by: Talia Naquin, Jen Steer
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WJW) Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff held a news conference on COVID-19 Thursday morning.
He was joined by Kirk Tucker, MD, Chief Clinical Officer of Adena Health System and Adam Mezoff, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Dayton Childrens Hospital.
Vanderhoff encouraged people to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and the flu. He also said this is the time to get vaccinated before the holidays with Thanksgiving just seven weeks away.
Now is not the time to let up. We have to remain vigilant. We all have to continue to do our part to stay healthy and this includes, in part, choosing to be vaccinated and wearing a mask when directed, Vanderhoff said.
When asked about the possibility of a winter surge, Ohios top doctor said hes given up on trying to predict what this virus will do.
It is, by its nature, a virus that spreads more readily during the winter months. In many ways, we were very blessed to encounter delta during the summertime, Vanderhoff said. I genuinely fear that had this hit us in the winter, we would have had an even more severe experience than what we had.
Data from theOhio Hospital Associationearlier this week showed a slight decrease in new hospital admissions due toCOVID-19.
New admissions are down 3 percent over the previous week. Over the last seen days, 3,419 people were admitted to a hospital in Ohio because of COVID-19. Thats one in six patients.
According toOHA data, there were 3,678 newCOVID-19admissions and 1,014 patients in the ICU onSept. 21.
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 238.7 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.86 million. More than 6.54 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
South Korea has launched a panel to debate a strategy on how to 'live with COVID-19' in the long-term.
Scientists at the US Food and Drug Administration said that Moderna has not met all the agency's criteria to support the use of a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine.
Ukraine has reported its second-highest daily death toll from COVID-19: 471, close to the record of 481 on 7 April.
Panama has approved a booster dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for high-risk people - including healthcare workers and those aged over 55.
CureVac has announced it will give up development of its first-generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate and instead focus on collaboration with GSK on developing improved mRNA vaccine technology.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for the country to speed up its vaccination campaign against COVID-19.
India has recommended emergency use of Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine in those aged 2 to 18 years old.
South Korea has announced it will donate 1.1 million doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine to Viet Nam and 470,000 doses to Thailand.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries
Image: Our World in Data
The United States has announced plans to lift restrictions at its land borders with Canada and Mexico for fully vaccinated foreign nationals. The easing of restrictions in early November would bring to an end curbs on non-essential travel that have been in place since March 2020.
US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that, from next month, the administration "will begin allowing travellers from Mexico and Canada who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 to enter the United States for non-essential purposes, including to visit friends and family or for tourism, via land and ferry border crossings".
Unvaccinated visitors will still be prevented from entering the United States from Canada or Mexico at land borders.
Japan is working towards starting COVID-19 vaccine booster shots by the end of 2021, Yoshihiko Isozaki, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, said at a news conference yesterday.
Who would get booster shots first is still under discussion by experts.
"We would like to ensure that the roll-out of the booster shots is done seamlessly, based on the advice of experts," he said.
To date, 65% of people in Japan are fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data.
The COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship is a coalition of 85 global leaders, hosted by the World Economic Forum. Its mission: Join hands in support of social entrepreneurs everywhere as vital first responders to the pandemic and as pioneers of a green, inclusive economic reality.
Its COVID Social Enterprise Action Agenda, outlines 25 concrete recommendations for key stakeholder groups, including funders and philanthropists, investors, government institutions, support organizations, and corporations. In January of 2021, its members launched its 2021 Roadmap through which its members will roll out an ambitious set of 21 action projects in 10 areas of work. Including corporate access and policy change in support of a social economy.
For more information see the Alliance website or its impact story here.
Written by
Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Oct 16th 2021
ALL PANDEMICS end eventually. Covid-19 has started down that path, but it will not be eradicated. Instead, it will gradually become endemic. In that state, circulating and mutating from year to year, the coronavirus will remain a threat to the elderly and infirm. But having settled down, it is highly unlikely to kill on the monstrous scale of the past 20 months. Covid will then be a familiar, manageable enemy, like the flu.
