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Covid vaccines: Paediatricians on frontlines of child jab plan – BBC News

Published

3 years ago

October 25, 2021

Paediatric doctors could soon find themselves on the front lines of a US government plan to get some 28 million school-aged children in line for their coronavirus jabs.

Advisory boards to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will meet in the coming days to discuss authorising the Pfizer vaccine for children between five and 11 years old.

Data from the company’s clinical trials found that a paediatric dose of the vaccine – one third of that given to adults and adolescents – was safe and 90% effective.

If health officials approve the jab, 15 million doses will go out to paediatric offices, children’s hospitals and pharmacies around the country.

When could jabs for young children be approved?

The Pfizer vaccine is already approved for American adults and adolescents, but it has not yet been approved for most school-aged children.

Among those between five and 11 years old, there have been about 1.8 million cases confirmed in the US, according to the CDC. Fewer than two hundred have died, and most of those had underlying medical conditions.

Some medical experts say that, given the persistence of the Delta variant and the return to in-person schooling, vaccinating children is a crucial next step in fighting the pandemic.

“Parents need to understand the urgency of vaccination because the pandemic is not over,” said Dr James Versalovic, pathologist in chief at Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH).

Dr Versalovic estimates at least 1,500 children have been diagnosed since the beginning of the pandemic with the virus at TCH, the largest children’s hospital in the US. “No age group has been spared,” he said.

On Tuesday, an independent advisory committee to the FDA will vote on whether to recommend an emergency use authorisation for the Pfizer jab for children between five and 11 years old.

The CDC will follow suit on 2 November.

What kind of opposition does it face?

Vaccine hesitancy remains a challenge for US medical authorities. Uptake in the adult population has stalled below 60% over the past several months.

Only a third of parents in a poll last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they would get their children vaccinated “right away”. Another third said they would like to “wait and see”.

Some parents have expressed concern about hundreds of cases of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, that have been reported predominantly in young adults who took the vaccine, mostly after the second jab.

Heart inflammation link to Pfizer and Moderna jabs

Dr Liz Mumper, chief executive of the Rimland Center for Integrative Medicine, thinks “children should not be given treatments they do not need”, pointing to their low risk of contracting Covid and to the lack of long-term data on Covid vaccines.

“I am opposed to rolling these vaccines out to all children in a one size fits all model,” she said. “The vast majority of children already have mild cases.”

In an interview with the BBC World News America programme, an FDA advisory board member acknowledged it would be a tough decision to make.

“It’ll be somewhat hard. We’ll be looking at data on several thousand children and then making decisions for millions of children,” said Dr Paul Offit.

What would a rollout look like?

The federal government has indicated that, once the vaccine is approved, it will ship paediatric doses to states almost immediately.

Last week, it announced plans to distribute the jabs via more than 25,000 paediatric offices and 100 children’s hospitals, as well as through pharmacies, school-based clinics and community health centres.

The plan is designed to take into account that, for this age group, everything from dosing to counselling support from clinicians to the post-jab waiting period looks different than for other age groups, and parents will need a trusted voice in the room.

“It’s one thing to have Dr Fauci on the national news say you should get your kid vaccinated, but it’s another thing for a trusted physician in the community to have that direct conversation with families,” says Amy Wimpey Knight, president of the Children’s Hospital Association.

Mass vaccination sites are not good settings for jabbing young children, Ms Knight tells the BBC, so state and local health officials will need to quickly link up with schools, community centres and doctors’ offices instead.

“All plans are local. That’s what we learned the first time,” she says.

President Biden speaks to students in a New Jersey classroom

Do doctors support the plan?

Patients at Texas Children’s Hospital participated in Pfizer’s clinical trials for children. Any side effects were “easily treatable and monitored”, said Dr Versalovic.

“We are fully confident in the paediatric Covid vaccines. It’s been tailored to children,” he said, referring to the reduced dosage.

For a large provider like TCH, ensuring adequate supply at multiple care locations will be of primary concern, he said.

At smaller paediatric practices, physicians are a bit more circumspect.

Dr Robert Dracker, medical director of Summerwood Pediatrics in upstate New York, warned that a vaccine rollout for kids will collide with other realities: the onset of flu season, the mental health crisis of school children, and staffing shortages.

“Paediatricians’ offices have been struggling terribly over the last few years,” he said.

Dr Dracker says state health officials have set out guidelines and plan to dispense 300-dose allotments to his office. But he is frustrated by the lack of co-ordination.

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“We have to try and contact all of our parents to find out how many of them might want their child vaccinated, and then set up separate clinic times,” he explained.

“Instead of dictating what we have to do, [government officials] really need to listen to the input of practising physicians,” he said.

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Japan’s SoftBank returns to profit after gains at Vision Fund and other investments

Published

13 hours ago

November 12, 2024

Anne Joseph

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.

Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.

Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).

SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.

The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.

WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.

SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.

SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.

SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.

The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.

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Business

Trump campaign promises unlikely to harm entrepreneurship: Shopify CFO

Published

14 hours ago

November 12, 2024

Anne Joseph

Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.

“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.

“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”

Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.

On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.

If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.

These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.

If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.

However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.

He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.

“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.

Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.

The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.

Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.

Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.

Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.

Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.

Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”

In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.

“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)

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RioCan cuts nearly 10 per cent staff in efficiency push as condo market slows

Published

14 hours ago

November 12, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.

The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.

The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.

RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.

The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.

RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:REI.UN)

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