A look at major COVID-19 developments over the past week The Atlanta Journal Constitution
U.S. Sen Ron Johnson told those who gathered for a town hall meeting in northern Wisconsin Friday that vaccines against COVID-19 "are not as safe ... and effective as we all hoped and prayed they would be," and said overwhelmed hospitals weren't a sign of a health crisis.
The comments come two weeks after Wisconsin surpassed 8,000 deaths from the pandemic disease and just days after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report suggesting the use of vaccines prevented 700 deaths in Wisconsin in the first five months of 2021 alone.
Johnson, who had an asymptomatic case of COVID-19 in 2020, said he hasn't received the vaccine. He has spent months amplifying conspiracy theories and calling attention to rare cases of adverse reactions to it, as well as blasting medical authorities who say there's no scientific evidence supporting the use of the drug Ivermectin as a prophylactic or early treatment for the disease.
Johnson's town hall Friday afternoon in far northern Boulder Junction included brief discussions of immigration, gerrymandering and climate change. But Johnson spent by far the most time at and after the event expressing his skepticism of the vaccine and his strong opposition to employer and government policies mandating it. He dismissed accusations that his actions are undermining public confidence in the vaccine.
"'Anti-vax' is now a pejorative," Johnson said in a brief exchange with reporters after the town hall. "It's hurled at people falsely all the time. It's like the worst thing you could possibly be. I've had every vaccine (except COVID-19)."
But Johnson in the town hall made numerous false or misleading claims about the drug, including implying that a federal database that records all health events experienced by the hundreds of millions of people who have been vaccinated shows that thousands died as a direct result of the vaccine.
In fact, a new analysis by the Rural Policy Research Institute found death rates from COVID-19 in rural counties are now roughly double the rates in urban areas due to lagging vaccination rates in rural America.
The room of around 150 people was overwhelmingly supportive of the senator, offering applause breaks and questions that teed up favorite topics. The northern region of Wisconsin voted overwhelmingly for former Republican President Donald Trump in 2020, and he won Vilas County by a 60-38 margin.
As Wisconsin experienced a spike in new infections in August and September, some hospital systems were overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. As recently as this week, central Wisconsin's Marshfield Clinic was full to capacity.
Johnson said that is normal.
"A bad flu season will put stress, sometimes overwhelm hospitals for certain regions. That happens all the time," he said. "Just because it happens with COVID doesn't mean theres some massive crisis in terms of our health care system."
Two questioners during the town hall said they had children who were facing being fired due to employers' vaccine mandates. That included one who said his son was a military physician being "threatened with dishonorable discharge (and) pulling his medical license" because he is declining to give or receive COVID-19 vaccines. On Thursday, the website Military.com reported that 92 percent of active service members had received at least one dose of the vaccine.
"They are threatening to ruin him if he does not comply," the questioner said. "Yes or no, will you help him if they do that?"
"Yes," Johnson said.
The Inland Northwest saw more than 1,200 new COVID-19 cases in the past week as virus continues to spread in the area.
In Spokane County, case numbers remain high, despite a dip in cases statewide. In the last week, the county has had 767 new COVID-19 cases. On Friday, the Spokane Regional Health District reported 215 new cases and two additional deaths. There have been 862 deaths in Spokane due to the virus.
There are 175 people currently hospitalized in Spokane.
After hitting record highs for COVID-19 hospitalizations, Kootenai Health numbers dipped slightly toward the end of the week. At its peak Wednesday, the hospital had 150 COVID-19 cases. As of Friday morning, that number was down to 139 patients, with 42 patients requiring critical care. There were no pediatric patients. A week ago, there were 127 patients hospitalized.
The Panhandle Health District reported 79 new cases on Friday. There have been 512 deaths in the Panhandle Health District due to the virus.
In the past week, the districts numbers have also remained high, with 942 new cases reported in the last seven days.
Onondaga County and Kinney Drugs to host COVID-19 booster clinic Thursday, October 14 CNYcentral.com
Massachusetts public schools have found and reported almost 15 times as many cases of COVID-19 among students and staff as they had at this point last year.
