Oklahoma seeking to return $2 million worth of hydroxychloroquine
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma attorney general’s office is attempting to return $2 million worth of a malaria drug once touted by former President Donald Trump as an effective treatment for COVID-19, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Alex Gerszewski, a spokesman for Attorney General Mike Hunter, said Hunter is attempting to negotiate a return of the 1.2 million hydroxychloroquine pills Oklahoma acquired in April from a California-based supplier, FFF Enterprises. He said the office was acting on a request from the Oklahoma State Department of Health, which authorized the purchase.
A spokeswoman for FFF Enterprises didn’t immediately return a message Wednesday seeking comment.
The attempt by Oklahoma to return the hydroxychloroquine was first reported by the online news publication The Frontier.
Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt defended the purchase last year, saying the drug was showing some promise as a treatment in early March and he didn’t want to miss an opportunity to acquire it.
“I was being proactive to try and protect Oklahomans,” Stitt said at the time.
The drug has since been shown to have little or no effect on severe cases of Covid-19, and a former state health official chalked up Oklahoma’s purchase to something that happens in “the fog of war.”
While governments in at least 20 other states obtained more than 30 million doses of the drug through donations from the federal reserve or private companies, Oklahoma and Utah bought them from private pharmaceutical companies.
Then-Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, initially defended the state’s $800,000 purchase of 20,000 packets of hydroxychloroquine compounded with zinc, but later canceled an additional plan to spend $8 million more to buy 200,000 more treatments. The state then managed to secure a refund on the $800,000 no-bid contract it signed with a local pharmacy company that had been promoting the drugs.
The CEO of the pharmacy company has since pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor for mislabeling the drug imported from China. Dan Richards, the operator of Meds In Motion, acknowledged receiving large amounts of the drug from an unregistered manufacturer in China incorrectly labeled as an herbal supplement.
His lawyer has said he trying to help procure as much of the product as possible because at the time it seemed like a promising treatment for the coronavirus.
Cannes Film Festival delayed until July
The famed Cannes Film Festival, set for May following its coronavirus cancellation last year, will be delayed again, organizers said Wednesday.
Initially scheduled for May 11-22, the current "global health situation" has forced officials to redraw plans with hopes to stage it between July 6 and 17.
The annual winter Sundance Film Festival went off last year in Utah, as one of America's last, mass cultural events before the coronavirus shutdown. This year's Sundance is scheduled to begin on Thursday, as a largely virtual event.
Auschwitz survivors mark liberation anniversary online amid pandemic
WARSAW, Poland — A Jewish prayer for the souls of the people murdered in the Holocaust echoed Wednesday over where the Warsaw ghetto stood during World War II as a world paused by the coronavirus pandemic observed the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Most International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations were being held online this year due to the virus, including the annual ceremony at the site of the former Auschwitz death camp, where Nazi German forces killed 1.1 million people in occupied Poland. The memorial site is closed to visitors because of the pandemic.
In one of the few live events, mourners gathered in Poland's capital to pay their respects at a memorial in the former Warsaw ghetto, the largest of all the ghettos where European Jews were held in cruel and deadly conditions before being sent to die in mass extermination camps.
Biden to reopen Obamacare enrollment for those affected by Covid
President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday to re-open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act markets for people who need medical care because of the pandemic, Heather Boushey, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, confirmed.
Boushey said the move was in the works in an interview with MSNBC's Hallie Jackson on Wednesday, adding, "I cannot stress how important this is."
"Opening this up for Americans right now in the middle of a health crisis is a way to ensure more people can get access to the health insurance they need," she said. "People need access to health care."
The Associated Press first reported the expected action. Former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly tried to repeal "Obamacare," had resisted calls to allow such a special enrollment period.
It's unclear when Biden's order would take effect. The AP reported the details were still being hashed out.
Cuomo: If supply weren't an issue, all of New York state could be vaccinated in a month
With an adequate supply of Covid-19 vaccines, everyone in New York state could be vaccinated within one month, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.
"That's the real shame," Cuomo told MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle. "One month, we could get the state done. We have 3,000 providers who are now online. We have mass distribution sites that could do hundreds of thousands [of doses]. This is purely a supply issue."
Speaking a day after President Joe Biden announced his administration is working to buy 200 million more doses of Covid-19 vaccines — enough to inoculate nearly everyone in the United States by the end of the summer — Cuomo slammed the Trump administration for not buying more earlier.
"What was shocking about President Biden's announcement yesterday was that the United States government hadn't even ordered enough medicine. How do you treat a pandemic? First, order the medicine necessary," he said.
The purchase from the Biden administration comes in addition to the 400 million doses pharmaceutical companies have already promised to the U.S., for a total of 600 million doses — enough for 2 doses for 300 million Americans.
"The president said honestly, which is always refreshing, it's going to take six months to get that number of doses," Cuomo said. "I wish the previous administration had done that."
White House task force introduces plan to increase number of vaccinators
White House officials announced on Wednesday a plan to speed up the administration of vaccines and avoid bottlenecks from resource constraints.
Jeff Zients, head of the President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 task force, said the Department of Health and Human Services will introduce changes to the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) to allow retired doctors and nurses to administer shots and to enable licensed doctors and nurses to help out with vaccinations across state lines.
The PREP Act is designed to provide immunity from liability, but amendments are often introduced to address public health emergencies and enforce countermeasures to fight infectious diseases.
Peru sees second Covid wave, orders total lockdown of capital and 9 other regions
LIMA, Peru - President Francisco Sagasti of Peru on Tuesday night announced a total lockdown of the capital and nine other regions following a significant increase in Covid-19 cases, which he said had pushed hospitals close to collapse.
Sagasti said the new measures covering central Peru would remain in effect until at least Feb. 14. They include instructions to work from home, the closure of all nonessential shops, the suspension of interregional land and air travel, and the extension of a ban on flights coming from Europe to flights from Brazil in a bid to curb new, more contagious strains of the virus.
On Tuesday, Peru reported 4,444 new cases of the coronavirus, taking its total to 1,107,239, and 40,107 deaths. According to Reuters data here, Peru's cases are at 57 percent of an Aug. 22 peak, when more than 9,000 new cases were confirmed.
Sagasti said Covid-19 vaccines were the way out of the crisis and pledged to be among the first to receive the shot.
Moderna confirms talks with federal government to deliver another 100 million doses
Moderna confirmed Wednesday it was in discussions with the federal government to deliver another 100 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine later this year.
“To date, the U.S. government has agreed to purchase 200 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine,” the drugmaker said in a statement. “This new purchase would bring the U.S. government’s confirmed order commitment to 300 million doses.”
President Joe Biden revealed Tuesday the government was working to buy 200 million more vaccine doses, which would be enough to inoculate every American by the end of the summer.
Biden to sit out Covid briefing as part of a new plan to talk to Americans
WASHINGTON — When the Biden administration holds its first coronavirus briefing Wednesday, there will be no cameo from the president, no speakers behind the White House podium jousting with reporters, and no data coming from outside the federal agencies involved in the pandemic response.
And in a sign of the awareness of the risks of putting people in a room together, the briefing won't even be held in person.
It will be a different scene from the coronavirus news briefings of the Trump administration, which often became freewheeling televised spectacles with the president jockeying with journalists. It's one of the clearest signs yet of how President Joe Biden is taking a vastly different approach when it comes to talking to the American people.
From the start of the pandemic, public health officials have been making the case that combating the virus requires a communal effort.
Biden and his pandemic advisers argue that changing the way information gets to the public will be one of the primary ways to turn around the trajectory of the pandemic.