WASHINGTON – The music was thumping, the pink flags were flying, and despite the low turnout, the Free Britney campaign was back in the nations capitol (baby, one more time).
Fewer than two dozen protesters gathered outside the White House Saturday for their third rally this year in support of ending the 13-year legal conservatorship of pop superstar Britney Spears.
The movement, which has been buoyed by social media furor and viral documentaries, marked a major success last month when a Los Angeles judge ruled that Spears’s father, Jamie Spears, would be suspended as the conservator of her estate. Though a November hearing could end the conservatorship entirely for the pop star, the legions who mobilized on her behalf are aware that the 39-year-old icon is far from the only one stuck in an allegedly toxic arrangement.
“Jamie is only part of the problem,” said Cassandra Dumas, who has co-organized the “Free Britney” rallies in the District of Columbia. “If we want meaningful change in this country to happen, we need to look at all the bad actors associated. There is a system in place that allows this kind of corruption to happen.”
Dumas’s dedication to superstar may date back to the VHS recordings of her preteen self bopping to the opening line of “Lucky.” But the 32-year-old software professional and Air Force veteran didn’t invest hours in permit applications because she wants to see Spears onstage again.
She and the founders of the group Free Britney America are pushing for federal legislation. They say they have been involved in the conception of the Freedom and Right to Emancipate from Exploitation Act, a bipartisan bill to make conservatorships more transparent. Free Britney advocates are demanding the restructuring go even further to include criminal penalties for those found to be exploiting the system.
On Saturday, their mission was to, yet again, try to be seen as more than just a dance party. Their message to the tourists around the White House: Come for the fuchsia glitter, stay for a lesson on fiduciary abuse. And disability discrimination. And judicial accountability.
And “the tension between empowerment and paternalism,” explained Melanie Carlson, a PhD candidate whose academic research and personal experience living with Parkinson’s disease got her interested in Spears’s case.
But while Twitter threads and news articles have highlighted the systemic issues inherent in the singer’s story, Carlson worries that once Spears has been officially released from her conservatorship, the attention and momentum will fade. Looking at the modest crowd who turned up on a sunny afternoon, she could see it already had.
“I walked up and it’s like, ‘Oh, God, is this just a fad?’ ” Carlson said.
Elizabeth Harding Weinstein, left, prays with Polly Walshin during the “Free Britney” rally in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post
One by one, people with personal experience with conservatorships took to the microphone in hopes that stories of people who weren’t Grammy winners would resonate with passersby. Standing beside a cardboard cutout of a life-size gold-sequined Spears, they spoke of the aging parents they couldn’t get power of attorney over; the judges who seemed not to listen; the way they struggled to explain their plight until they could say, “It’s like what happened to Britney Spears.”
“Is it over?” asked Jonathan Martinis, a disability rights attorney involved in the case of artist Peter Max, whose dementia sparked a battle for control over his work. “Is it over with one person out of approximately 1.3 million people in guardianships and conservatorships across the country?”
The activists shouted, “No!”
The tourists navigated around them, making their way to take selfies.
But one speech seemed to get their attention. A petite brunette woman took the microphone to explain a case close to her heart.
Amira Saudi introduced herself as the creator of the Twitter account @FreeBynes, which has been raising questions about the well-being of another ’90s star.
“Amanda Bynes has been in a conservatorship since 2014,” Saudi said. Multiple groups of onlookers hovered. And for a moment, the “Free Britney” advocates got them to listen.
The latest data came as the World Health Organization warned that the vaccine alone will not be enough to lift the world out of the pandemic and called for other measures to recover from COVID-19.
Another 44,985 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 8,734,934, according to official figures released Saturday.
The coronavirus-related death toll in the country rose by 135 to a total of 139,461. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.
There are currently 8,238 patients in hospital with COVID-19.
The latest data came as the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the vaccine alone will not be enough to lift the world out of the pandemic. Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the WHO, said: “We really have to do other measures” to recover from COVID-19.
People walk on a lawn in London, Britain, Oct. 17, 2021.(Xinhua/Han Yan)
Meanwhile, Professor Stephen Reicher of the University of St Andrews warned that Britain risks “dilly-dallying into lockdown” if it does not act soon.
