SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As part of a statewide effort to encourage Latino and Black/African American Californians to get vaccinated and boosted, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has launched engaging and culturally relevant ad campaigns featuring luchadores and comic book heroes battling COVID-19.
While nearly 84 percent of Californias population is vaccinated against COVID-19, Latino and Black communities have lower vaccination rates than other ethnic groups and have suffered disproportionately throughout the pandemic.
With more Californians becoming eligible for COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, the campaigns present a family-friendly and eye-catching approach to raising awareness of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters and the protection they offer the whole family against the worst outcomes of the virus.
The campaigns draw on images of familiar cultural figures: luchadores and Black superheroes.
While California residents have made great strides in vaccination rates, the state remains focused on closing equity gaps across communities impacted by COVID-19, as outlined in the SMARTER plan, said Dr. Toms J. Aragn, Director and State Public Health Officer, California Department of Public Health.
These campaigns present entertaining, culturally resonant messages to encourage people to protect themselves and their loved ones by getting vaccinated and boosted.
Ads can be seen on billboards and in ethnic media publications. Posters of each campaign also can be found in panaderias, laundromats, salons, and barbershops. Radio and social media ads will amplify the campaigns through July. The ads can be seen in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Orange County, San Diego, Central Valley, Sacramento, San Francisco/Oakland, San Bernardino/Riverside and Bakersfield media markets.
The Luchadores campaign was created by Sensis, a multicultural marketing agency, and the Black superheroes concept was developed by LAGRANT COMMUNICATIONS, a 100 percent, minority-owned and operated agency. Both efforts are under the direction of RSE, the full-service California agency leading the integrated marketing communications campaign for CDPHs COVID-19 vaccination effort.
For more information on vaccines and boosters, visit MyTurn.ca.gov or call 833-422-4255.
EDITORS NOTE: COVID-19 cases are on the rise in the U.S. and California. New, highly contagious variants of the disease can lead to serious illness, hospitalization, and death, especially among those who are unvaccinated. Boosters extend immunity and protect people longer against infection and severe disease.
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported over 10,000 new COVID-19 cases and five new deaths related to the virus June 19-25.
Statewide numbers
New cases reported:10,654
Total cases in S.C.: 1,546,406
New deaths reported:5
Total deaths in S.C.: 18,033
Percent of ICU beds filled (with COVID-19 and other patients):55.29 percent
Percent positive:20.2 percent
S.C. residents vaccinated
In South Carolina, 60.2 percent of people who are eligible for the vaccine have received at least one dose, and 52.3 percent of eligible residents are considered fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
These numbers reflect all eligible residents, including young children. The latest data from DHEC shows 21.3 percent of children ages 5-11 have at least one vaccine dose.
Hospitalizations
Of the 266 COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of June 28, 36 were in the ICU and 12 were using ventilators.
What do experts say?
Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently recommended children ages 6 months and older get vaccinated against COVID-19 to avoid severe disease.
While we want to prevent severe outcomes for every age, it's especially concerning to see severe outcomes in our youngest children the hospitalizations and deaths," said Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC. "Children should not need to be hospitalized. They should not need to go to the ICU, to be on a ventilator, and they certainly should not lose their life to this virus at such a young age.
Follow Zharia Jeffries on Twitter @Zharia_Jeffries.
DAYTON Doctors are having a hard time tracking COVID-19 case numbers because most Americans are using at-home tests.
Those number of infections could be higher due to people using at-home covid tests and not reporting it.
According to Dr. Thomas Huth from Reid Health, now that so many at-home tests are being offered, fewer people are going to physicians offices to be tested.
Consequently, its pretty clear that most people are opting to use at-home tests these days. And when theyre positive, occasionally theyll be followed up with a PCR test. Huth went on to say, How many cases we have and all I dont know it could be two to three times higher than what is making it into the official statistics may be even higher.
News Center 7s Dontre Drexelius found that cases not being reported isnt the only concern people have.
Huth tells us that at-home tests may not be as reliable due to a couple of reasons.
Rare they have false positives, but those can occur. But theyre really unusual. More likely there will be false negatives. And thats because operator error and doing all the steps correctly, but more importantly, then theres a, a smaller window of time, during which someone will be positive on the test. If they have COVID-19, Huth said.
Different brands work differently when it comes to results and how accurate the results are.
We asked Huth what brand you should use if youre at home and how you could get the best reading.
