Pentagon Moves to Attack COVID

The Pentagon’s Zachary Willis reports that While COVID-19 vaccinations are currently being distributed across the world to begin the process of reining in the pandemic, the threat of contracting the virus remains, and the population still waiting on vaccinations continues to be at risk of infection. However, help may be on the horizon by way of STORM CHASER, a study led in the Military Health System by the Uniformed Services University’s Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program.

STORM CHASER, which stands for Study To Optimally Reduce Morbidity in Care Homes And Sites with Enhanced Risk, seeks to find out if COVID-19 could be prevented in those who have recently been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 infection by administering an intramuscular monoclonal antibody within eight days of exposure and not yet symptomatic.

If successful, the product could be beneficial for those in high-risk circumstances, such as health care workers, those with COVID-19-positive household members, and restaurant workers. Those receiving the antibody could see immediate immunity and up to six months of protection from COVID-19 from a single dose.

Monoclonal antibody products differ from the vaccines currently being developed and administered.

“Vaccines require time to produce antibodies,” said Dr. Simon Pollett, an infectious disease physician and IDCRP lead for the STORM CHASER trial, “and thus do not offer immediate protection against COVID-19 when given after a SARS-CoV-2 exposure. The antibody product may provide very rapid protection against COVID-19 because it is given while the virus is incubating.”

The antibody therapy is administered via two shots during a single visit to study participants in their gluteal muscles. The scientists are also looking at whether viral shedding, which makes the individual with the virus contagious to others, will be reduced in those who get COVID-19 after receiving the antibody therapy.

Currently, the multinational STORM CHASER study is being conducted at multiple sites including five Defense Department facilities — Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington, William Beaumont Medical Center in Texas, Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia, and the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland. IDCRP is coordinating the study across all five DOD sites.

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Study teams at these sites are made up of active duty and/or GS/contractor physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and clinical research staff.

“Those who have recently been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and who are eligible for care in the Military Health System [including active duty service members] are potentially eligible to participate in this study at the five DOD sites,” said Navy Capt. (Dr.) Timothy Burgess, IDCRP director.

STORM CHASER is set to run for one year, with primary analyses likely occurring much earlier in 2021.\

In other COVID-19 related activities, the Defense Department’s first 222-person team have arrived in California and will begin to support a mass vaccination site in Los Angeles by Feb. 15, said the Pentagon press secretary.

Additionally, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III authorized an additional 20 teams to support FEMA at vaccination sites around the country, Kirby said. This will be 10 222-person teams and 10 139-person teams. The smaller teams will be assigned to sites with fewer people who need to be vaccinated.

This will bring the Defense Department total to more than 4,700 Title 10 personnel supporting, or preparing to support FEMA, he said. These Title 10 personnel are in addition to the more than 26,000 National Guard members and 3,000 active duty personnel who have been supporting COVID-19 efforts over the last year.

“We will continue to work with FEMA as they refine their plan for vaccination sites across the country,” Kirby said. Details are still being worked across the interagency, he added.

Photo: Department of Defense

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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