Studies show paxlovide may interact badly with some heart drugs, and White House renews COVID emergency by January 11

“Co-administration of NMVr (paxolide) with drugs commonly used for the management of cardiovascular conditions can potentially cause significant drug-drug interactions and lead to serious adverse effects,” the authors wrote. “It is crucial to be aware of such interactions and take appropriate measures to avoid them.”

The news comes just days after the White House renewed its push To encourage Americans over 50 to take Paxlovide or use monoclonal antibodies if they test positive and are at risk of severe disease.

White House Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told the New York Times The drug’s overuse could reduce the daily average number of deaths from around 400 to about 50 per day.

“I think almost everyone benefits from paxlovid,” Jha said. “For some people, the benefit is small. For others, the benefits are enormous.”

Yet a smaller proportion of 80-year-olds with Covid in the United States are receiving it than 45-year-olds, Jha said, citing data he has seen.

On Thursday, the White House extended its Covid public health emergency until January 11 as it prepares for an expected surge in cases during the colder months. The Associated Press reported.

The public health emergency, first declared in January 2020 and renewed every 90 days since then, has dramatically changed how health services are delivered.

The announcement enabled the free as well as emergency approval of the Covid vaccine experimental and treatment. It extended Medicaid coverage to millions of people, many of whom would risk losing that coverage once the emergency ends. It temporarily opened telehealth access to Medicare recipients, enabling doctors to collect the same rate for those visits and encouraging health networks to adopt telehealth technology.

Since earlier this year, Republicans have pressed the administration to end the public health emergency.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has called on Congress to provide billions more in aid to pay for vaccines and testing. Amid Republican opposition to that request, the federal government last month stopped sending free Covid tests by mail, saying funding for that effort had run out.

Separately, the head of the World Health Organization urged countries to continue to monitor, monitor and track Covid and ensure poor countries have access to vaccines, diagnostics and treatment, reiterating that the epidemic is far from over.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said most countries have no measures in place to limit the spread of the virus, although cases are rising again in places including Europe.

“Most countries have greatly reduced surveillance, while testing and sequencing rates are also very low,” Tedros said in opening remarks to the IHR Emergency Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic on Thursday.

“This,” the WHO leader said, “is blinding us to the evolution of the virus and the impact of current and future variants.”

Known cases of Covid in the US continue to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true number is likely to be higher given how many people are testing at home overall, where data is not being collected.

The daily average for new cases stood at 38,530 on Thursday, according to A New York Times tracker, down 19% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in six states — Nevada, New Mexico, Kansas, Maine, Wisconsin and Vermont — and flat in Wyoming. They are falling everywhere else.

The daily average for hospitalizations fell 7% to 26,665, while the daily average for deaths fell 7% to 377.

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s Daily Roundup has been curating and reporting on all the latest developments each weekday since the start of the coronavirus pandemic

Other COVID-19 news you should know:

• Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach called on German states to reintroduce face-mask requirements for indoor spaces due to high COVID case numbers, Local.de reported. Lauterbach was launching his ministry’s new Covid campaign on Friday. “The direction we are going is not good,” he told a press conference in Berlin, adding that it is better to take small steps now than to be forced to take drastic measures later.

• Health officials in Washington and Oregon said Thursday that after months of relatively low case levels, a fall and winter wave of Covid-19 is likely to move toward the Pacific Northwest. AP reported. King County (Wash.) Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin said during a news briefing that the trend of the virus in Europe paints a concerning picture of what the United States will soon see, The Seattle Times Report.

• Kevin SpaceyA trial on sexual-misconduct charges will continue without a lawyer who tested positive for Covid on Thursday. Yahoo News reported. The “American Beauty” and “House of Cards” star is facing a $40 million civil lawsuit in Manhattan federal court alleging she victimized actor Anthony Rapp in 1986 when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. Jennifer Keller’s diagnosis comes after she spent nearly five hours questioning Rapp on the witness stand over two days — several feet from the jury box without wearing a mask.

• A man who presented himself as an Orthodox Christian monk and an attorney with whom he fraudulently obtained $3.5 million in federal pandemic relief funds for nonprofit religious organizations and the businesses they controlled and spent some of it to fund a “luxurious lifestyle.” Federal prosecutors said Thursday. Brian Andrew Bushell, 47, and Tracy MA Stockton, 64, were charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit illegal financial transactions, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston said in a statement. As reported by AP.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide reached 623.9 million on Monday, while the death toll topped 6.56 million. According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The United States leads the world with 96.9 million cases and 1,064,821 deaths.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tracker shows that 226.2 million people living in the United States, equal to 68.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shot. Only 110.8 million had a booster, equal to 49% of the vaccinated population, and 25.6 million of those eligible for a second booster had one, equal to 39% of those who received the first booster.

About 14.8 million people received a shot of the new bivalent booster that targets the new Omicron subvariant.