Its suggested that if youre having symptoms, you should contact your doctor even if you using an at-home test.
2022 Cox Media Group
The City & Borough of Juneau has received another shipment of federally funded COVID-19 rapid antigen self-tests, which are available to the public at no cost at all Juneau Public libraries, City Hall (Cash Office), Juneau Police Department and the Juneau Public Health Center Photo courtesy of City and Borough of Juneau).
Many Alaskans believe the pandemic is in the rearview mirror. But is it really?
On this Tuesdays Juneau Afternoon, well do a status check on COVID-19 and hear about the City and Borough of Juneaus plans to vaccinate children under five.
Also, on this program:
Rhonda McBride hosts this Tuesdays program. You can catch Juneau Afternoon, Tuesday through Friday, live at 3:00 p.m. on KTOO Juneau 104.3. The rebroadcast airs at 7:00 p.m. on KTOO. You can also listen online at ktoo.org.
For more information about Juneau Afternoon or to schedule time on the show, email juneauafternoon@ktoo.org.
Experts recommend regulatory policies to improve long-term care in the wake of COVID-19.
Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly one-third of coronavirus deaths in the United States have been residents and employees of these facilities. As of May 2021, confirmed cases in these facilities have reached over one million. The leading explanation for these high rates is that residents advanced age and comorbidities make them particularly at risk for severe illness and death from the virus. This risk is compounded by the communal nature of long-term facilities, which increases the likelihood of residents and staff spreading COVID-19. Still, some experts argue that regulatory failures and chronic underfunding are partly to blame for such tragic outcomes in one of Americas most vulnerable populations.
Although the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic are new, the crisis in long-term care is not. Long-term care facilities have a long history of low-quality care. In 1986, a study by the Institute of Medicine found that nursing home residents were routinely given inadequate care, neglected, or abused. In response, Congress passed the Nursing Home Reform Act, which set new care standards, upgraded staffing requirements, and established an enforcement mechanism for noncompliant facilities. Today, states enforce these standards through unannounced surveys conducted every 9 to 15 months, with variable penalties depending on the severity of the violation.
Most nursing home quality measures have improved over time under this law, but the majority of facilities still fall short of federal standards. In recent years, over 90 percent of nursing homes have received at least one citation per year for violating federal regulations. The pandemic only exposed and amplified these issues. Numerous nursing home residents have reported instances of severe neglect during lockdowns, including extreme weight loss and untreated bedsores.
Neglect for long-term care is also visible in its patchwork funding regime. The majority of long-term care is paid for by Medicaid, which only becomes available once individuals have exhausted their personal assets. Medicaid funding for long-term care also varies dramatically by state and is frequently under threat of budget cuts, especially during economic downturns. For individuals who look to private insurance to cover costs, they often find prohibitively high premiums. Fewer than 1 in 30 Americans own a long-term care insurance plan. Medicare, the primary insurer of Americans over 65 years old, does not cover long-term care beyond 100 days.
As a result of this patchwork system, nursing homes are chronically underfunded. The majority of nursing homes in the U.S. operate at a net loss, and hundreds of nursing homes have been forced to close in recent years. Thin or negative profit margins prompt facilities to cut corners in care quality and staffing levels, perpetuating low quality care. During the pandemic, increased costs have placed nursing homes on the brink of collapse, prompting billions of dollars of federal aid.
Today, approximately 12 million people in the U.S. need long-term care. By 2050, that number is expected to more than double. The challenges of the pandemic present a unique opportunity for policymakers to evaluate how the long-term care system is failing, so as to better prepare for increased demand going forward.
In this weeks Saturday Seminar, scholars explore how regulatory failures contributed to COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes and provide potential avenues for reform.
The Saturday Seminar is a weekly feature that aims to put into written form the kind of content that would be conveyed in a live seminar involving regulatory experts. Each week,The Regulatory Reviewpublishes a brief overview of a selected regulatory topic and then distills recent research and scholarly writing on that topic.
Despite the progress that's been made to prevent the spread of COVID-19, more people are finding themselves re-infected, regardless of vaccination status.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas Although precautions and vaccinations are in place, more people are finding themselves re-infected, regardless of vaccination status.
Pulmonologist Dr. Salim Surani said people taking precautions, like wearing a mask, is a good thing.
Dr. Surani told 3NEWS, "even as of yesterday, if you look at it, we had more than 100,000 people who had an infection. Even in Nueces County, it's almost 175 people who were infected, many of those were reinfection."
