Governor Gretchen Whitmer received her booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine at the recommendation of her physician at the Washtenaw County Health Department in Ypsilanti.
The FDA has amended the emergency use authorization for COVID-19 vaccines to allow for the use of a single booster dose for all three Pfizer-Biotech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
The three safe, effective vaccines continue to be our best shot at beating COVID-19, said Governor Whitmer. I am getting my booster today per my doctors recommendation to protect myself, my loved ones, and every person I come into contact with. I encourage every Michigander to talk to their doctor and see if a booster shot is right for them.
Currently, there are booster recommendations for all three available COVID vaccines in the U.S.Those who are eligible have the opportunity to choose which vaccine they receive as a booster dose.
Thank you to Gov. Whitmer for doing her part and getting the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine booster to keep herself, her loved ones and all Michiganders protected, said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Chief Medical Executive. This is also an opportunity to continue to encourage those eligible to get the booster as soon as possible.
For those who received either the Pfizer or Moderna primary vaccines, the following groups are eligible for a booster shot at six months or more after their initial series:
Those over the age of 18 who received a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should receive a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 booster at least two months after completing their primary series.
We were so pleased to welcome Governor Whitmer to the Washtenaw County Health Department for her booster dose, said Jimena Loveluck, MSW, Health Officer for the Health Department. Though COVID-19 vaccines are now widely available, local health departments are critical in ensuring vaccine accessibility for all. We are grateful for Gov. Whitmers trust in our local health department and her example. Together we can protect ourselves and each other by getting vaccinated and layering up our prevention strategies, like masks and distance, when local transmission is elevated.
For more information about the coronavirus vaccine, click here.
For all the latest information about the coronavirus in Michigan, click here.
Newsmax told its staff Thursday it intended to comply with the Biden administrations company vaccine mandate, flying in the face of its daily programming attacking the mandate. Newsmax employeesincluding its anti-mandate hostswill have to either submit their vaccination card by Jan. 4 or undergo weekly testing, according to a notice obtained by Mediaite. The announcement came the same day the conservative network sidelined White House correspondent Emerald Robinson after she falsely and bizarrely claimed on Twitter that the vaccines contained a luminescent enzyme called luciferase that tracked recipients.
In response to the company's mandate, Newsmax host and former Trump adviser Steve Cortes, tweeted on Friday that "I will not comply w/ any organizations attempt to enforce Bidens capricious & unscientific Medical Apartheid mandate.I will not be forced into the injection, nor will I disclose my vaccination status. No one should be pressured to choose between medical privacy & their job."
DENVER (KDVR) Parents with kids at Denver Public Schools can now sign up their children to get the COVID-19 vaccine at one of 18 schools offering vaccination on Monday.
The move is part of a collaboration with Denver Health. Vaccinations are by appointment only, according to the district.
A note from DPS SuperintendentDr. Alex Marreroreads, in part:
As both an educator and the father of two young children, one who is now able to be vaccinated, Im thrilled at the opportunity to create even safer conditions in all of our schools for our youngest learners.
I hope that everyone in our community will take the time to listen to the medical experts who have consistently emphasized that the vaccine is our best and strongest weapon in bringing an end to the pandemic. Dr. Steven Federico, the lead pediatrician at Denver Health and our close partner on our health plan, gives a detailed and thorough overview of the vaccines safety and effectiveness inthis weeks video.
Throughout the pandemic, the DPS community has come together in tremendous ways to put Students First and help ensure the safest and healthiest conditions possible in our classrooms. Thank you for that, and please talk with your healthcare provider and consider having your children vaccinated against COVID-19.
In mid-November, seven Denver schools will put on vaccine clinics :
For more information to get your child signed up online or over the phone, heres the link.
Attitudes were more split on whether proof of vaccination should be required, especially across political affiliation and geographic location, results showed.
WASHINGTON, USA Nearly three-quarters of Washingtonians believe the Coronavirus vaccine is safe in a new statewide poll released Thursday by KING5.
SurveyUSA polled 650 adults across the state and asked how they felt about the vaccine. Of those surveyed, 40 percent said they believe the vaccine was definitely safe, and another 34 percent said it was probably safe. Nineteen percent said they felt it was probably, or definitely unsafe.
The poll was conducted between Oct. 25, and 28, and has a credibility interval of 4.6 points. Still, it found that confidence in the vaccine spread across all ethnic, geographic, and ideological groups.
As far as whether proof of vaccination should be required, attitudes were different. The same survey showed 66% of adults supported proof at large entertainment spaces such as concerts and arenas, and 61% supported it at private businesses. There were different beliefs primarily among Republicans and adults in Eastern Washington.
