospital in Piacenza, Italy, last month.Credit.Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times
Published Jan. 12, 2021Updated Jan. 26, 2021
ROME Over a decade ago, an activist in Italy’s Five Star Movement wrote to the nascent party’s leaders to tell them that his law firm, after years of seeking “damages from vaccination,” had convinced a judge that a vaccine was a potential source of autism.
values. It is separate from the newsroom.
Dec. 29, 2020
When she had the routine of home, Angie Sinopoli was the talkative matriarch of a large Italian family who heaped praise on her children and grandchildren, even as her memory faded. Her youngest son, Steven, came by her house and cooked her dinner nearly every night. But after a couple of falls and bouts in rehabilitation centers, she ended up in a Syracuse nursing home on March 10. Two days later, it stopped all visits to protect residents from the coronavirus. Mrs. Sinopoli hasn’t seen family in more than nine months. Her vocabulary has dwindled to about 20 words.