The challenge with the number of reinfection cases is that these can be an underestimation, because people have the option of at-home testing.
"I think people are recognizing that there is a higher incidence of infection, and a lot of the folks who have already received the vaccine, or they've had COVID in the past, they're getting the infection again," Dr. Surani shared.
The vaccine is doing its job to prevent serious illness and hospitalizations, but the vaccine immunity wears off after a certain amount of time. That may be the reason why people are seeing more reinfections lately. Boosters, along with vaccinations, are crucial.
"I think we have to go beyond that," Dr. Surani said. "We have to have a constant state of vigilance. In other words, if you see an increased number of cases in your community, then you need to make sure that you avoid large public gatherings."
Social distancing and hand washing are practices that we've been doing for the past few years. These precautions work hand-in-hand with vaccinations and boosters, like the vaccinations that were recently approved for those six-months and up.
"If you look at the bigger states like California and New York, they have more than 200 cases of reinfection," Dr. Surani said. "So the reinfection is going to happen, depending on your community prevalence or incidence of the disease. The higher number of cases that are in the community, the more chances you may get infected."
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ALBANY COVID continues its slow retreat across the state, with infection counts and hospital census admissions greatly diminished but still not low.
On Thursday alone, 6,375 New Yorkers were lab-confirmed to have COVID infections and an unknown additional number tested positive with at-home test kits.
Also Thursday, 1,824 hospital patients statewide were COVID-positive, though only 42% originally were admitted because of COVID symptoms or complications.
This compares to a one-day peak this year of 90,132 positive tests and 12,671 people hospitalized, both in January, and a recent one-day high of 13,902 positives in May.
As June ends, COVID infections per-capita are highest in and near New York City. All five boroughs, Long Island and most of the lower Hudson Valley are above the statewide average of 24.8 new cases per day per 100,000 residents on a seven-day rolling average.
The Capital Region stands at 14.2 cases per day per 100,000 residents and the Mohawk Valley at 12.0 cases. The two regions hospitals were treating 104 and 20 COVID-positive patients, respectively, on Thursday.
This is the second decline for COVID in 2022: After the huge omicron surge in late December and early January, new infections plummeted through March, then rose to a mini-spike in mid-spring, at which time upstate New York had one of the highest rates of new infections in the nation.
As of June 24, if they were a state, the 57 counties outside New York City would rank 42nd among the states for new infections per capita, while New York City would rank eighth.
Almost 28 months after COVID was first reported in New York, the state Department of Health ended its daily reporting of disease statistics on Friday, moving to once-a-week updates in line with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Preventions schedule.
New York also has begun shutting down its mass vaccination sites, even as Gov. Kathy Hochul continues to press vaccine and boosters, particularly the youngest New Yorkers, who became eligible for shots only very recently.
Mass vaccination sites in Queensbury and Suffern were closed June 16 and 17. The sites at Crossgates Mall in Guilderland and SUNY Old Westbury administered their last shots Friday. The remaining four will shut down June 30.
Statewide, 77.7% of New Yorkers are fully vaccinated against COVID. Schenectady County, at 80.3%, has the highest percentage outside New York City and its contiguous counties.
Categories: News
2022 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
COVID-19 continues its run around the deck at the 2022 FINA World Championships.
New Zealands teen starErika Fairweathertested positive after finals on Day 5. According to New Zealand news websiteStuff, Fairweather said she had a scratchy throat after being in contact with several Australian athletes who had tested positive. As of June 25th, Lani Pallister and an unnamed team official are the only ones among Australias Worlds contingent who have been reported as COVID positive.
The diagnosis kept Fairweather off the mixed 4100 freestyle relay. The Kiwis team ofLewis Clareburt, Carter Swift, Chelsea Edwards, andLaura Littlejohnswam 3:27.91. That time set a new national record, but they missed out on the final as they finished 9th, .71 behind China. Edwards, who subbed in for Fairweather, split 55.39. Fairweathers best flat start is 55.49 from April 2021. While she likely could have been under that with a rolling start, its not clear if having Fairweather on the relay would have vaulted them into the final.
Swimming New Zealands Olympic program lead Gary Francis is keeping a World Championships diary on Swimming New Zealands website. In his latest entry, he discussed the positive test. Notably, he wrote about creating a second isolation room for Mya Rasmussen, Fairweathers roommate.
