Vaccinations Category Archives — DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog Published by Washington, D.C. Personal Injury Lawyers

May 15, 2022

U.S. mourns 1 million coronavirus deaths. Nearly one in three may have been preventable.

President Biden has ordered flags in public buildings across the country to be flown at half staff as the nation officially mourns 1 million American deaths due to the coronavirus pandemic. As he noted in a statement:

“One million empty chairs around the dinner table. Each an irreplaceable loss. Each leaving behind a family, a community, and a nation forever changed because of this pandemic. Jill and I pray for each of them. To those who are grieving and asking yourself how will you go on without him or what will you do without her, I understand. I know the pain of that black hole in your heart. It is unrelenting. But I also know the ones you love are never truly gone. They will always be with you. As a nation, we must not grow numb to such sorrow. To heal, we must remember. We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible, as we have with more testing, vaccines, and treatments than ever before …”

The milestone that the country likely hit a while ago, a toll that many experts hoped would never be reached has proved hard to grasp for too many people in this country. The coronavirus deaths are the equivalent or exceed the populations of cities like San Jose, Calif., Austin, Tex., or Jacksonville, Fla. The comparisons are inexact and not easy, but with Memorial Day approaching, is it appropriate to note that the U.S. pandemic deaths now roughly equal the nation’s fatalities in the Civil War, World War I and World War II combined?

May 8, 2022

While U.S. moves on, pandemic is inching up and is forecast to worsen

by Patrick A. Malone

The coronavirus already has killed 1 million and counting in this country. But is that painful reality persuasive enough to get Americans, especially cantankerous politicians, to heed new federal warnings that the pandemic not only isn’t over but that it could surge anew this fall and winter with as many as 100 million new infections — and who knows how many more fatalities?

Republicans, of course, argue that this is just the Biden Administration crying wolf to get Congress to provide billions of dollars more to battle the pandemic.

GOP lawmakers contend that the government has gotten plenty already, and it has demanded that Washington go back on its already promised pandemic aid allocations to states, counties, cities, and other local governments to find the money to fight the virus. Republicans also have tried to fan divisive flames by denying further pandemic funds by tying this request to the contentious issue of immigration. They have done so by questioning an administration plan to end pandemic-related restrictions for asylum seekers at the nation’s borders.

May 1, 2022

It’s everywhere and nowhere: Coronavirus and the risks that remain for seniors and unvaccinated

by Patrick A. Malone

The coronavirus pandemic has become such a central part of so many people’s lives that the temptation is great to ignore its persistent, calamitous effect — and how some of the worst of these can be dealt with more than ever in relatively easy, safe, convenient ways.

Looking recent data about the disease, it is possible to start to downplay the virus, suggesting it could be reaching the endemic stage in which it still poses high perils but is not a crisis condition, as it has been for months now. Consider, for example, how widespread coronavirus infections have become, especially due to the recent surge involving the highly contagious Omicron variant. As the New York Times reported:

“Sixty percent of Americans, including 75% of children, had been infected with the coronavirus by February, federal health officials reported … — another remarkable milestone in a pandemic that continues to confound expectations. The highly contagious Omicron variant was responsible for much of the toll. In December 2021, as the variant began spreading, only half as many people had antibodies indicating prior infection, according to new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the numbers came as a shock to many Americans, some scientists said they had expected the figures to be even higher, given the contagious variants that have marched through the nation over the past two years.”

April 25, 2022

U.S. finding more and more ways to undercut efforts to quell pandemic

by Patrick A. Malone

Hundreds of Americans keep dying each day due to the coronavirus. Tens of thousands of people across the country are reporting they are newly infected with the disease, even as at-home testing lowers this count. Thousands of patients still are hospitalized due to the virus that has killed at least 1 million in this country. But even as worrisome measures of the pandemic rise anew, important ways to battle the deadliest infectious disease outbreak in a century are dwindling.

Health officials are grappling with a federal judge’s ruling, upending nationwide what has been a minimally inconvenient step to quell the pandemic — a requirement for passengers to cover their faces while traveling on public transportation.

The judge — yes, an appointee from the last administration who was deemed by the Bar to be not qualified for her lifetime post — staked out a dubious legal view that federal officials overstepped their authority with the mask order. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, sitting in Tampa, Fla., asserted among other things in her ruling that she thinks Congress limited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be involved only in “inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, destruction, or pest extermination.”

April 17, 2022

As U.S. shatters death record, trauma and grief grow unrecognized

by Patrick A. Malone

Death has not taken a holiday in this country. It has, instead, had a field day, with 2021 breaking records, recording 3.465 million American lives lost — 80,000 more than in history-setting 2020, federal statisticians say.