Washington Heath Secretary Umair Shah reacted to the poll by saying, "I think the important piece of this is the vast majority of Washingtonians believe that vaccines are safe." He continued, "As we know that vaccines have worked traditionally, MMR, measles, mumps, rubella, other kinds of vaccines that we don't even bat an eye when we're getting those vaccines, we don't honestly even bat an eye when we're taking medications, whether it's over the counter, or even a doctor prescribes that medication."
"We have somehow turned fighting this pandemic into a political equation, and not just about health and medicine, which, unfortunately, truly is what this is about. Our enemy is not each other, it's the virus," Shah said.
A new coronavirus identified in Haiti (and in Malaysia) likely came from dogs. Above: A child and a dog in Haiti. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
A new coronavirus identified in Haiti (and in Malaysia) likely came from dogs. Above: A child and a dog in Haiti.
Early in 2017, a team of medical personnel, including doctors, nurses and volunteers, returned home to Florida after volunteering at a clinic in Haiti. Soon after their return, 20 members of the team began to feel a bit under the weather. "They had a slight fever and didn't feel 100% right," says virologist John Lednicky at the University of Florida. "But they weren't very sick."
At the time, Zika virus was circulating in Haiti, and health officials were worried the travelers might have been infected, potentially importing the mosquito-borne illness to Florida. So officials took urine samples from each traveler and asked Lednicky to test for Zika.
Lednicky ran the standard PCR tests for the virus, and they all came back negative. But he wasn't satisfied. He had a hunch that the urine samples did contain a virus not Zika but something else.
So he took a little bit of the urine from six of the travelers and added it to a special solution of monkey cells. The goal was deceptively simple: to see if any viruses in the urine would infect the monkey cells, start replicating and grow to detectable levels. Then Lednicky could collect the virus's genes and identify it.
"This is what we do in our lab," Lednicky says. "We cast a wide net. We try to isolate viruses. And oftentimes, when we do that, the unexpected happens."
Indeed, the unexpected occurred.
"We found a coronavirus," he says. And not just any coronavirus, but one that many scientists believe may be a new human pathogen likely the 8th coronavirus known to cause disease in people. Turns out, this coronavirus in the Haiti travelers has cropped up previously, on the other side of the globe.
Back in May, scientists at Duke University, reported they had detected a nearly identical virus coronavirus in children at a Malaysian hospital.
The researchers found the virus in the upper respiratory tract of 3% of the 301 patients they tested in 2017 and 2018.
The genetic sequence of the Malaysian virus suggested it likely originated in dogs and then jumped into people. "The majority of the genome was canine coronavirus," virologist Anastasia Vlasova told NPR in May.
Although the findings sounded alarming, the researchers had no evidence that the virus could spread between people or that it was widespread around the world.
"These human infections with ... canine coronaviruses appear to be isolated incidents which did not lead to extensive human transmission," virologist Vincent Racaniello wrote on the Virology Blog.
Now Lednicky and his colleagues have found an almost identical virus infecting people 11,000 miles away-- at the same time. The genetic sequence of the virus in Haiti is 99.4% identical to the one in Malaysia. Lednicky and his colleagues reported this past Sunday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
And the big question is: How does a dog virus in Malaysia wind up in doctors and nurses in Haiti?
"The virus probably circulates widely, but no one has paid attention to it," Lednicky says. He suspects it's all over the world. And if you've been around dogs frequently you might have been infected with this virus or developed an immunity to it by exposure to similar virus. "We'll know when scientists start looking for antibodies inside older blood samples taken from patients with respiratory disease. How many of them were misdiagnosed all along?"
Some scientists also think doctors and researchers should start actively looking for this virus in patients. "I think that's important for several reasons," says virologist Linda Saif at Ohio State University, who has studied coronaviruses for about 40 years.
"No. 1, this virus has been associated with a number of pneumonia cases in children, and no. 2, we really don't know if it can transmit from human to human," she adds.
The fact that scientists detected the almost-identical viruses in both Haiti and Malaysia, at the same time, suggests the virus does spread between people, Saif says.
"There's a temporal sequence here. These two viruses which are very, very similar have been detected in a similar time frame but in widely separated regions of the world," she explains. That could happen if a nearly-identical virus was circulating in dogs in both Haiti and Malaysia and then jumped over to people in both countries during the same year.
"I would be very surprised if that happened," Saif says.