Speaking to Sky News, he warned that vaccines are “not quite enough” on their own, and “other protections” are needed to curb the pandemic.
Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), told the BBC that he fears another “lockdown Christmas” when asked what people can expect from the holiday if government policy does not change.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has insisted the current “high levels” of infection in Britain are “fully in line” with predictions made earlier this year. But he said the government will “keep all measures under constant review.”
The prime minister said there is “absolutely nothing to indicate” the country will enter a new lockdown this winter, although he added the government would “do whatever we have to do to protect the public.”
Speaking at a Downing Street news conference on Wednesday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid cautioned that the pandemic “is not over”. Javid has even predicted there could be as many as 100,000 cases a day heading into winter.
More than 86 percent of people aged 12 and over in Britain have had their first vaccine dose and over 79 percent have received both, according to the latest figures.
People sit and chat outside a cafe in London, Britain, on Sept. 7, 2021. (Photo by Ray Tang/Xinhua)
Alaskas case rate per 100,000 over the last week remains the highest in the nation, according to data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. state of Alaska reported six deaths and 877 new COVID-19 cases Friday as COVID-19-related hospitalizations hovered in record territory.
By Friday, there were 225 people hospitalized with the virus around Alaska, narrowly below the new record of 235 set Thursday. Health officials said that there’s not enough evidence to say cases have begun declining.
Alaska’s case rate per 100,000 over the last week remains the highest in the nation, according to data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In total, 673 resident deaths tied to the virus and 25 nonresident deaths have been reported in Alaska since January 2020, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Southeast Asia saw a decrease in new Covid-19 cases and related deaths on Saturday (October 23), collated data showed.
Asean countries reported 31,057 infections and 355 deaths on Saturday compared to 32,368 and 585 respectively on Friday.
– Malaysia Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob revealed that Kedah state’s Langkawi island will be reopened to fully vaccinated foreign tourists without mandatory quarantine under the travel bubble pilot project.
Foreign tourists must stay in Langkawi for at least three days and make insurance coverage of at least US$80,000.
– Vietnam Tourism and Health Ministries announced that fully vaccinated foreign tourists who have vaccination certificates and proof of a negative RT-PCR Covid-19 test within 72 hours can enter Phú Quốc, the country’s largest resort island.
However, the ministries haven’t revealed a list of countries that are allowed to enter the island yet.
Vietnam government has set a target of welcoming 3,000-5,000 visitors between December to March.
The U.S. military carried out an airstrike on a senior al-Qaida leader in Syria along the Turkish border in an operation that will disrupt the terrorist organizations ability to plot attacks against American interests, defense officials said.
The Pentagon disclosed the strike in a statement on Friday evening, saying it hit a leader named Abdul Hamid al-Matar. The strike was carried with an MQ-9 Reaper drone in the town of Suluk, north of Raqqa, Syria, said Army Maj. John Rigsbee, a U.S. military spokesman.
“Al-Qaida continues to present a threat to America and our allies,” Rigsbee said. “Al-Qaida uses Syria as a safe haven to rebuild, coordinate with external affiliates, and plan external operations.”
Suluk was among the town that Turkish forces advanced into in 2019, as Ankara attempted to push out Kurdish forces. U.S. troops had been in the region but withdrew at the order of President Donald Trump.
Rigsbee said that there was no initial indication that the strike caused any civilian casualties. In a brief phone interview, he said the strike had been planned for days and had nothing to do with an attack on U.S. troops on Wednesday in Tanf, where the U.S. military has maintained a garrison with about 200 troops along a highway that runs from Damascus to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. That attack was carried out with both indirect fire and unmanned aircraft, U.S. military officials said.
About 900 U.S. troops remain in Syria, including a number of Special Forces personnel, U.S. military officials have said. The majority are in northeast Syria, where Kurdish forces still have influence. U.S. officials have said the deployment is meant as a hedge against a resurgence of the Islamic State, which seized broad swaths of Syria and Iraq, prompting U.S. military intervention beginning in 2014.
A few days after the 2020 election, a group of high-profile supporters of President Donald Trump held a news conference in Nevada to allege rampant fraud in the state. Former Nevada attorney general Adam Laxalt was there, as were conservative personality Matt Schlapp and Ric Grenell, who served in Trumps administration in various capacities.