The coronavirus pandemic gets much of the blame for the nation’s grim toll, which was made all the worse because many of the deaths last year, as opposed to the year before, were preventable because safe, effective vaccines became widely available and could have averted debilitating and deadly illnesses for so many.

But Covid-19 was not alone as a killer that rose up to take American lives and to slash a fundamental measure of public health — life expectancy rates. The Associated Press reported, citing information from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

April 10, 2022

New focus on battling long Covid underscores infection’s persistent risk

by Patrick A. Malone

Even as the coronavirus pandemic’s pause shows signs of faltering, medical experts are continuing their deeper digs into the novel infection’s long-term effects including how to treat debilitating long and medium Covid and the calamitous intersection between Covid and chronic conditions like diabetes.

The Biden Administration — taking fierce criticism for not acting sooner and more aggressively — has announced plans to kick start the research to combat long Covid, a condition that may affect as many as 23 million Americans who have suffered infections ranging from severe to mild and still have not shaken the disease’s harms. As the Washington Post reported:

“Experts who have been studying the condition, which is linked to fatigue, brain fog and other symptoms that can linger for weeks, months or even years, hailed Biden for assembling a government-wide effort to combat long Covid. They said it was an overdue recognition of the condition’s impact and reach. But many also said the administration must go further in devoting resources and making long covid a priority, reiterating that millions of people are eager for immediate treatment and help.

April 3, 2022

Even if pandemic lull lasts, more health care challenges are coming

by Patrick A. Malone

The coronavirus pandemic does not have a magical on-off switch, and even if its current lull turns out to be longer lasting — and signs suggest this may not be so — the lethal infectious outbreak will keep sending shocks through the U.S. health care system that will affect us all.

Experts are expressing growing concern about several areas where patients, insurers, and medical providers must make major, challenging changes if federal officials truly see huge reductions in the pandemic’s threat and they begin to wind down key programs put in place to battle it, the Associated Press reported.

If that occurs, health insurance for millions of Americans could change swiftly and dramatically, while many patients and health providers may be forced to reconsider the future of telehealth care, the AP reported. And how much support will there be for continued efforts to test, vaccinate, and provide treatments for the coronavirus, if the pandemic diminishes as a major peril?

March 28, 2022

In pandemic lull, the push is on for shots for kids and older adults

by Patrick A. Malone

After months of experiencing how the coronavirus vaccines safely can slash infections, avert serious illnesses that can lead to hospitalizations, and prevent epic numbers of deaths, young and older patients soon will be asked to show (again) their confidence in the life changing and life saving value of Covid-19 shots.

The pandemic-weary U.S. public, though, may not be eager enough to roll up their sleeves to try to quell the worst infectious outbreak in a century. Vaccination efforts have reached lows not seen since 2020, this in spite of the fast spread of BA.2, a newer and more infectious variant of the coronavirus.

Even as millions of people struggle with sustained harms of the illness — serious debilitation with so-called long and medium covid cases — the pandemic is well into one of its sustained lulls. This means that cases have plunged, hospitals are nearing more normal occupancy, and deaths are declining to distressing still levels — hundreds of people dying of the disease on average daily, rather than thousands.

March 20, 2022

Vaccine makers seek OK for 4th shot as fears rise about another surge

by Patrick A. Malone

Moderna and Pfizer have given a boost to the idea that Americans should get another dose of coronavirus vaccines.

Pfizer is seeking federal approval for another dose for patients 65 and older and Moderna is calling for another shot for all adults, notably those who already have gotten three inoculations of its vaccine.

The drug makers say their vaccines wane in potency to protect people over time. They have, at the same time, proven to be remarkably safe and effective in keeping giant numbers of patients around the globe from getting sick, falling so ill they must be hospitalized, or even from dying of the coronavirus and its prevalent variants.

March 15, 2022

The pandemic may be quieting, but its politics are not.

by Patrick A. Malone

While the coronavirus pandemic keeps dimming into one of its quieter phases in some time, the political jostling over how best to battle the disease isn’t lessening.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans made this clear with their inability to provide $15.6 billion request by the Biden Administration to pay for coronavirus vaccines (especially promised, global supplies), testing programs for the uninsured, and prescription therapies (monoclonal antibodies) found to be safe and effective in preventing early-stage infections from becoming serious enough to require hospitalization.

The administration said the federal government spent sums allocated by Congress with alacrity since the end of last year or so in battling the Omicron variant surge, which sent coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths to scary highs for months.