The second hypothesis is that the virus is circulating in people, at low levels, in many parts of the world, under the radar. "That hypothesis is more likely," Saif says.
If that hypothesis turns out to be true, this canine coronavirus will be the eighth coronavirus known to spread among humans.
On the surface, these new findings sound like horrible news. The last thing the world needs right now is another coronavirus that may trigger pneumonia in children. But Jonna Mazet says it's actually good news because it means scientists have caught this virus before it has caused a big problem.
"The very exciting part is that people are starting to do virus discovery and characterization, even when large groups of people aren't dying and or getting severely ill, which is how most virus discovery has happened in the past," says Mazet, who's an epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis and the founding executive director of the One Health Institute there.
By finding this virus early, scientists now have time to study it, create tools to diagnose it and understand what it might take to stop it. Although it's not a cause for deep concern at this time, there's always the risk the virus could evolve over time and become a bigger problem, Mazet says, as was likely the case with SARS-CoV-2.
"Almost certainly, SARS-CoV-2 was circulating for quite some time and making people either a tiny bit sick or not sick enough to be noticed," she says. If scientists had detected it at this stage, perhaps the world would have had time to develop a test for it, some promising treatments and even a preliminary vaccine. Perhaps the pandemic would have taken a much different perhaps less deadly course.
"We need to find these novel viruses well before they fully adapt to humans and become a pandemic problem," writes epidemiologist Gregory Gray, from the University of Texas Medical Branch, in an email to NPR. "Fortunately, today we have the tools to both detect and evaluate the risk of such novel viruses. We just need the political will and financial support to do so."
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Pfizer says its experimental pill for COVID-19 cut rates of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% among patients with mild-to-moderate infections. Mark Lennihan/AP hide caption
Pfizer says its experimental pill for COVID-19 cut rates of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% among patients with mild-to-moderate infections.
Pfizer says that its COVID-19 pill reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 89%, in a clinical trial that tested the drug in adults with the disease who were also in high-risk health groups.
The oral medicine is called Paxlovid. Similar to Merck's new pill that was approved in the U.K. on Thursday, Pfizer said its drug showed good results when administered within five days of the first COVID-19 symptoms.
Based on the strength of the trial's results, Pfizer says it will stop enrolling people into more clinical trials for the pill and will instead send the results it has so far to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to seek emergency use authorization.
"These data suggest that our oral antiviral candidate, if approved or authorized by regulatory authorities, has the potential to save patients' lives, reduce the severity of COVID-19 infections, and eliminate up to nine out of ten hospitalizations," Pfizer CEO and chairman Albert Bourla said.
Both of the antiviral medicines from Pfizer and Merck attack the coronavirus by interfering with its ability to replicate itself.
Pfizer says its pill is also helped by co-administering a low dose of ritonavir, a drug used in HIV/AIDS treatment regimens. Ritonavir helps protease inhibitors like the Pfizer drug persist longer in the human body, making them more effective in fighting a virus.
Officials in both the U.S. and U.K. say that effective COVID-19 pills could be a game-changer in the fight to end the pandemic, because the pills can easily be administered at home. Regeneron's antibody cocktail has become a key tool in medical workers' rush to prevent the worst outcomes for people who've contracted COVID-19, but the monoclonal antibody treatment requires either an intravenous infusion or a series of shots.
Pfizer says its drug could be prescribed to reduce the severity of COVID-19 patients' illness, as well as to cut the chances that adults get infected after they've been exposed to the coronavirus.
"It has demonstrated potent antiviral in vitro activity against circulating variants of concern, as well as other known coronaviruses, suggesting its potential as a therapeutic for multiple types of coronavirus infections," the company said as it announced the drug trial results.
Wash your hands. A lot. That's the message from public health specialists as cold and flu season arrives. Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Image hide caption
Wash your hands. A lot. That's the message from public health specialists as cold and flu season arrives.
Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.
We've heard that colds and the flu could be more prevalent this year because they didn't spread much last year when we were all masked up and staying away from people. Does that mean our defenses that is, antibody protection is down? Would it be a good idea to keep masking up this winter? Or would it be better to let ourselves get sick in the hopes of boosting our immune systems?
It's certainly true that the flu did not spread much last year: Just .2% of respiratory specimens from clinical labs and public health departments participating in national disease surveillance tested positive for flu during the 2020-2021 season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), compared to between 26.2% and 30.3% for the previous three seasons.
What that could mean for this year, however, remains something of a mystery since that kind of dropoff has not happened in recent times. Still, there are enough clues for doctors and public health officials to offer some pretty solid advice.
