The Defender’s COVID NewsWatch provides a roundup of the latest headlines related to the SARS CoV-2 virus, including its origins and COVID vaccines.

The Tennessee Department of Health will halt all adolescent vaccine outreach – not just for coronavirus, but all diseases – amid pressure from Republican state lawmakers, according to an internal report and agency emails obtained by the Tennessean. If the health department must issue any information about vaccines, staff are instructed to strip the agency logo off the documents.

The health department will also stop all COVID-19 vaccine events on school property, despite holding at least one such event this month. The decisions to end vaccine outreach and school events come directly from Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey, the internal report states.

Woman Who Experienced ‘Life-Altering’ Injuries After COVID Vaccine Teams Up With U.S. Senators to Demand Answers

The Defender reported:

A Utah woman and two U.S. senators are teaming up to get answers from federal health agencies about life-altering injuries people have experienced after receiving a COVID vaccine.

Brianne Dressen is a preschool teacher from Utah who was injured after participating in AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine clinical trial in November 2020. She has accumulated more than $250,000 in medical bills as a result of injuries she believes were caused by the vaccine.

Dressen said within one hour of being vaccinated she had tingling down her arm. By the time she got home her vision was blurry and doubled. Her sensitivity became so severe that she had to wear earmuffs and sunglasses all the time.

FDA Could Make Decision on COVID Vaccine for 6-Month-Olds by End of Year

Newsweek reported:

Officials could have data on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines on children as young as 6-months-old by the end of the year, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci. However, it will be up to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to recommend whether they should be inoculated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that children 12 and older get vaccinated against COVID-19, as studies show it can prevent infection. While children are far less likely than adults to become seriously ill from the new coronavirus, some have died of the virus or passed it along to at-risk family members, driving a need for them to be protected, as well.

On Tuesday, Fauci told MSNBC‘s Andrea Mitchell that the federal government and pharmaceutical companies are doing age de-escalation studies. The purpose is to identify how safe and effective vaccines are in children in several age groups — 12- to 9-years-old, 9- to 6-years-old, 6- to 2-years-old, and 2-years-old to 6-months-old.

R.I. Approves Moderna COVID Vaccine for Teens Ahead of FDA Authorization

Boston Globe via MSN reported:

Rhode Island’s Vaccine Advisory Subcommittee on Tuesday morning approved a decision to start administering the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to teenagers as young as 12 years old ahead of federal approval.

The committee also said the state will continue to administer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which the US Food and Drug Administration on Monday warned can lead to an increased risk of a rare neurological condition known as Guillain–Barré syndrome.

Moderna recently applied for emergency use authorization with the FDA to start administering their COVID-19 vaccine to young teenagers. At this time, Pfizer’s vaccine is the only one authorized for use in adolescents as young as 12.

High School Students Studying Remotely Because of COVID Suffered Socially, Emotionally, and Academically

SciTech Daily reported:

New research finds that high school students who attended school remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic suffered socially, emotionally, and academically compared with those who attended in person.

The study was published today in Educational Researcher (ER) by researchers Angela L. Duckworth, Tim Kautz, Amy Defnet, Emma Satlof-Bedrick, Sean Talamas, Benjamin Lira, and Laurence Steinberg. ER is a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.

“Many news stories have reported on individual stories of teenagers who have suffered from anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges during the pandemic,” said lead author Duckworth, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder and CEO of Character Lab. “This study gives some of the first empirical evidence of how learning remotely has affected adolescent well-being.”

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