Author Archives: jbakerjrblog

A Monday the FDA provided final approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. Dr. Janet Woodcock (acting FDA Director) noted that in the FDA’s “efforts to move as quickly as possible” in approving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine did not “sacrifice scientific standards, or the integrity of our process.” Maybe the most noteworthy part of the announcement was thatContinue reading “The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is approved but the media second guessing continues.”

The United States finds itself in yet another wave of COVID-19 infection, this time caused by a Delta viral variant that is more infectious. I have previously explained how the Delta variant has mutated to become more infectious, but that really isn’t the issue at this point.  The real issue is how we got here,Continue reading “The Delta wave. How we got here, how we exit and how we prevent it from happening again.”

On a day when the New York Times published an article on “vaccine breakthrough COVID-19 cases based on preliminary data,” several avid readers have sent me posts from other countries that inaccurately denigrate the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. Maybe it should make us feel better that negative vaccine stories are not restricted to our country.Continue reading “Misleading reports of COVID-19 vaccine “failures” from around the world.”

The track record of the FDA and CDC during the COVID-19 pandemic has been spotty at best. With new leadership at the CDC and the opportunity to advance effective COVID-19 treatments and vaccines at the FDA, we all had hoped that the performance of both these agencies would improve. Unfortunately, the recent performance of bothContinue reading “The FDA and CDC are failing our country.”

Please listen to a new podcast I have done with Richard Helppie about current issues on the pandemic. It provides 50 minutes of detailed information and insights.

There has been much argument about the origin of the virus that causes COVID-19. Concerns have focused on the potential that this virus was engineered by scientists in China or was in some way an accidental release of natural virus by the Wuhan Institute laboratory. The initial source of SARS-CoV-2 has yet to be identified,Continue reading “Humans are engineering the COVID 19 virus to be more infectious and overcome vaccines, but not in the way our Congress is fighting over.”

Yesterday, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, Israel’s Director of Public Health Services, was interviewed on the CBS program Face the Nation. She was very impressive as she was the only guest who spoke directly from real world data, specifically from Israel’s COVID vaccination experience. She said several important things and reinforced some of the comments I made in myContinue reading “Israel’s Director of Public Health Services confirms vaccinated individuals unlikely to spread COVID-19 when infected.”

First, everyone needs to get a COVID vaccine. Unvaccinated people are at great risk for contracting COVID-19 and getting sick because the Delta variant appears to be more infectious. An unvaccinated person who gets COVID-19 Delta variant will likely spread it to many people. Essentially, each unvaccinated individual infected with the Delta variant coronavirus isContinue reading “The CDC’s new mask guidance is based on confusing information that has been misrepresented in the press.”

Among the many reports of positive COVID tests in Olympic athletes, one of the most confusing was in the golfer John Rahm. He had been found to be infected with COVID on June 5th and forced to withdraw from the Memorial Golf Tournament in Ohio. Despite this, two weeks later he tested negative for theContinue reading “Why was John Rahm excluded from the Olympics?”

Recently, the news has been flooded with reports of COVID-19 “breakthrough infections.” These are COVID-19 infections that occur in properly immunized individuals who have had both doses of one of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Much has been made of an article from Israel documenting “breakthrough infections” which has undermined confidence that the vaccine could protectContinue reading “What does the term “breakthrough infection” really mean with the COVID-19 vaccines?”