First, let's take a crash course in cold and flu infection: Like COVID-19, colds and flus are viruses. Getting infected with a virus (as the pandemic has taught us so well) depends on a few things: First, exposure. That could be through the air, a main method of transmission for COVID-19 and the flu, or by touching surfaces contaminated with germs shed by infected individuals (the way colds are often spread). So last October, when children returned to school in Hong Kong wearing masks and physical distancing, flu and COVID were kept at bay but cases of rhinoviruses, which cause 10-40% of common colds, exploded.
But just because you're exposed to a virus doesn't mean you will get sick.
That's where antibodies come in: People who have been exposed to a virus in the past have more immunity to it. That's why kids tend to get sick more often than adults: They haven't had as much time to be exposed to a variety of viruses. So it is possible that people will have fewer antibodies to this year's flu strain because of last year's general lack of exposure, leading to a bad flu season but it's also possible that previous exposures have built up some levels of antibodies. And a study published in June in the Journal of Experimental Medicine shows that exposure to one virus can even help prevent getting infected by another (specifically, the researchers found that the antibodies generated by a rhinovirus infection could halt replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19).
It's unknown how many antibodies we have to different viruses, points out Abraar Karan, an infectious disease doctor at Stanford University. "But we should still have some immune response to past strains," he says.
And there's another way to build up antibodies: vaccines. That could make it especially important to get the flu shot this year, he notes.
But some people are asking: Would it be better to stop masking and hand sanitizing in order to increase your exposure to pathogens? In other words, to risk getting sick in hopes of generating more antibodies for the next go-round? Our experts say no.
"People try not to get the flu every year," Karan says, and that's probably a good thing. Getting sick is ... well, yucky. And flu can, in fact, be fatal.
And you don't have to actually develop flu or cold symptoms to cook up antibodies. Unless you never leave your house, you'll get plenty of exposure to germs, Karan says. And even when you don't get sick from the exposure, you still build up some antibodies.
So the challenge is: stay healthy and, if you fall prey to a virus, avoid infecting others.
And that brings us to a topic all too familiar in the COVID era: washing your hands!
"There's not really such a thing as being too clean," says Charlotte Baker, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Virginia Tech, adding that the pandemic was a wake-up call for many who don't wash their hands enough. "You should always keep your hands clean."
Although you should avoid using antibacterial soap when possible for other reasons (such as developing antibiotic resistance, which doesn't affect viruses), it's fine to keep using alcohol-based hand sanitizers, she says. That does not lead to antibiotic resistance.
Then there's the matter of not infecting others. That means staying home when sick and ... yes, wearing masks on occasion!
We could learn a lesson from other countries that wear masks and keep their hands clean, Baker notes. Those countries tend to have lower rates of flu, colds, respiratory illnesses and even asthma attacks, she says.
"There's a pretty good chance right now of running into someone with a cold, flu" or another respiratory virus, she says. Even when COVID-19 subsides, she hopes "people will still sit out if they don't feel well, wash their hands regularly and if you're around elderly or immunocompromised people regularly, wear a mask when you go out and about" at least during flu season.
And if you top off those preventive measures with a healthy diet, exercise and keeping stress levels low, "you'll put yourself at a good chance of feeling better" if you do pick up a virus, Baker adds.
Masking up post-COVID can be an individual decision, Karan agrees. He plans on using masks even when he's outside of the hospital, depending on how much viruses are circulating that applies to colds, flu and COVID.
Bottom line: "We don't want you to be sick!" Baker says. And getting a nasty case of a cold or the flu isn't necessary to improve your immune system.
Sheila Mulrooney Eldred is a freelance health journalist in Minneapolis. She's written about COVID-19 for many publications, including The New York Times, Kaiser Health News, Medscape and The Washington Post. More at sheilaeldred.pressfolios.com. On Twitter: @milepostmedia
COVID-19 has affected each health insurance company differently, but the industry remains mostly insulated from the virus' growing toll.
The big picture: Most of the big insurers have sidestepped massive coronavirus-related costs so far this year, due in large part to people putting off other care. And the companies that have had to pay more medical claims are raising premiums on employers and consumers, exactly as they said they would.
Driving the news: Health insurers were very focused during the third quarter on their medical loss ratios, or the percentage of premiums that are paid toward health care services and drugs.
Keep in mind: Most large employers pay their own medical claims and use insurers as claims administrators.
The bottom line: Health insurers remain significantly more profitable today than they were before the pandemic, even after factoring in COVID costs.