As part of the campaign’s blitz to allege as much fraud as possible, the group brought forward a woman, Jill Stokke, who alleged that she tried to vote in person before being told a mail-in ballot had already been submitted in her name. It later turned out that the state had already adjudicated the woman’s claim and that she had refused to sign an affidavit that might lead to criminal charges against the person who’d allegedly cast that mail-in ballot, a ballot that included a signature that matched her own. Reporters couldn’t ask Stokke about the claim, though, because no questions were allowed.
“You’re here to take in information,” Grenell told reporters. “Go do your job; it’s pretty easy.”
A few days later, after the election had been called for Joe Biden, Laxalt and Schlapp tried again. This time, they had a new angle: dead people voting in the election.
“Dead people voted in Clark County,” Schlapp claimed. “That is a tricky thing because obviously for these families this is a very tragic reminder of a loss that they have just recently had to go through.”
He pointed to two examples. One was Rosemarie Hartle; the other, Fred Stokes. “Miraculously,” Schlapp said, “they both voted.”
The implication was that fraud was so rampant that one couldn’t take at face value the eventually certified results of the vote in the state: Biden won by more than 33,000 votes.
The Hartle case became a media sensation. The Nevada Republican Party highlighted the case, chastising the media for not understanding that it was “finding concrete cases of voter irregularities.” Conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza promoted a local news interview with her husband, Kirk Hartle, instructing his viewers to show it to those skeptical of fraud. In the interview, Kirk Hartle appears perplexed, saying that it “made no sense to him” that his wife had cast a ballot. He described it as “sickening.”
A few days later, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson picked up the allegation. On his show, he included the deaths of Rosemarie Hartle and Stokes along with several others as he similarly argued for the existence of rampant illegal voting.
“We don’t know who did this. We wish we did, because it’s fraud,” he said. “It’s a threat to our system, and it’s being hidden by a news media totally vested in a Joe Biden presidency.”
Carlson was right that the Hartle case does appear to have been actual fraud. On Thursday, the office of Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford announced that Kirk Hartle himself was being charged with two felony counts for submitting a ballot on behalf of his wife.
Hartle, a registered Republican, is an executive for a conglomerate called the Ahern Family of Companies. One of those companies is Xtreme Manufacturing, which stepped in to provide space for a Trump rally outside Las Vegas in September 2020 in defiance of state rules limiting large crowds during the pandemic. The company was later fined.
All of this is part and parcel for Trump’s post-election fraud claims. There was never robust evidence of rampant fraud, just anecdotal examples such as the Hartle case that were used to imply widespread illegality. Sometimes, as with a woman in Georgia who was accused by Carlson of voting illegally for her dead husband, there was no fraud at all. In other cases, the incident was neither evidence of rampant illegality nor of efforts to illegally swing the election to Biden. That appears to describe the Hartle situation well.
But, of course, there’s been little effort by those involved to correct their mistakes. Carlson admitted on air that he’d been mistaken on the Georgia case. A story about his initial report on the Fox News website vaguely shrugs at the misleading story that follows: “[O]n Friday, we began to learn some of the specific dead voters reported to us as deceased are in fact alive. We initially corrected this on Friday. We regret not catching it earlier. But the truth remains: dead people voted in the election” – people such as Kirk Hartle’s wife. Others such as Trump and Schlapp have simply moved on to other allegations.
This is how it has so often gone over the past year: a claim made and amplified, with later context mostly ignored. For Trump, this is good enough; even a lingering scent of impropriety helps him wave off the whole election as suspect.
Laxalt, too, has moved on. He recently announced that he would seek the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate from Nevada. His campaign site doesn’t mention his post-election efforts to undercut the results of voting in the state, in keeping with a recent pattern of Republicans trying to navigate the barrier between Trump’s world and reality as they appeal to both Republican and moderate voters. His site does, however, mention that he’d been endorsed by Trump.