After four weeks of classes, the state tallies 8,502 total cases 7,388 among students and 1,114 among staff compared to just 578 in the same period of the2020-21 school year.
While increases in the number of students learning in-person and in school-based testingaccount for part of that disparity, some public health experts and local officials take it as a sign that the state cant yet let its guard down when it comes to controlling the viruss spread.
Changes to state regulations mean that nearly all students are in school buildings this October, compared to about half as many by this point last fall. But Julia Raifman, an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, says the virus has changed, too.
[The delta variant] is very transmissible, and it's clear that it's transmitting among children, Raifman says. And while children are lower-risk than adults, weve seen record-high hospitalizations and deaths of children across the country with the variant.
Though the hospitalization and death of children from COVID-19 are still quite rare, CDC data do suggest that, nationally, this Septemberwas the worst yet for children ages 0-17, with 81 deaths from the virus. But in Massachusetts, the same data shows no known deaths of COVID-19.
But Raifman adds that childrens health outcomes are not the only potential ramification of high case counts in schools.
She notes, for example, the unusually high numbers of deaths among people of parenting age, from 25 to 44. Theres also the concern of what happens to everybody when children have to miss school, when parents have to miss out on work to take care of their kids, or if they become sick, she added.
State officials say this falls numbers may be further inflated by the reopening of large districts for in-person learning and the expansion of a pooled-testing program to include 2,200 schools twice as many as participated last year.
In a statement accompanying the latest reports, they note that pooled testing data in this report show low positivity rates, less than 1 percent, and instances of in-school transmission are rare.
School-based reports reached their peak in the second week of classes, and have decreased in each of the last two weeks.
Nevertheless, Raifman who oversees a Boston University database of state COVID-19 policies hopes that both parents and policymakers will exercise caution in the weeks ahead. She supports the use of a mask mandate in schools, but adds that parents and communities should adopt data-driven masking policies like theone used in Nevada, which is enforced and loosened depending on local rates of spread.
Children ages five to 11 will soon be eligible for vaccines, Raifman says, so any deaths or severe disease that we prevent in the next few months until they can begin receiving vaccines may be prevented forever. Its certainly worth really leaning in to prevent illness in children now.
Comparatively hard-hit districts like Worcester are hoping to do just that, according to school committee member Tracy OConnell Novick.
The Worcester Public Schools are planning another round of vaccination clinics in secondary schools, paired with information for familiesabout the vaccines and work with the professional unions on mandatory vaccinations or weekly testing, Novick says.
Novick notes with regret thatamong students who already qualify our vaccination rates arent where we need them to be, and we just need to keep working on that.As of last week, the vaccination rate for Massachusetts residents age 12 to 17 was still among the lowest of the state's age groups, at around 72%.
A patient receives their coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine booster during a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination clinic in Southfield, Michigan, U.S., September 29, 2021. REUTERS/Emily Elconin
Oct 9 (Reuters) - The United States has administered 401,819,240 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday morning and distributed 487,277,035 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 400,669,422 vaccine doses the CDC said had been administered by Friday out of 485,713,525 doses delivered.
The Atlanta-based agency said 216,889,814 people had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 187,215,471 people were fully vaccinated as of 6 a.m. EDT on Saturday.
The CDC tally includes the two-dose vaccines from Moderna (MRNA.O) and Pfizer/BioNTech (PFE.N), , as well as Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ.N) one-shot vaccine.
Roughly 7.8 million people have received a booster dose of either Pfizer or Moderna's vaccine since Aug. 13, when the United States authorized a third dose of the vaccines for people with compromised immune systems who are likely to have weaker protection from the two-dose regimens.
Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in BengaluruEditing by Paul Simao
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
From Cambodia to Canada, dozens of other nations are now beating US in COVID-19 vaccinations USA TODAY
As the days shorten and people come indoors, what should we expect as we head into our second COVID-19 autumn and winter?
Last year, Thanksgiving and Christmas triggered a pandemic spike. Over holiday season 2020, Californias daily case counts climbed as high as 54,000. In contrast, the state is now reporting about 5,500 new cases a day.
