North Dakota has now marked 1,698 COVID-19 deaths, of which 72 have occurred this October alone, according to the Department of Health.
*The Department of Health often amends the number of active cases after they are first reported.
Cass County, which encompasses Fargo, had the most known active cases on Wednesday with 705 cases. Burleigh County, which includes Bismarck, had 455 active cases, and Stark County, which includes Dickinson, had 361.
Adolescents under 20 years of age encompassed 28% of North Dakota's active COVID-19 cases. As of Wednesday, children under 12, an age group that is not yet eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, accounted for 614 of the state's active cases.
The state's 14-day rolling average positivity rate was 7.21% as of Tuesday, Oct. 19.
As of Tuesday, there were 13 available staffed ICU beds statewide, according to a Department of Health database. Bismarck's two hospitals had zero staffed ICU beds available among them and Fargo's three hospitals had a total of seven open staffed ICU beds.
The vast majority of North Dakotans who are hospitalized because of COVID-19 are unvaccinated. As of Tuesday, 75% of the people currently hospitalized in the state were not fully vaccinated, according to the Department of Health. Ninety percent of people in the ICU had not received the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Department of Health no longer releases demographic data about North Dakota's COVID-19 deaths, such as age and gender. Wednesday's eight reported deaths included three residents of Ward County, two from Burleigh County and one each from Williams, Stark and Grand Forks County.
FIRST DOSE ADMINISTERED*: 374,707 (56.3% of population ages 12 and up)
FULL VACCINE COVERAGE*: 349,703 (52.5% of population ages 12 and up)
*These figures come from the state's vaccine dashboard, though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which includes vaccinations performed at federal sites, reports slightly higher vaccination rates.
North Dakota still ranks in the bottom 10 in vaccination rate in the U.S., according to the CDC.
The Department of Health encourages individuals to get information about vaccines at www.health.nd.gov/covidvaccinelocator.
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Readers can reach reporter Michelle Griffith, a Report for America corps member, at mgriffith@forumcomm.com.
WEST FARGO Three classes at Brooks Harbor Elementary School are either in quarantine or undergoing rapid testing as of Wednesday, Oct. 20, after 13 students and one staff member tested positive for the virus.
Two classes of fifth graders and one fourth grade class are quarantining or rapid testing because three or more students tested positive in the classroom.
Students who are close contacts can keep coming to school, regardless of vaccination status, but unvaccinated students must get a rapid test every other day.
Brooks Harbor currently has the second-highest amount of coronavirus cases in the district, with West Fargo High School having 14 active student cases.
There are currently 66 total cases in the district.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (KSNT) Sara Lynch, who lives in Kansas City with her mother and father, struggles on a daily basis with complications from contracting coronavirus last year.
On Tuesday, Lynch was informed that her lung volume has decreased immensely, now functioning at 35%. Louise, Saras mother, told Kansas Capitol Bureau about the lasting impact of the disease that she said nearly took her daughters life.
She was put in the ICU for a while. She had about 4 different hospital admissions, Louise Lynch said about Saras condition last year. To have a lung functioning 35% capacity is horrific.
Sara was on track to become an attorney at the time, just wrapping up law school. But, her life took a major turn in March 2020 when she got coronavirus. Already dealing with a slew of other medical conditions, like asthma and joint pain, her mother Louise was not sure that her daughter would make it until a physician stepped in offering charity care.
I have eye issues, I have some brain damage, she said. I see multiple specialists at KU med, and Ive been blessed to be able to get three months of charity care from them.
Charity care is free or discounted medically necessary health carethat some hospitals offer to people who cannot afford to pay for treatment otherwise. However, Sara said once that ends, shes not sure what she will do.
Unlike Louise and her husband, Sara doesnt have health insurance after aging out from coverage on her parents plan at the age of 26. She said shes already witnessed firsthand how some facilities treat patients that dont have health insurance when experiencing symptoms after getting a coronavirus vaccine. She described it as being treated like a leper.
I got my COVID-vaccine and spiked a fever of 104.2 or so. We called the doctor and the doctor told us to wait until it was 105 or 106 to even bother them because I didnt have health insurance, Sara said. I went from being a productive adult, having a job, going on towards a legal career, to now being treated like scum. Because I dont have healthcare my health goes down, and I cant get back into planning for a future.
After three years of searching, Sara and her mother have run out of options trying to find affordable healthcare in the state. When applying for Medicaid, they said that she was ineligible, counting her mothers income and her fathers disability income as part of Saras earnings. Louise, her mother, said this happened, even though Sara is 29-years old.