FINAs protocols dont require isolation for close contacts at these Worlds if vaccinated. But it seems Rasmussen is vaccinatedshe competed in Day 8 prelims of the womens 400 IM, where she finished 10th in 4:41.98. She wouldnt have been able to compete if she was unvaccinated, as her six day isolation period wouldnt have been up. So, the second isolation room looks to be out of an abundance of caution.
Fairweather is reportedly asymptomatic, but shell remain in isolated in Budapest until cleared to travel. Francis is staying in Budapest as well for the open water racing. After thats complete and Fairweather is cleared, they will join the rest of the team in Spain, where theyre preparing for the Commonwealth Games.
Earlier in the meet, she finished sixth in the 400 free (4:04.73), 11th in the 200 free (1:57.43), and led off New Zealands seventh place 4200 free relay team in 1:58.24. At Commonwealth Games, shes slated to race the 100, 200, and 400 free.
Since May 1, Premier has been testing about 140 swabs for COVID-19 each day.
Robust surveillance, including reporting the results of at-home tests, is critical to inform health agencies understanding of the current spread of the virus, said Ken Gordon, a spokesman with the Ohio Department of Health.
The overall volume of COVID-19 in our state and in specific areas lets Ohioans make informed decisions about what actions they should take to protect their health, he said.
Members of the Ohio National Guard work with Dayton Children's staff at the Dayton Children's Springboro COVID-19 testing site Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. MARSHALL GORBYSTAFF
Members of the Ohio National Guard work with Dayton Children's staff at the Dayton Children's Springboro COVID-19 testing site Thursday Jan. 13, 2022. MARSHALL GORBYSTAFF
Experts also say people who test positive at home should contact their primary health care providers to make sure they take appropriate steps to manage and possibly confirm their illness and avoid transmission.
Any positive test should be reported, said Nate Bednar, director of community services with Miami County Public Health.
Some experts have pointed out that the true number of infections always has been an undercount because at least some people who contract the illness do not have any symptoms and do not seek testing.
Eye on testing
Long lines for COVID-19 testing at Dayton Children's Hospital wrap around the parking lot on the northside of the complex. JIM NOELKER/STAFF
Credit: Jim Noelker
Long lines for COVID-19 testing at Dayton Children's Hospital wrap around the parking lot on the northside of the complex. JIM NOELKER/STAFF
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
Confirmed COVID cases have declined, but the virus is still prevalent in the community, and Premier Health continues to see a significant positivity rate, said Nick Lair, the groups system vice president of laboratory services.
We always have to keep an eye on it, he said. Were asking everybody to still be very mindful of the CDC guidelines, which is masking and/or six-foot distancing.
In May, about 13.8% of tests conducted by Premier were positive for COVID, according to its data.
By comparison, the average positivity rate was about 9.7% in 2020.
Premier, along with its partners, still operates seven testing sites down from about 11 earlier in the pandemic which continue to serve many people who need negative tests for reasons like travel, work or school.
Testing sites are still widely available across the region, but at-home testing kits are becoming increasingly popular among people who develop COVID-19 symptoms or who may have exposed to the virus.
About one-fifth of people with COVID-19-like symptoms during the omicron wave used at-home tests to try to determine if they were infected, according to a CDC survey.
Friday was the first day back for spring 2021 semester at the University of Dayton. Students were tested for COVID-19.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Friday was the first day back for spring 2021 semester at the University of Dayton. Students were tested for COVID-19.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
The tests which officials say are quick, easy and pretty reliable are available for sale at local pharmacies, and many health departments also have kits to distribute and so do other organizations, like libraries and schools in some areas.
The Ohio Department of Health has distributed seven million tests to its partners since January 2021, and home testing has become a substantial part of the testing that is taking place in the state, even though it is impossible to know how many home tests have been used or are available, Gordon said.
Community members also can order free COVID-19 test kits online through www.covid.gov/tests that will be sent to their homes.
The plethora of available testing is helping control the spread of COVID-19 because people can easily find out if they are positive early on, Lair said.
But Premier Health says the availability of home tests can result in a undercount of COVID cases in the community because people who test positive using the kits do not typically require further testing.
At-home kits come with instructions that say people who test positive for the virus should provide the results to their health care providers for public health reporting.
But its very likely that some people possibly a significant number arent doing that, some state and local experts say.
A survey conducted from late December and early January found that nearly one-third of people who tested positive at home did not follow-up with a test at their doctors office or a testing facility, which makes it likely their positive results were not captured in the official case data.
