The President's Daily Brief - June 28th, 2022. The FDA Approves COVID-19 Vaccines in Children Over 6 Months Old. China Commits to COVID Zero for 5 More Years

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

It’s June 28th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ First up, there’s a major new study out of Israel this morning on kids and COVID. Specifically whether kids get natural immunity once they’ve been infected, and how that stacks up to the vaccines. I’ve got the answers, coming up. As always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. First, a Chinese Government Official announced yesterday that his country would continue its Zero COVID policy for another five years. That’s a major development that could have major implications // for our economy. I’ll explain. Finally, an update on the Natural Gas Wars in Europe. Germany has a new plan to save its economy: they’re going to steal a Russian pipeline. Plus, some breaking news from the border. A heartbreaking discovery that only underlines how broken our border has become. All up next on the President's Daily Brief. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's June 28. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. The brief you're about to hear is in the same spirit of the actual President's Daily Brief, which is a top secret summary of the most critical events in the past 24 hours, all delivered to the president each day by the nation's spymasters. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I am your spy and this is your brief. Here's what we're going to be talking about this morning. First up, there's a major new study out of Israel this morning on kids and COVID, specifically whether kids get natural immunity once they've been infected and how that stacks up to the vaccines. I've got the answers coming up. As always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. First, a Chinese government official announced yesterday that his country would continue its zero COVID policy for another five years. That's a

major development that could have major implications for our economy. I'll explain. Finally, an update on the natural gas wars in Europe. Germany has a new plan to save its economy. They're going to steal a Russian pipeline. Plus, some breaking news from the border, a heartbreaking discovery that only underlines how broken our border has become. All up next on the president's daily brief. Exema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebbglis. A once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month-month-longer dosing phase, about four and ten people taking ebbglis, achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.

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First of this morning on the PDB, there's a landmark study out on kids and COVID from researchers in Israel. And the results may help you decide. when or whether to vaccinate your children. And that's because late last week, the FDA and CDC gave a green light to COVID vaccines for kids as young as six months old. Now, before we dive into what the Israelis found, let's recap what we know about kids and their risk of hospitalization or death from COVID. So thankfully, all good news here to report. According to the CDC, about two kids out of 100,000 infected will end up in a hospital. And of those two two,

to kids, they generally suffer from obesity or other very serious ailments. And as for the death rate, it's about 0.001% dramatically lower than with adults. Now, all of that data, all that risk, as minimal as it is, is based on kids without vaccines, because up until late last week, they weren't authorized to get them. But in the meantime, most of America's kids have actually already gotten, COVID. According to the CDC, 75% of children and teens in this country have already had COVID, and that's as of February, so we can assume that the actual number is far higher now. So the big question for parents is this. If your child has already had COVID, did that infection

provide them any benefit, any natural immunity? And if so, how does that stack up against immunity or protection provided by vaccines. Well, that is where this new study from Israel comes in. Researchers at Maccabi Healthcare, which is a top-tier institution in the Israeli medical system, these folks scrutinized the medical records and antibody levels of 300,000 unvaccinated kids all over the age of five for 18 months. And that, by the way, makes this study the largest conducted ever on unvaccinated children and teens. So here's what they found. Those kids who had been previously infected with

COVID, they in fact had natural immunity or detectable antibodies to COVID in their bloodstreams. Those antibodies will provide them protection either from or during future infections. Of equal or greater importance, the strength of that immunity sat between 80 and 89% for at least 18 months. and that's very good news. But let's dive even further into those numbers. The effectiveness of that natural immunity ranged from 89% for the first six months post-infection. Then it dipped a bit to 82% for months 9 to 12 post-infection. And then the numbers stabilized around 80% for the remainder of the research, which was 18 months.

Also interesting, children aged 5 to 11, actually showed no significant decline in protection over those 18 months. Kids aged 12 to 18 showed slightly lower protection, but still strong natural immunity levels. The lead doctor involved in this research, a Dr. Tal Patelon said, quote, naturally acquired immunity in children and adolescents was found to be robust and long-lasting, which aligns with what we have witnessed in our day-to-day clinical practice. end quote. Now, one caveat here. This study looked at natural immunity during the Delta variant wave. The researchers continued to study these kids to see whether their natural immunity dips when going

up against the Omicron variant. But even still, the studies focus on the Delta variant is actually a really good thing, and here's why. Late last week, the FDA and CDC cleared Moderna's COVID vaccine for children. And that vaccine was studied against the Delta variant. variant. And according to Moderna's data, its vaccine was 77% effective in kids 6 to 11. In other words, we can compare apples to apples here. We can compare immunity to the same variant, Delta, in the same age group of kids. And to repeat what we now know, natural immunity came in at 89% effective for six months. Vaccine induced immunity with Moderna came in at 77%. with studies still ongoing to see how long that lasts.