“Adam Laxalt is running for Senate in Nevada to defeat Harry Reid’s, Chuck Schumer’s, and Nancy Pelosi’s handpicked successor, and win an America First majority in the U.S. Senate,” Trump’s endorsement reads. It mentions that Laxalt is a veteran and former attorney general. “He fought valiantly against the Election Fraud, which took place in Nevada. He is strong on Secure Borders and defending America against the Radical Left. Adam has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
On the candidate’s website, the part about Laxalt’s valiant fight against “election fraud” does not appear.
Thailand’s very own Hollywood star Tony Jaa has reportedly flown off to Bulgaria to film the latest installment of the “Expendables” franchise.
In a recent Instagram post, Tatchakorn “Tony Jaa” Yeerum said: “Let’s go for Expendables 4. Thank you for all support.” His post after that showed his location as Bulgaria.
The action film also stars Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Megan Fox.
Tony Jaa, a martial artist and stunt man by profession, became a household name after starring in “Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior” (2003) and “Tom-Yum-Goong” (2005). He also played a part in many Hollywood films, including “The Fast & Furious 7” (2017) and “Monster Hunter” (2020).
Tony Jaa off to Bulgaria for Sylvester Stallone blockbuster ‘Expendables 4’
Actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer and injured a director on a film set in New Mexico on Thursday after discharging a prop firearm, officials said.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call reporting a shooting on the set of the Western “Rust,” according to a news release. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, was pronounced dead at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque after being transported via helicopter. Director Joel Souza, 48, was transported by ambulance to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe, and later released. Production has halted, according to the Associated Press.
Baldwin, 63, said in a pair of tweets sent Friday morning, “There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours. I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred and I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family. My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”
The sheriff’s office stated that its investigation remains “open and active.”
“No charges have been filed in regard to this incident,” the office said. “Witnesses continue to be interviewed by detectives.”
The incident occurred at Bonanza Creek Ranch, a popular filming location near Santa Fe. Baldwin discharged the prop firearm while in character, authorities said.
“We know they were either preparing to film a particular scene or in process of filming a scene, and that’s when Mr. Baldwin discharged the firearm,” Juan Rios, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, told The Washington Post. Rios said detectives are investigating how many prop firearms were on the set, how they were handled and what projectiles were discharged. The sheriff’s office expects to have more information early next week.
Firearm experts, writers and producers have wondered aloud how the incident on the “Rust” set occurred. While some producers insist on using prop guns with blanks to closely capture the sound and look of a real gun firing, others have been calling for them to be banished from film sets, saying that computer-generated imaging offers a safer alternative.
“There’s no reason to have guns loaded with blanks or anything on set anymore,” tweeted director Craig Zobel, whose credits include the 2020 film “The Hunt” and HBO’s “Mare of Easttown.” “Should just be fully outlawed. There’s computers now.”
A regular gun cartridge is a shell casing holding a propellant powder. When a normal gun is fired, the propellant is ignited and the bullet attached to the front of the shell casing is activated. The blanks used in prop guns generally have a material such as paper, cotton or wax attached to the front of the shell, inserted to hold in the gunpowder.
Bill Davis, a Georgia-based weapons expert who owns Tactical Edge Group and has worked on hundreds of film and television productions, told The Post that while blanks are not designed to kill, they still can if the injury is as serious as “a contact wound to the skull or a carotid artery.”
According to Davis, the safety protocols in place on nearly all sets do a great job protecting the actors and crew. He said the prop guns used on set are either in the custody of an armorer, someone who specializes in firearms on a production, or the props department.
“If you follow the rules, you’re going to have a nice, safe day,” he added.
Davis questioned whether such standard safety measures were in place for “Rust,” a film he is not working on. Weapons from the time period during which Westerns are generally set are some of the “most dangerous guns to use on set” because they do not have gas restrictors in their barrels.”
“Any gun guy who is worth their salt would have said to any actor, ‘Do not point the gun at any living thing,'” he said. “We don’t point guns at people and that’s exactly what happened here.”
Lesli Linka Glatter, president of the Directors Guild of America, said in a statement Thursday that the union was “incredibly saddened to hear of the tragic passing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, and the serious injuries sustained by DGA director Joel Souza.”