Sara is one of the thousands who fall within the Medicaid coverage gap in Kansas, one of 12 states that have yet to expand coverage.
One analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that 44,000 Kansans are caught in the Medicaid coverage gap with no way to get affordable health coverage. Its an issue that comes up almost every year in the Kansas Legislature, sometimes attached to other proposals, but has fallen short of the support needed to pass.
Some lawmakers that argue against expansion have said that it could lead to steep financial costs for the state over the years. However, Saras mother Louise said, expanding coverage would allow her daughter to afford the care she needs, along with other people in the state who are struggling to get by.
I refuse to have her go down that track that shes nothing and be what these people quote-on-quote categorize her in.
According to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are 1.3 times as many boosters administered each day than first shots.
And the number could grow, as the CDC's vaccine advisory committee prepares to meet Thursday to discuss mixing and matching boosters as well as booster doses for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
Thursday's meeting will decide which groups the CDC recommends the boosters for. Typically, shots can be administered once the CDC director signs off on the recommendation.
The FDA could also soon lower the age range on its emergency use authorizations for booster shots for coronavirus vaccines once more safety data comes in, officials told reporters Wednesday.
"We want to make sure that if we deploy the boosters in all of the age ranges, that we truly are making a benefit outweigh any risk," Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA's vaccine arm, the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said. "We will not hesitate to drop this age range as we see this benefit outweigh the risk, and because of the EUA authority that we have, we can do that in a relatively quick amount of time."
Health experts have said that vaccination is the key to controlling the spread of Covid-19, and many are still encouraging more Americans to get their first doses.
But evidence suggests that immunity from full vaccination can wane, which drove the need to authorize booster doses of coronavirus vaccine, acting FDA commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said Wednesday.
"To date, the currently available data suggest waning immunity in some populations of fully vaccinated people," Woodcock told reporters during a telephone briefing.
"And the availability of these authorized boosters is important for continued protection against Covid-19 disease," she added. "The actions we have taken ... help address this waning immunity."
Vaccinating children will play a "major role" in controlling the pandemic
Young children are still not eligible for even their first doses, but experts say their protection will be key to bringing the pandemic under control.
Currently, only adolescents as young as 12 are eligible for vaccines, but data has been submitted to the FDA for doses for children 5-11.
About 28 million children 5-11 could soon become eligible to get vaccinated against Covid-19 if the FDA authorizes shots for this age group and if the CDC recommends it.
Getting most children vaccinated against Covid-19 will "play a major role" in slowing the spread of disease and pushing the nation closer to herd immunity, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday.
"In the era of Delta, children get infected as readily as adults do. And they transmit the infection as readily as adults do. We may not appreciate that, because about 50% of the infections in children are asymptomatic," Fauci told a White House Covid-19 briefing.
"If we can get the overwhelming majority of those 28 million children vaccinated, I think that would play a major role in diminishing the spread of infection in the community," said Fauci, who is chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"That's one of the reasons why we want to do as best as we can to get those children from 5 to 11 vaccinated."
And when they do roll out, the US surgeon general said he wants to make vaccines available to children as soon as possible.
"That preparation takes planning, it takes time, and that's why we've been working very hard to do a few things over the last several weeks to months," Dr. Vivek Murthy said on NBC's Today.
Pandemic plummeted attendance rates for homeless students
Although children have not had the highest rates of infection, they have faced many of the pandemic's impacts. And for children without homes, there have been even more barriers.
The study, which used attendance data from the NYC Department of Education (DOE), documented that the average attendance rate of students in shelter during the first couple of weeks of the winter semester was only 73%. The year-to-date attendance rate for students in shelters is 78.5%, according to the DOE.
There are especially high rates of absenteeism at the high school level, according to the study. Tenth graders "missed more than one out of every three school days in winter and spring 2021, while 9th, 11th, and 12th graders in shelter were absent more than 25% of the time," according to the advocacy group.
The study shows that even prior to the pandemic, the average attendance rate for New York City students living in shelters during the 2019-20 school year was only 83.2%, compared to 92.2% for permanently housed students. Covid-19 only added new barriers.
"High rates of absenteeism in winter and spring 2021 point to a particular need for support for students living in shelter as schools reopen this year," the study says.
The non-profit organization recommended that the DOE should use federal Covid-19 relief funds to hire 150 shelter-based DOE community coordinators as a start to "overhaul the education support system in shelters." Community coordinators are typically responsible for providing support and resources to help students get to school.