The Oregon Health Authority on Friday announced 19 COVID-19 deaths and 1,141 new cases.
The agency said that with vaccines for children 5 to 11 years old beginning to be administered this week, the modeling forecast from Oregon Health & Science University shows a possible reduction in the spread of the virus.
The report forecasts that if 60% of newly eligible children become vaccinated, it will reduce the overall proportion of Oregonians susceptible to infection from 23% as of Oct. 26 to 20%.
Where the new cases are by county: Baker (3), Benton (18), Clackamas (85), Clatsop (3), Columbia (20), Coos (20), Crook (16), Curry (2), Deschutes (118), Douglas (41), Gilliam (2), Grant (15), Harney (11), Hood River (5), Jackson (53), Jefferson (22), Josephine (17), Klamath (39), Lake (4), Lane (84), Lincoln (11), Linn (58), Malheur (11), Marion (108), Morrow (1), Multnomah (131), Polk (23), Tillamook (4), Umatilla (35), Union (14), Wallowa (4), Wasco (9), Washington (110), Wheeler (1) and Yamhill (43).
Who died: Oregons 4,544th death is an 82-year-old Morrow County man who tested positive Aug. 11 and died Aug.15 at his residence.
Oregons 4,545th death is a 92-year-old Lane County man who tested positive Aug. 1 and died Oct. 11 at Salem Hospital.
Oregons 4,546th death is an 81-year-old Multnomah County man who tested positive Sept. 21 and died Oct. 6 at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center.
Oregons 4,547th death is an 86-year-old Marion County woman who tested positive Sept. 7 and died Sept. 22 at her residence.
Oregons 4,548th death is a 54-year-old Umatilla County woman who tested positive Sept. 5 and died Sept. 20 at Portland VA Medical Center.
Oregons 4,549th death is a 91-year-old Douglas County man from who tested positive Sept. 18 and died Sept. 26 at his residence.
Oregons 4,550th death is an 84-year-old Marion County man who died July 14 at his residence. The death certificate listed COVID-19 as a cause or a significant condition contributing to his death.
Oregons 4,551st death is a 97-year-old Lane County woman who tested positive Oct. 25 and died Oct. 31 at her residence.
Oregons 4,552nd death is a 66-year-old Marion County woman who died Nov. 7, 2020, at her residence. The death certificate listed COVID-19 as a cause or a significant condition contributing to her death.
Oregons 4,553rd related death is a 56-year-old Jackson County man from who tested positive Oct. 10 and died Nov. 3 at Providence Medford Medical Center.
Oregons 4,554th death is an 84-year-old Douglas County man from who tested positive Aug. 20 and died Nov. 3 at his residence.
Oregons 4,555th death is a 67-year-old Crook County woman who died Feb. 1 at her residence. The death certificate listed COVID-19 as a cause or a significant condition contributing to her death.
Oregons 4,556th death is a 74-year-old Yamhill County man who tested positive Oct. 4 and died Nov. 2 at his residence.
Oregons 4,557th death is an 86-year-old Washington County man who died Jan. 1 at his residence. The death certificate listed COVID-19 as a cause or a significant condition contributing to his death.
Oregons 4,558th death is an 85-year-old Umatilla County man who tested positive Oct. 13 and died Oct. 29 at St. Michael Medical Center in Silverdale, Washington.
Oregons 4,559th death is a 79-year-old Umatilla County man who tested positive Oct. 6 and died Oct. 31 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.
Oregons 4,560th death is a 36-year-old Umatilla County man who tested positive Sept. 14 and died Oct. 28 at Providence Portland Medical Center
Oregons 4,561st death is a 52-year-old Tillamook County man who tested positive Aug. 20 and died Aug. 26 at St. Lukes Boise Medical Center in Boise, Idaho.
Oregons 4,562nd death is a 69-year-old Polk County woman who tested positive Oct. 19 and died Nov. 3 at Salem Hospital.
All those who died either had underlying conditions or the presence of underlying conditions are still being investigated.
Hospitalizations: 533 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are hospitalized, up one from Thursday. That includes 138 people in intensive care, up 15 from Thursday.
Vaccines: 2,960 people have been reported newly vaccinated since Thursday.
Since it began: Oregon has reported 372,137 confirmed or presumed infections and 4,562 deaths, among the lowest per capita numbers in the nation. To date, the state has reported 5,620,415 vaccine doses administered, fully vaccinating 2,620,993 people and partially vaccinating 207,266 people.
To see more data and trends, visit https://projects.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/
-- Ted Sickinger; tsickinger@oregonian.com; 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger