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Although the destination is fixed, the route to endemicity is not. The difference between a well-planned journey and a chaotic one could be measured in millions of lives. The end of the pandemic is therefore a last chance for governments to show they have learned from the mistakes they made at its start.
As the pandemic fades, weekly recorded cases and deaths have been falling globally, including in America, since the end of August. Britain is one country where cases are high and rising, but it has had a lot of disease and has run a successful vaccination campaign. Because 93% of Britons have antibodies, roughly 250,000 cases a week are leading to hundreds of deaths instead of thousands. That is the path to endemicity.
Nobody knows how many people around the world enjoy such protection, but you can hazard a very rough guess. About 3.8bn people have had at least one dose of the vaccine. The Economist estimates that during the pandemic excess deaths lie between 10m and 19m, with a central estimate of 16.2m. Working backwards, using assumptions about the share of fatal infections, this suggests that 1.4bn-3.6bn people have had the disease, amounting to 6-15 times the official count. There is an overlap, as many have been both vaccinated and infected.
The reservoir of people with immunity makes covid less dangerous. However, in bringing the pandemic to an end, the world is likely to face several tests.
One is the wave of winter infections in the northern hemisphere. Covid thrives when people spend their time indoors. If cases start to overwhelm hospitals, governments will need to intervene. One line of defence is treatments, including promising new antiviral drugs such as molnupiravir, which cuts rates of serious illness by half if administered early, but is still awaiting approval. Another is measures such as mask-wearing, shielding care homes and closing hotspots, including clubs and bars. The question is whether governments have learned to act promptly, but proportionately.
A second test is mutation. The genetic sampling of infections serves as an early warning if the Delta variant is displaced, yet poorer, unvaccinated parts of the world still go unmonitored. A new variant may require vaccines to be redesigned. That is far easier than starting from scratch, but it would require the production and approval of new jabs and perhaps jettisoning the stocks of old ones. It could trigger a replay of the fights over supply that marred the start of 2021.
The greatest test is how to protect the billion or more people without immunity. Chinas answer is to try to shut the virus out with harsh and costly quarantines and lockdowns. This allows time for vaccination and stockpiling medicines. The Communist Party has used the countrys tiny number of cases as proof its system is better than democracy, so abandoning its zero-covid strategy is politically awkward. However, as places including New Zealand have accepted, the coronavirus is not going away. One day China will have to relent.
Ultimately, people will gain immunity either through infection or vaccination. Because vaccination is so much safer, governments must get as many needles into arms as possible. According to Airfinity, a data firm, 11.3bn doses should have been produced before the end of the year and 25bn by June 2022. If so, global supply will soon no longer be a constrainthow soon, depends on the demand for boosters. Not all vaccines are equally effective, but all of them are far better than being infected.
This approaching vaccine glut means that exporters should already be shipping doses wholesale. Instead many are holding back supplies for boosters and to vaccinate children, who very rarely die from covid. Doses are promised for next year, but they are needed now.
The last barriers to vaccination will be hesitancy and the capacity of local health care. The World Health Organisation has set a target of 40% of every country to be jabbed by the end of the year. A global vaccine summit set a target of 70% by September 2022. But different countries have different needs for vaccines depending on their demography, their ability to administer jabs, and the threat of covid compared with other diseases like malaria and measles. Blanket targets risk turning sensible priorities into failures.
It is a daunting to-do list. Will governments rise to the challenge? Therein lies the last test. As covid fades into the background, rich countries may start to lose interest in the coronavirus. The disease it causes risks becoming a poor-country killer, like so many of the rest.
Dig deeper
All our stories relating to the pandemic can be found on our coronavirus hub. You can also find trackers showing the global roll-out of vaccines, excess deaths by country and the viruss spread across Europe.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Covid-19s rocky road"
Fivemore Mainers have died as health officials on Thursday reported another 799coronavirus cases across the state.
Thursdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 96,632,according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 95,833 on Wednesday.
Of those, 68,891have been confirmed positive, while 27,741were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.
Four women and a man have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,088.
Of those, three were in their 80s or older and two in their 70s. Two were from Penobscot County, while the other three came from Kennebec, Piscataquis and Somerset counties.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 6,643. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats down from 6,769 on Wednesday.