Fran Drescher, president of the Screen Actors Guild, and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, its national executive director, issued a statement Thursday saying they would “continue to work with production, the other unions and the authorities to investigate this incident and to understand how to prevent such a thing from happening again.”
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents thousands of Hollywood crew members, including Hutchins, wrote in a public message to membership that its leaders were “heartbroken and devastated” to hear of her death.
“Our entire alliance mourns this unspeakable loss with Halyna’s family, friends, and the Rust crew,” IATSE continued, sharing resources for members to report feeling unsafe on set.
“Rust” was set to film on location in October and November, according to a news release from the New Mexico Film Office. The movie follows a 13-year-old boy and his younger brother in 1880s Kansas who are left to care for themselves following their parents’ deaths. The boys go on the run with their estranged grandfather, played by Baldwin, after the 13-year-old is sentenced to death for accidentally killing a local rancher.
Hutchins chronicled her experiences on set over the past week on Instagram, posting images of the ranch’s sweeping terrain and vibrant sunsets. She also shared a photo of the cast and crew, as well as a video of her on horseback. “One of the perks of shooting a western is you get to ride horses on your day off,” she captioned the video, followed by a smiley face.
Born in Ukraine and raised on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle, Hutchins received a degree in international journalism from Kyiv National University and worked as an investigative journalist, according to her website. She eventually started producing narrative features and, in 2015, graduated from the American Film Institute Conservatory. In 2019, Hutchins was named one of American Cinematographer magazine’s Rising Stars.
In an interview with the magazine, Hutchins noted that her time at AFI helped her discover how she wanted to work as an artist: “One thing I learned is that cinematography is not something you do by yourself. It’s a group (project),” she said. “You need to develop your own vision, but the key to a successful film is communication with your director and your team.”
Stephen Lighthill, AFI’s dean of cinematography who also serves as president of the American Society of Cinematographers, issued a statement Friday describing his former student as a “bright, talented, determined cinematographer.”
“She had a big career in front of her and a supportive family to share her success with,” he said. “Her death is a reminder that production should never be dangerous, but often is, and we must all work to fix that. The American Society of Cinematographers and all her AFI family mourn her loss, and those AFI fellows who attended with Halyna are most devastated.”
Adam Egypt Mortimer, a director who worked with Hutchins on the film “Archenemy,” described her on Twitter as “a brilliant talent who was absolutely committed to art and to film.” He wrote that he was “so sad about losing Halyna. And so infuriated that this could happen on a set.”
Actor Joe Manganiello, who starred in “Archenemy,” tweeted that he was in shock. “I can’t believe this could happen in this day and age … gunfire from a prop gun could kill a crew member? What a horrible tragedy,” he continued. “My heart goes out to her family.”
Hutchins’s friend Elle Schneider, a director and fellow cinematographer, said on Twitter that she was “sick and devastated” by the news.
“Halyna was shooting the Western RUST when she died,” Schneider wrote. “Women cinematographers have historically been kept from genre film, and it seems especially cruel that one of the rising stars who was able to break through had her life cut short on the kind of project we’ve been fighting for.”
Fisher, who stars in “Rust,” shared a photo of herself embracing Hutchins and, in the Instagram caption, recalled her “intense focus and … vibrant command of the room.” The actress noted that in the cast and crew photo, which was taken and posted online in solidarity with IATSE workers, she wanted to make sure Hutchins appeared “front and center, seeing as there are so few non-male directors of photography.”
Before the fatal shooting, Baldwin posted an Instagram photo of himself in costume with what looked like a fake wound on his stomach. “Back to in person at the office. Blimey … it’s exhausting,” wrote the actor, who is also producing “Rust.” The image was deleted early Friday.
Baldwin, an established A-lister who has appeared in films ranging from “Working Girl” to “The Departed,” achieved another round of stardom by starring in Tina Fey’s NBC sitcom “30 Rock.” He earned two Emmys for the role, and another for parodying Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live.” Much of Baldwin’s prominence in recent years also comes from periodically appearing in tabloids, as well as for repeatedly quitting and returning to social media.
Actress Patricia Arquette tweeted that she is “praying he’s getting support from family and friends because this is every actors worst nightmare.”