"If we want to break the cycle of family homelessness, the city must address barriers to attendance for students in shelter," Jennifer Pringle, Director of Advocates for Children's Learners in Temporary Housing project said. "Fortunately, the DOE is in a position to tackle barriers to attendance for students in shelters with the tens of millions of dollars in federal American Rescue Plan Act -- Homeless funds it is poised to receive."
According to the New York City DOE, it is in the process of planning for the use of federal money to expand staffing. There are currently 324 DOE personnel in direct contact with homeless students and their families daily, according to the department.
CNN's Deidre McPhillips, Maggie Fox, John Bonifield, Jacqueline Howard, Naomi Thomas and Maya Brown contributed to this report.
BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Vaccine Effectiveness against Death from the Delta Variant | NEJM nejm.org
A private school in Florida sent a letter to parents, saying the vaccine contains a live virus that can be transmitted.
COLUMBUS, Ohio Center Academy, a private school in Miamiasked parents to keep their kids home for 30 days if their child gets the coronavirus vaccine.
The school is citing claims about vaccination and shedding, meaning the COVID-19 vaccine contains a live virus that can be transmitted after someone gets the shot.
Is there any truth to the vaccine shedding claim for COVID-19?
The HHS shows the types of vaccines that are approved and how they work.
The COVID-19 vaccines are listed under Messenger RNA vaccines and Viral Vector Vaccines, not live vaccines.
"Unfortunately this business about people shedding the spike protein after they get vaccinated is not only fiction I quantify it as science fiction. They don't shed it in the skin, not urine, it's pure science fiction," Dr. Gastaldo explains.
You can read more about myths and facts when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine on the CDC website:
No, none of the COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. contains a live virus that can be transmitted.
Have a question or claim you want to be verified? Email us at verify@10tv.com.
National pride in the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine does not outweigh desire for global greater good, suggests study with trial participants.
Participants in the clinical trial that led to the success of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 are proud of the UK's achievement and believe the vaccine should be a shared global good. In a study published today in BMJ Global Health researchers reveal that the volunteers who put their bodies on the line to test the safety and efficacy of the vaccine wanted to end the pandemic globally. They spoke about helping the most vulnerable and where need was the greatest during interviews conducted between September and November 2020.
Before COVID-19 most people would not have heard of 'vaccine nationalism'. Now it is a key topic of media attention and academic commentary that global access to vaccines has been limited by the monopolisation of doses by high-income countries."
Dr Samantha Vanderslott, Social Sciences Researcher, Oxford Vaccine Group and Oxford Martin Program on Collective Responsibility for Infectious Disease, University of Oxford
"Much of the focus has been on the vaccine supply 'winners' and 'losers', but the voices of public opinion have been more limited. To understand this more we surveyed and interviewed participants in the Oxford-AstraZeneca clinical trial about their views, motivations, and experiences of taking part in the trial." said Dr Kate Emary, Research Fellow at the Oxford Vaccine Group.
Results shows that participants did feel conflicted about how the resulting successful vaccine would be used. They hoped that the UK would receive the vaccine first, often due to the use of taxpayer money and local facilities and talent - some admitted that they just wanted their lives to go back to normal. However, this did not mean the lives of others elsewhere in the world felt less important to them. Participants spoke very strongly about their hopes that that they were doing their part for the most vulnerable across the world, not just the UK.
"I think it should just go to globally whoever's going to benefit from it the most I think it should be key workers around the world, the people that need it the most around the world," said one participant.Another agreed, "the idealist bit of me would just want a global approach to [the vaccine rollout] really, because that's the only way we're going to solve [the pandemic] properly."
"We found that trial participants were immensely proud of the UK origins of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and the scientific achievement it represents," said Dr Vanderslott. "The nationalistic rhetoric that surrounded vaccine development fed into the conception of the resultant vaccine belonging to the UK and gave it a national character. This complicates cooperative and internationalist thinking and made it more difficult for the vaccine to be seen as a global public good. Despite this, trial participants maintained a global outlook on the pandemic and were highly supportive of prioritisation by need. Public support is key to ensuring that global equitable vaccine access is achieved. This study shows that the support is there if governments and the pharmaceutical industry are willing to listen."
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, chief investigator of the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine trials and director of the Oxford Vaccine Group said, "Initiatives like COVAX and the G7's pledge of 1bn vaccine doses for poorer countries reflect the ambitions we have seen from vaccine trial participants in this study, and from the public statements of those involved in vaccine development. We need to internationalise COVID-19 vaccines and get them to the places and people than need them most. However, the reality is that the outcomes in practice are still falling far short of the vision. More than 95% of people in low-income countries are yet to receive their first dose, meanwhile some high-income nations are offering 'booster shots' to the fully vaccinated."