The new case rate statewide Thursday was 5.97 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 721.99.
Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 400.4, up from 382 the day before, down from 554.4 a week ago and down from 443.9 a month ago. That average peaked on Jan. 14 at 625.3.
The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old make up the majority of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.
So far, 2,631 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 167 are currently hospitalized, with 57 in critical care and 29 on a ventilator. Overall, 57 out of 340 critical care beds and 207 out of 304 ventilators are available.
The total statewide hospitalization rate on Thursday was 19.66 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (10,253), Aroostook (3,605), Cumberland (21,083), Franklin (2,065), Hancock (2,536), Kennebec (9,212), Knox (1,817), Lincoln (1,697), Oxford (4,740), Penobscot (11,465), Piscataquis (1,236), Sagadahoc (1,879), Somerset (3,925), Waldo (2,243), Washington (1,660) and York (17,216) counties.
An additional 2,022 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Thursday, 890,172 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 75.2 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.
New Hampshire reported 544 new cases on Thursday and two deaths. Vermont reported 327 new cases and one death, while Massachusetts reported 1,763 new cases and 19 deaths.
As of Thursday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 44,694.149 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 719,760 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
More articles from the BDN
'An important step forward': ACT Chief MinisterABC News
The ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has just been speaking from a very dark-looking Canberra.
"This is an important step forward and after nine weeks in a lockdown that has been gradually easing through that period, today is a gentle step forward," Mr Barr says.
"The pandemic isn't over.But we are able with high first dose vaccination rates to take this step forward."
Mr Barr says that four-fifth of people surveyed are more worried about what's happening in NSW than they are about the differing levels of freedoms.
"Canberra has approached this in a very different way. Yousee that in the vaccination uptake, you see that in the adherence to public health, social measures for example and our willingness to get tested to do the tracing and isolating and quarantining that's been necessary to protect the community."
In terms of the NSW border, Mr Barr says there is an exemption for the 27 surrounding postcodes, which covers a radius of 100 to 150km from the ACT, but he would be looking to extend this further in the coming days, as long as it can be done safely.
He adds that the ACT "finally" has enough vaccine supply.
"Being acity state helps [with the high vaccination rates]," he says.
"We have had the most effective system in every single dose from the Commonwealth and getting that quickly into the arm of a Canberran.
"We have done more than our fair share supporting our region, around 12 per centof all of the doses allocated to the ACT have actually vaccinated people in NewSouth Wales in the surrounding regions, so we have taken responsibility also for our region."
He puts that down to "better education levels" in the ACT.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) There were 341 new total COVID-19 cases reported on Thursday, bringing the states total case count to 149,678, up from Wednesday (149,337).
While the difference in the total case count reported Thursday and Wednesday equals 341, when you add the PCR, or newly confirmed, cases (267) and antigen, or new probable, cases (75), there were 342 new cases.
The number of active cases reported on Thursday is at 5,963, down from Wednesday (6,089).
The death toll from COVID-19 is at 2,182, up from Wednesday (2,177). Five new deaths include four men and one woman in the following age groups: 1 in the 60-69 age group, 3 in the 70-79 age group and 1 in the 80+ age group.
Current hospitalizations are at 201, down from Wednesday (207). Total hospitalizations are at 7,646, up from Wednesday (7,629).
Total recovered cases are now at 141,533, up from Wednesday (141,071). The latest seven-day PCR test positivity rate for the state is 13.6% for October 6 12.
The DOH currently reports total tests each day. There have been 1,548,150 total tests reports as of Thursday, up 4,666 from 1,543,484 total tests reported Wednesday.
Of South Dakotas 66 counties, 54 are listed as having high community spread. High community spread is 100 cases or greater per 100,000 or a 10% or greater PCR test positivity rate.
There have been 626 Delta variant cases (B.1.617.2, AY.1-AY.25) detected in South Dakota through sentinel monitoring.
There have been 172 cases of the B.1.1.7 (Alpha variant), three cases of P.1. (Gamma variant) and two cases of the B.1.351 (Beta variant).