And if it's similar to adult vaccines, those antibody levels will drop off dramatically after about four to eight weeks. So let's recap this brief and then talk about what we might do with the data. First, parents should take great comfort knowing that COVID and children is virtually a non-risk. The CDC says that out of 100,000 kids who get it, all unvaccinated, two will end up. up in a hospital. And those kids tend to be obese or very sick with other conditions. Second, most of America's kids have already had COVID. Again, CDC data say at least 75% of kids, and that was as of last February. Finally, the study out of Israel says that those kids who have had COVID, well, they have robust and long-lasting natural immunity. That's a quote. And when you compare

that natural immunity against vaccine-induced immunity? Well, Mother Nature is actually stronger and longer-lasting. At least that's what this study has found. Now, this brief isn't intended to suggest that you should or shouldn't vaccinate your kiddos against COVID. That is quite clearly and obviously your call in consultation, of course, with doctors based on the health of your child. But now those consultations can be better informed when you walk into that doctor's office with this latest data from the CDC on COVID-risk in kids, plus this landmark study out of Israel. Regardless, good luck.

Coming up, a closer look at what's on my radar. Hey, honey, it's mom. Did you know if we switch to Verizon we can get four phones for $0, plus four lines for $25 a line? Call me back. Me again. That's just $100 a month for four lines on unlimited welcome, plus four phones, no trade in needed.

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And that set off alarm bells within China and well beyond, because the implications of sticking with that policy are absolutely massive. So let me explain why. China is the only major country on the planet that's still sticking with a zero COVID policy. And that means that every time a single case is discovered. Entire cities get locked down. And that means factories inside those frozen zones get partially or totally shut down too. And that's a pretty big deal when those factories are in China because like it or not, China is the factory to the world. So reduced factory production means less supply of goods. And when you have fewer goods, that generally means prices go higher. Inflation goes up. And that's a bad deal for America right now, obviously.

And that takes us to yesterday's big news. The Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing released a statement saying that the zero COVID policy would last for at least another five years. Well, up until now, there had been no confirmation of how much longer China would stick with that policy. So the news spread like wildfire. Within hours, it was the talk of China's social media.

People inside communist China were very upset that they had to put up with this silliness for another five years. and folks within the business community were burning up the phones trying to get clarification. Well, a few hours later after this notice was put out, there was an edit. They removed the reference to the five years, but the rest of the notice remains. Well, there's a lot of speculation this morning about what the goal was with this notice, whether it was a bureaucratic slip-up or a trial balloon, which is a way of saying that Beijing purposely put out this five-year information,

to see how people would react. Regardless, it should absolutely be an alarm bell for American businesses operating in China because they now have very good reason to believe that their supply chains, well, they're probably going to be shut down at a moment's notice for years to come. And it's another wake-up call to America's president that our country's factory, which is China, sadly, well, they can tank our economy to a single COVID case, cutting off our supplies and driving up inflation.

Regardless, I'll be watching this story very closely because of how profoundly it could impact you and your family. Finally, this morning, an update on the natural gas wars in Europe, and it has to do with the Germans stealing a Russian pipeline. But before we get into the details, a quick recap of the natural gas wars. Russia is cutting off natural gas supplies to Europe, which is one of our greatest trade partners, upwards of a trillion. million annually. And if Europe doesn't have natural gas, they can't run their factories, nor can

they heat their homes starting this fall. And that will probably lead to social unrest, riots, and sadly, a lot of deaths. Now, Germany is perhaps the most vulnerable of all European nations in this natural gas war, and that's because they have the biggest economy in Europe and they are the most reliant on Russian natural gas. Well, late last week, they announced a plan to address that crisis, or should I say, the plan leaked to the German magazine Der Spiegel. And the plan is this. There's a very big pipeline that's currently sitting completely empty. It's called Nord Stream 2. And it was built very recently by the Russians to bring Russian gas into Germany. But because of the war in Ukraine, it never got the chance to operate. Well, the German

government is now quietly planning to seize that pipeline, at least the part that's on their territory near the Baltic Sea. And they're going to use that endpoint to receive natural gas from other suppliers, those LNG ships that I briefed you on previously. Now, what's better here is there are a lot of smaller pipelines that connect to this much bigger one. And those feeder pipelines go all throughout Germany. So they'd be able to distribute fresh natural gas pretty quickly, especially to eastern and southern Germany, where they are especially dependent on Russian gas. As you can imagine, Moscow is not happy about this planned expropriation of their pipeline. So they are saying this morning that their lawyers are going to get involved,

which is kind of rich, isn't it, given that the Russians invaded Ukraine and are stealing wheat and sunflower seeds by the tankerful. Anyway, it's a creative response by the Germans. Let's see if it works or if the Russians find a way to sabotage it, one way or the other. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. One final bit of breaking news this morning. Very late yesterday, San Antonio officials found a tractor trailer abandoned near Loughlin Air Force Base. Inside that trailer, and within several hundred feet of it,

were bodies of at least 46 illegal migrants being smuggled. into the U.S. It is one of the worst death tolls that we have ever seen. And if I were briefing the president this morning, I would state the obvious. This tragedy underlines how broken and lawless our southern border has become. I'll be watching this story throughout the day and we'll provide you with updates as I learned. And on that very heavy note, we close out the show reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from

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