'Vaccine nationalism and internationalism: perspectives of COVID-19 vaccine trial participants in the United Kingdom' is published in BMJ Global Health. It explores the concepts of vaccine nationalism and internationalism from the perspective of vaccine trial participants, using an empirical perspectives study that involved interviews with phase I/II COVID-19 vaccine trial participants in Oxford, UK.
UW Researchers Examining Vaccine Allergic Reactions
MADISON (WKOW) -- Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison want to know if people who are highly allergic to other things are more likely to have an allergic reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Allergic reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine are rare. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, severe reactions to the vaccine happened in about two to five people per million vaccinated in the United States.
While allergic reactions from these vaccines are rare, they do sometimes happen, and most of these reactions have occurred in people with a history ofallergies, said Dr. Mark Moss, a professor of medicine and the lead researcher in the study.
Moss says that if they have a clearer understanding of these reactions and why they happen, it can help doctors better advise people with a history of severe allergies or with mast cell disorder.
"There are still people who have not received the COVID-19 vaccine because they're worried about having a reaction and allergic reaction to the vaccine because of their history of having allergic reactions to other triggers," he said.
As part of the study, participants will receive a COVID-19 vaccine under close observation.
Those who participate do not need to have a known history of severe allergies to participate, but for those who do, the triggers include food, medications, insect stings and vaccinations.
People interested in learning more about the study or about their eligibility can call the University of WisconsinMadison Allergy Research team at (608) 263-6049.
The study is sponsored and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Public Health.
(NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP) This image made available by NASA shows the Cat's Paw Nebula inside the Milky Way Galaxy located in the constellation Scorpius, captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Its distance from Earth is estimated to be between 1.3 kiloparsecs (about 4,200 light years) to 1.7 kiloparsecs (about 5,500 light years).
| Oct. 20, 2021, 5:05 p.m.
Surprising perhaps no one, Salt Lake County residents born under the exuberant, high-achieving, let-no-opportunity-pass sign of Leo have been vaccinated for the coronavirus at higher rates than those of any other zodiac sign.
Thats according to an analysis of immunization and population data released this week by the Salt Lake County Health Department.
The department found that vaccination rates vary dramatically by astrological sign, from 70% of Leos to just 46% of Scorpios, who, if zodiac stereotypes hold true, perhaps hope to contract COVID-19 in order to deliberately infect someone else in retaliation against a perceived slight.
We already weaponize ourselves, health department spokesman Nicholas Rupp himself a vaccinated Scorpio said of the most notoriously intense grudge-holders in the cosmos.
Or its so they dont have to be around other people, speculated Jeff Eason, the departments bureau manager of population health and informatics, which conducted the analysis.
The bureau obtained anonymized birth dates from the countys vaccination data to learn how vaccines were distributed among the 12 astrological signs, and compared those figures to national estimates for the share of the overall population represented by each sign.
Right behind Salt Lake Countys Leos are those born under the idealistic sign of Aquarius (67% vaccinated), followed by the determined Aries and inquisitive Sagittarius.
Notably, three of the top four signs are elemental fire signs. We are overachievers, said Eason, an Aries.
Perfectionist Virgos were dismayed to find their vaccination rate only slightly higher than Scorpios, at 50%.
Wow, Im really disappointed in my fellow Virgos, one Twitter user mused. Honestly I expected better, another replied.
Falling in the middle were the pleasure-seeking, take-it-or-leave-it Taurus, and the multifaceted but easily distracted Gemini, at 56% and 55%.
The range of vaccination rates was startlingly wide, Eason acknowledged, but that could all come down to the denominators, he said.
Each signs vaccination rate was ranked almost exactly inverse to its share of the population. Scorpios and Virgos make up 9.4% and 9.3% of the U.S. population, respectively, compared to 7.1% for Leo and 6.3% for Aquarius.
If the 12 astrological signs actually are more evenly distributed in Salt Lake Countys population than they are nationally, the range of vaccination rates would not be as wide as this analysis shows, Eason explained.
Obviously, its not super scientific because we are talking astrology, Rupp said.
The county prepared the analysis as a fun conversation starter to promote vaccination. We do have message fatigue around vaccines, Rupp said.
About 59% of Salt Lake County residents are fully vaccinated, with a statewide rate of 54%.
Disclosure: This article was written by a Scorpio and edited by a Virgo.