The DOH announced changes to how it reports vaccinations on the COVID-19 dashboard. It now includes a breakout of how many people have received booster doses. Due to data clean-up efforts, the percentages of people whove received one dose or completed the series have changed. Find the DOH explanation in this story.
As of Thursday, 65.79% of the population 12-years-old and above has received at least one dose while 56.86% have completed the vaccination series.
There have been 481,026 doses of the Pfizer vaccine administered, 336,569 of the Moderna vaccine and 29,451 doses of the Janssen vaccine.
There have been 158,593 persons who have completed two doses of Moderna. There have been 194,022 persons who have received two doses of Pfizer.
As for booster doses, 24,348 people have received a 3rd Pfizer shot and 2,800 have received a 3rd Moderna dose.
We need to start grappling with the fact that the pandemic may be waning, but the impact on the service system is, I think, in some ways just starting, Gates, of CHR, said. So we may see this continue for potentially another two, if not three years, given the workforce issues.
In the not-too-distant future, you may be able to walk into a doctors office, get tested for SARS-CoV-2, and walk out with pills or a prescription if you end up testing positive for the virus.
Finally, we have another potential tool, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said Oct. 6 at a White House briefing, a promising new oral drug that people could take at home soon after COVID-19 to reduce the risk of severe outcomes.
The drug is molnupiravir, which Merck & Co. Inc. MRK, -0.79% and Ridgeback Therapeutics say cuts the risk of hospitalization and death by 50%. Its currently under review at the Food and Drug Administration, and, if authorized, it will be the first oral antiviral to treat COVID-19 patients in the U.S.
At least three other oral COVID-19 pills are expected to have clinical data by the end of the year, including drugs developed by Atea Pharmaceuticals Inc. AVIR, -3.00% and Roche Holding AG ROG, +0.01%, Fujifilm Holdings Corp. JP:4901 (via a consortium of drug makers including Appili Therapeutics Inc. APLIF and Dr. Reddys Laboratories Ltd. RDY, +1.16% ), and Pfizer Inc. PFE, +0.60%.
Shionogi & Co. Ltd. 4507, -0.26% also has an oral antiviral in a late-stage clinical trial in Japan.
Coronavirus disease is going to be with us for the foreseeable future, even if it goes endemic, said Dr. Carl Dieffenbach, director of the AIDS division at NIAID and the official running the governments $3.2 billion COVID-19 antiviral program. These pills could be incredibly valuable [in] keeping the brushfire beaten down.
It makes sense that pharmaceutical companies are trying to figure out whether antivirals can reduce the risk of someone dying or ending up with organ damage and an expensive hospital stay.
They are also evaluating whether these pills can reduce viral load or how long a person who has contracted COVID-19 is infectious or sick or even prevent people from ending up with long COVID.
If theres something that can reduce viral load effectively, it would both reduce the risk of severe symptoms and potentially long COVID symptoms in that individual themselves and then, obviously, also reduce the risk of spreading the virus to others, said Dr. Carolyn Bramante, a pediatrician with the University of Minnesota Medical School, who is leading a clinical trial of repurposed drugs like ivermectin and metformin as COVID-19 treatments.
If molnupiravir and other antivirals are authorized or approved, its going to matter how quickly they are prescribed, if its best to prescribe them after someone is exposed to the virus or once symptoms are reported, and whether patients will comply with taking multiple pills in a single day.
The oral antivirals, by virtue of how they work, need to be taken early in the course of disease, certainly within five days, said Dr. Armand Balboni, CEO of Appili, which is working with Fujifilm to develop the COVID-19 pill favipiravir. I would argue that probably three days is where we need to use it, almost exactly like we use Tamiflu.
Roches influenza drug, Tamiflu, which can be used as a treatment or for post-exposure prophylaxis, needs to be taken within 48 hours of symptoms to work effectively.
Experts often compare SARS-CoV-2 to HIV or influenza. Both are transmittable viruses that are best treated when someone who is infected gets access to care quickly. How those viruses act in response to antiviral treatments can provide insight into several factors, including when to expect the viruss resistance to therapies and how quickly treatment needs to start with COVID-19 patients.