Testing sites generally still are required to report positive results, Gordon said, but overall, testing data has become less useful as a measure of COVID-19 case burden and viral transmission in a community.
Gordon said the state encourages Ohioans to check the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions COVID-19 Community Levels as a more accurate picture of virus transmission.
The measurement combines case counts with COVID-19 hospitalization data to determine how significant a threat the virus is to various communities, he said.
Some experts say the decline in officially reported COVID-19 cases gives some people the false idea that the virus isnt a threat.
It is important that people who do self-tests report the results to their physicians, said Bednar, with Miami County Public Health.
Positive results can be reported to public health, he said, and if it is a proctored home COVID test, they should follow the instructions on the test packaging and report using the app.
Community members who test positive at home also should contact their primary care providers to find out if they need therapy, medical isolation and confirmatory or follow-up testing, said Deirdre Owsley, public health nurse in the communicable disease program at Greene County Public Health.
Owsley said Greene County residents who test positive for COVID at home should report the results to Greene County Public Health by calling 937-374-5638 or emailing cdrs@gcph.info.
Also, she said, Any follow-up test if not already reported virtually through the home-test manufacturer can be reported by the provider and/or medical laboratory.
Public Health Dayton & Montgomery County encourages people who test positive at home to contact their doctors to determine if they should begin any treatment, such as Paxlovid, which should be started within five days of the onset of symptoms, Dan Suffoletto, a spokesman for the agency.
Public Health tries to contact people who tested positive when it receives notice of positivity from doctors offices and testing facilities, Suffoletto said.
Public health notifies the Ohio Department of Health when it has confirmed COVID cases.
But Suffoletto said the number of reported cases may not fully capture the true number of infections.
Britain is now going through its third major wave of Covid-19 infections this year. According to the ONS Infection Survey released last week, about 1.7 million people in the UK are estimated to have been infected in the week ending 18 June, a 23% rise on the previous week. This follows a 43% jump the previous week. The figures raise several important questions about how the nation will fare in the coming months as it struggles to contain the disease.
Most scientists and statisticians pin the latest jump on two fast-spreading Omicron sub-variants: BA.4 and BA.5. Crucially, two other countries Portugal and South Africa have experienced major jumps in numbers of cases due to these two sub-variants.
The waves in these countries have since peaked and neither resulted in a major increase in severe disease. Nevertheless, we should note there were some increases in hospitalisations, said John Edmunds, professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The rise we are experiencing now is certainly not good news but it does not look, at present, like it has the potential to lead to disaster.
This point was backed by Stephen Griffin, associate professor at Leeds Universitys school of medicine We are in a better place now than in 2020 and 2021 due to the UK vaccine programme, he said. However, he warned the level of post-infections complications long Covid was troubling. It is abundantly clear the governments living with Covid strategy lacks long-term provision for wellbeing.
The government is already committed to vaccinating the over-65s, frontline health and social workers and vulnerable younger people in the autumn. However, the health and social care secretary Sajid Javid last week hinted that this might be extended to include all those over 50. The move would improve protection against Covid-19 at a time when immunity will have waned in much of the population.
However, the type of vaccine to be given is not yet settled with many scientists insisting it should be able to provide protection not just against the original Wuhan strain of Covid-19 but also against its most prevalent recent variant, Omicron. Moderna has developed such a vaccine, for example.
Omicron looks to be extremely fit, said James Naismith, of the Rosalind Franklin Institute in Oxford. We are now seeing different strains of it appearing, not a wholesale switch like the one we saw from Delta to Omicron. So I think it is perhaps unlikely we will see a completely new Omega strain, which makes it sensible to continue to target Omicron.
Sars-cov-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19, is not the first coronavirus that has been found to affect human beings. Other members of this class of virus cause mild respiratory illnesses and one day Covid-19 may reach a similar, relatively safe status in the population though not in the near future, says Prof Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University.
That situation will arise when the virus is circulating quite freely and people get infected multiple times as children, and so, by the time they get to be adults, they have actually built up pretty solid immunity - certainly against serious disease. However, its going to take a long time before we live in a population where most of us have had multiple exposures as children. That is decades away, though that does not mean we will be faced with severe public health problems for all that time. These problems will diminish - though there will be bumps on the way.
However, Woolhouse added, this is not going to settle down properly in my lifetime.