Biden touts COVID progress, pushes vaccinations
President Joe Biden touted the progress his administration has made in battling COVID-19 Thursday, as he encouraged the approximately 66 million unvaccinated Americans to get a shot. (Oct. 14)
AP
Many people have caught COVID-19 over the past 20 months, despite their best efforts,or because they didn't take enough precautions against the coronavirus.
Data is just starting to emerge about how protected they may be against another infection.
As with most illnesses, contracting COVID-19 provides immune "memory" that helps protect against a future infection. But it's still unclearhow sick a person has to get with COVID-19 to develop enough immune memory to be protective and for how long. That's why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends even peoplewho havehad COVID-19 get vaccinated against it.
A growing body of research suggests infection plus vaccination provides the strongest protection against a wide range of variants, possibly for a long time.
People who were infected and then vaccinated some months laterhave "what's called 'hybrid immunity,' which is like super-immunity," said Warner Greene, a virologist at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco.
This combined protection seems to last a long time, according to a new study in the journal Science. It may last far longer than vaccination alone, he said, though that hasn't been proven yet.
Greene warns against seeking outinfection to get such good protection, though. Severe disease is no fun and can strike anyone.
Infectious disease expert Dr. Monica Gandhisaid public health officials too often downplay the protection provided byinfection.
"To deny natural immunity does not generate trust," said Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Franciscoand San Francisco General Hospital.
Getting vaccinated three months or even better, six months after infection provides the best possible protection, she said. But adding a secondshot offers almost no additional benefit over the first, nor do peoplewho havebeen fully vaccinated and infected need a booster at this point.
"If you're naturally immune, get one dose," Gandhi said.
In a new study from the Rockefeller Institute in New York, researchers found that people who get vaccinated after catching COVID-19 may be protectedagainst a wider range of variants than people who get vaccinated alone.
Still, saidTheodora Hatziioannou, an author on the study, if you have to pick one, go with vaccination.
Shots, she said, lead to higher levels of neutralizing antibodies, naturally made substances that fight an infection. Neutralizing antibodies wane with time, so the more you start out with, the better.
"At five-six months post-vaccination or infection," she said, "the vaccinated participants had overall higher levels of neutralizing antibodies than the infected, including against variants."
There are still open questions when it comes to natural immunity and the protection it affords.
It's not clear, for instance, how soon someone can get infected with COVID-19 a second time.
The CDC"is actively working to learn more about reinfection to inform public health action," according to spokesperson Kristen Nordlund."This is a priority area of research for CDC."
For young, healthy people, an infection may provide80% to 90% protection against a reinfection, she said.But in older adults and thosewho are immunocompromised, an infection may be less protective.
In Denmark, for instance, of nearly 12,000 people who tested positive during the first wave of coronavirus infections last year, more than 80% were protected in the second surge. But among those 65 and older, protection against repeat infection was only 47%. Protection didn't seem to fade over time.
Milder or asymptomatic infections may provide less protection than severe ones.
Unvaccinated people who had COVID-19 are more than twice as likely as fully vaccinated people to get COVID-19 again, Nordlund said.
Studies are still being done, she said, to better understand whether repeat infections are milder than initial ones.
"One would expect so,"Hatziioannou said. "The immune responses developed during the first infection should offer some protection against severe symptoms the second time around."
But variants might make a difference. For example, she said, blood from people previously infected with the so-called beta coronavirus variant might not be able to fight the delta variant as well as people infected with the virus in its original form.
Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, said it's frustrating to be this far into the pandemic and still have so little understanding of repeat infections.
Though it should be relatively easy to count how many people get infected after vaccination data the CDC stopped collecting this spring it's much more challenging to learn how many people are getting repeat COVID-19 infections.
If they're not very sick, he said, they are unlikely to report those infections.
Early studies suggested some people were developing different types of immune responses to infection, he said. Some developed protection against the virus' spike protein, the same target of vaccines. They seemed less likely to develop a repeat infection.
But it's possible that as the virus that causes COVID-19 continues to evolve, another variant will come along and people whose immune systems responded to a different part of the virus will be better protected, he said.
Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said he worries about patients who had a severe reaction to COVID-19 the first time.
He hasseen a number of patients whose symptoms are worse with a second infection, perhaps because they haveimmune cells that are "primed to respond in an exaggerated or more aggressive fashion during a reinfection."
Countries that have tried to rely on natural infections to slow the spread of the virus, such as Brazil and Iran,"have not prevented recurrent waves of infection," Glatter said.
"There is no country in the world where natural infection and natural immunity has slowed the pace of the pandemic or helped to bring it under control."
ContactKaren Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday.com.
Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.