The goal is to fundamentally get to a place where people who are diagnosed with coronavirus disease would start the medication as soon as possible after theyre diagnosed, Dieffenbach said. If its set up in a logical, systematic way, you could leave either with pills or a prescription for the medication at the time you test. In HIV, we call that test-and-treat.
But that may be difficult for the already disconnected healthcare system in the U.S. Making sure that people get tested right away, even after potential exposure to COVID-19, is one challenge. Ensuring that they follow through with getting a prescription and taking several pills per day could be another obstacle.
Patients in the Merck trial took four pills twice a day for five days, for example, while Fujifilms favipiravir is testing 90 tablets in 10 days. Pfizers experimental antiviral requires two pills per day for five days.
That said, the only treatments available for people with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19 are monoclonal antibodies, which have to be administered in a doctors office and are intended only for those who are at risk of severe disease. You get an infusion, Dieffenbach said. Its not a trivial thing.
Because the monoclonal antibodies havent always been easy to get access to, that has hindered their utilization, especially among people in rural America who live dozens or even hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital or clinic.
We need this because we need a toolbox, Balboni said. The toolbox absolutely includes vaccines. But it also includes monoclonal antibodies. It includes broad-spectrum oral antivirals and probably stacking the broad-spectrum oral antivirals to ensure that we dont develop resistance.
Read more of MarketWatchs coverage about COVID-19 antivirals:
Why a pill you take at home could change the direction of the pandemic
This development may fully reopen the global economy and the stock market has mostly ignored it
Its not a magic pill: What Mercks antiviral pill could mean for vaccine hesitancy
RiverStone Health announced three new COVID-19-related deaths Thursday, bringing the county's total to 352 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
All the deaths occurred at a Billings hospital. They include:
On Thursday, 134 COVID-19 patients were being treated in Billings Clinic or St. Vincent Healthcare. The two Billings hospitals were caring for 119 COVID-19 patients who werent vaccinated.
Only 53% of Yellowstone County residents age 12 and older have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The majority of people hospitalized this year and the majority of people who died werent vaccinated. Safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines that reduce the risk of infection, illness and death are available to everyone age 12 and older from local pharmacies, clinics and hospitals.
RiverStone Health will hold these free, walk-in COVID-19 vaccine clinics:
Tuesday, Oct. 19, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., City College, Tech Building, Room A017.
Wednesday, Oct. 20, noon to 2 p.m. Billings Public Library Community Room.
Thursday, Oct. 21, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., North Park.
Friday, Oct. 22, 11 am. to 1 p.m., Terry Park.
Oct. 27, noon to 2 p.m., Billings Public Library Community Room.
Clinics listed above will offer first and second doses and booster shots of Pfizer vaccine, along with first and second doses of Moderna and the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to people 18 and older. Third doses of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are available to immune-compromised people.
A limited number of vaccination appointments are available from the RiverStone Health Immunization Clinic, phone 406.247.3382. More vaccination information is posted at covid.riverstonehealth.org.
The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) reports 86 new individuals in the Juneau community 83 residents and three nonresidents identified with COVID-19 for October 9 thru 11. There arecurrentlythree people with COVID-19 hospitalized at Bartlett Regional Hospital.
The Juneau School District reports eight new individuals whove tested positive for COVID-19 and were infectious while in school:
Please note: As more elementary students recover from COVID-19, they do not have to quarantine if they are identified as a close contact. This is in line with Public Health guidance and applies to individuals who have had COVID-19 within 90 days. That means, each time an elementary classroom has a reported positive case, not all of the students have to stay home. Additionally, in some classrooms, there is less mixing and it is easier to clearly identify close contacts. COVID-19 cases related to schools are posted on juneauschools.org(click on the green COVID-19 Cases block).
Statewide, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services reports2,792 new peopleidentified with COVID-19 2,752 are residents and 40 are nonresidents in the past three days. The state also reports four recent death, bringing the total number of resident deaths to 574:
Alaska has had 119,102 cumulative resident cases of COVID-19 and a total of 5,021 nonresidents.