Other prop-gun incidents have resulted in deaths on movie sets. In 1984, 26-year-old actor Jon-Erik Hexum died days after accidentally shooting himself in the head with a prop gun on the set of a TV show. He was pretending to play Russian roulette with a .44 Magnum revolver when the gun fired a blank cartridge, authorities said at the time.
In 1993, actor Brandon Lee, the 28-year-old son of actor and martial artist Bruce Lee, died after actor Michael Massee shot him in the abdomen on the set of the film “The Crow.” The prop gun was supposed to be loaded with blank and “dummy” rounds but was somehow loaded with a .44-caliber bullet, police said. A prosecutor in North Carolina, where the movie was being filmed, said the shooting was caused by the crew’s negligence, not foul play.
Lee’s sister, Shannon, tweeted on an account bearing his name that “our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on ‘Rust.'”
“No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set,” she continued. “Period.”
By The Washington Post · Jaclyn Peiser, Sonia Rao, Timothy Bella
WASHINGTON – The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine appears poised to become available to children 5 to 11 years old within weeks, after a Food and Drug Administration review found the benefits of the shot outweigh the risks in most scenarios, with the possible exception of when there are very low levels of viral transmission.
The review found that for four scenarios that were weighed, “the benefits of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine 2-dose primary series clearly outweigh the risks.” But in one, when the virus was at its lowest levels, there could be more hospitalizations related to a rare heart side effect associated with the vaccine than because of covid-19, the illness caused by the virus.
Even then, the review found, “the overall benefits of the vaccine may still outweigh the risks under this lowest incidence scenario” because of how hospitalized cases of the two conditions differ. The vaccine-related myocarditis cases have tended to resolve in a few days, unlike covid-19 infections, which can lead to death.
The review represents the first independent evaluation of company data and arrives ahead of a pivotal meeting next week at which outside experts are scheduled to debate and vote on whether the vaccine should be authorized. Extending vaccine eligibility to children younger than 12 has been a major goal of public health officials and eagerly awaited by many pediatricians and families.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech reported in a separate document posted Friday that their coronavirus vaccine is 91% effective in 5- to 11-year-olds.
The FDA analysis of the pediatric vaccines arrived on the same day another milestone was reached in the quest to immunize Americans against a virus that has killed more than 733,000 people in the United States. Booster shots of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines became available for some people Friday after federal regulators this week gave their blessing to the additional doses and declared that people who are eligible for an additional shot could get any shot as a booster regardless of which vaccine they originally received.
That leaves vaccines for younger children as the last regulatory frontier in the nation’s historic vaccination campaign.
On Tuesday, outside experts will meet and discuss the data to inform the Food and Drug Administration’s decision on one of the most momentous remaining questions for the pandemic. The authorization of a vaccine for school-aged children would open coronavirus vaccine eligibility to an estimated 28 million children in the United States and represent an important turning point in the nation’s effort to control the virus.
The vaccination campaign is anticipated to launch as early as the first week of November, after the Pfizer-BioNTech shot clears key steps.
A decision by FDA regulators is expected in the days after Tuesday’s advisory committee meeting. Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who recommend how vaccines should be used, are scheduled to meet Nov. 2 and 3.
The White House has drawn up a plan for distributing vaccine to pediatrician’s offices, pharmacies, hospitals and other sites. Federal health officials project that in the first week, 15 million doses of the two-shot regimen will be shipped.
Vaccinations are planned to be available at more than 25,000 pediatrician and primary care offices, 100 children’s hospitals and health systems, tens of thousands of pharmacies, school and community clinics, community health centers and rural health clinics. Public education campaigns will help answer questions about the vaccine.
In the company briefing document, Pfizer and BioNTech argue that authorization of a coronavirus vaccine for children in this age group “could prevent harms that include, not only interruption of education, but also hospitalization, severe illness, long-term sequelae, and death. In addition, vaccinating this population will likely reduce community transmission, including transmission to older and more medically vulnerable individuals.”
Unlike older people, most children are not at high risk of severe covid-19 infections. But at least 637 have died of the disease, according to CDC data. Pfizer’s briefing document said 143 of those deaths have been within this age group and that over the first half of this year, covid was among the 10 leading causes of death for children 5 to 14. There have been 1.8 million confirmed cases of covid-19 in the age group. With the start of the school year coinciding with the dominance of the highly transmissible delta variant, about a quarter of the coronavirus infections reported in recent weeks in the United States have been in children.
“Last year, when we had lower rates of covid in children, we kept kids at home and we refused to put them into schools, and they suffered tremendously. I’m really glad schools opened, but we are seeing high, high rates: 41 kids died last month,” said Kawsar Talaat, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who is a principal investigator for the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric trial. “If there’s a way to stop that, we should use everything we have.”
Tests of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in even younger children are following close behind, and data are expected before the end of the year – first on children between 2 and 4 years old, and then on children as young as 6 months.
The vaccine regimen for 5- to 11-year-old children is two shots, each one-third the dose given to adults and teens and administered three weeks apart. There were 2,268 children originally in Pfizer’s trial, two-thirds of whom received the real shots with the rest receiving a placebo. After regulators asked the company to increase the trial size, partly to increase its safety database, the total size of the trial was doubled to about 4,500 children.
The companies reported that the vaccine triggered an immune response in participants equivalent to the one that protected teens and young adults. They also reported the vaccine was 91% effective, with 16 cases of covid in the placebo group and three in the vaccine group. None of the cases was severe.
No cases of heart inflammation, called myocarditis, were reported in the trial. That rare side effect has been associated with the vaccine, particularly in younger males, and typically resolves after a few days.
Robert Frenck Jr., director of the Gamble Vaccine Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said that at his hospital, many cases of myocarditis have been treated with a pain reliever.
Relatively mild side effects from the vaccine were most common after the second dose and included fatigue, muscle aches, headache, chills and fever.
The vaccine is a lower dose than the shot given to adults and is planned to be shipped in cartons with 10 vials, each containing 10 doses. It will be sent with supplies for children, including smaller needles. The vaccine can be stored for up to 10 weeks at refrigeration temperatures.
Pediatricians are anticipating a variety of responses from parents and families once the vaccine becomes available. There will probably be an initial surge in demand. But vaccine hesitancy – which has left the vaccination rate in the United States lagging many other countries – may be an even bigger issue for younger children.
Talaat said she hoped pediatricians, trusted health-care providers who have often known children since birth, would help persuade families, particularly those who are in the middle – not clamoring for a vaccine, but not opposed to one either.
“The vaccine just allows us that one extra level of safety to keep our kids in school and keep them healthy and to keep classes from shutting down,” Talaat said.
By The Washington Post · Carolyn Y. Johnson, Laurie McGinley
An assistant director who handed Alec Baldwin a loaded prop gun on the set of the western “Rust” told the actor the firearm was “cold,” or unloaded, officials say.
The assistant director “did not know live rounds were in” one of the three guns set aside on a cart for filming before Baldwin fired the gun, striking cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in the chest and director Joel Souza in the shoulder, killing Hutchins and hospitalizing Souza, according to court records obtained by the Associated Press, New York Times and Santa Fe Reporter on Friday. While the warrant affidavit filed by Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office investigators offers new details about the moments immediately before and after Thursday’s shooting at Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico, the document does not answer how the live round ended up in the gun.
The fatal incident on a set of a film about the fallout of an accidental killing has rattled many – leaving lingering questions about the safety of firearms on the set.
No charges have been filed and the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office says an investigation remains “open and active.”
“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours,” Baldwin wrote on Twitter. “I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation. My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”
Hutchins, 42, was airlifted to the hospital where she died. Souza was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical and was released Friday.
Magistrate Judge John Rysanek signed off Friday on investigators’ search warrant for Baldwin’s bloodied shirt, firearms and ammunition on the set, as well as cameras that could have caught the shooting and its aftermath.
Elizabeth Harding Weinstein, left, prays with Polly Walshin during the “Free Britney” rally in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post
People walk on a lawn in London, Britain, Oct. 17, 2021.(Xinhua/Han Yan)
People sit and chat outside a cafe in London, Britain, on Sept. 7, 2021. (Photo by Ray Tang/Xinhua)
Tony Jaa off to Bulgaria for Sylvester Stallone blockbuster ‘Expendables 4’
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