While nothing is certain, there is more optimism.Were in a much better place than we were last year, said UC San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford.
I think well see a small to moderate winter surge, Rutherford predicted. It wont be as pronounced as last winters pandemic but may mimic the smaller spike in cases experienced in August, he said.
Why? Theres growing immunity and several pending steps by federal authorities to fight the virus. While there are still pockets of unvaccinated people in the Bay Area, overall vaccination rates in some counties for residents 12 and up have surpassed 80%. Statewide, 71% of eligible Californians are fully vaccinated. This population-wide protection is expected to climb still higher once children are eligible to get shots.
Heres a look at what the months ahead will bring.
CHILDREN WILL START TO BE VACCINATED
On Thursday, Pfizer submitted clinical trial data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize emergency use of their vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11. Pfizers data shows that the vaccine is safe and triggers a robust strong immune response in kids.
The agency will meet on Oct. 26 to consider this plan suggesting we may see a decision and distribution of the vaccine for kids between Halloween and Thanksgiving.
The pediatric vaccine is not as straightforward as it sounds. It will hold one-third the dosage of the vaccine for older youth and adults, according to Pfizer. This likely requires dilution and perhaps a different formulation.
If successful, that move would help protect another 28 million Americans.
Its an important advance, said Rutherford. The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations is right up there with the worst of the childhood infectious diseases. We want to extend the existing technology not just to protect them from getting sick, but to prevent transmission.
WANING IMMUNITIES WILL GET A BOOST
Theres concern that as immunity levels in communities start to subside, there will be a new resurgence of cases. So far, only Pfizers vaccine has been authorized for booster doses. And its offered only to older and other vulnerable Americans, such as people with medical conditions or jobs that place them at higher risk of exposure. There are no imminent plans to expand the eligible population.
Americans are welcoming this third shot, according to new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Of the 6.6 million shots given from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, more than 2.6 million of them were booster shots, compared to 2 million first doses and 2 million second doses.
Next week, on Oct. 14 and 15, an FDA committee plans to discuss Moderna and J&J booster vaccines. If authorized, these vaccines may be offered to a narrower group of people than the Pfizer vaccine. Thats because overall immunity after the initial round of Moderna and J&J vaccines seems to hold up better over time than the Pfizer vaccine.
THERE WILL BE MORE MIXING-AND-MATCHING OF VACCINES
Also next week,the FDA committee plans to discuss whether people should be allowed to get a booster shot of a different vaccine than the one they originally received.
So-called mixing and matching of vaccines getting a first dose of Pfizer, followed by a second dose of Moderna is already used in Europe and other places, so it will likely be approved in the U.S. In fact, there have been recent studies suggesting that using two different vaccine technologies getting both the J&J and Pfizer vaccines, for instance may offer more vigorous protection than sticking with one type.
That could boost convenience. It could also assure better protection on university campuses, where a large number of Chinese and other international students have gotten the Sinovac or Sinopharm vaccines, which work less well than their foreign counterparts.
Pharmaceutical companies dont conduct mix-and-match clinical trials; they only research their own product. So the National Institutes of Health has structured a giant comparison study to help answer the mix-and-match question.
THERE WILL BE MORE TESTING
Earlier this year, we thought vaccinated people couldnt spread the virus. Thats changed.
For now, testing and knowing your status is going to be extremely important to keep businesses and schools running, said Dr. Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard Universitys Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases.
This past week, the FDA authorized a new COVID-19 home test that is expected to double the nations limited supply of non-prescription tests. The FDAs emergency use authorization of ACON Laboratories Flowflex COVID-19 home test means that tens of millions of additional tests will soon be available. While the consumer price is not yet known, large retailers such as Walmart, Amazon and Kroger have agreed to sell at-home tests at the cost they pay for them.
Production could double to 200 million monthly tests by February, according to the FDA. That could be enough to supply the schools and companies who carry out President Bidens vaccinate-or-test mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees.
Its important to test yourself promptly before traveling or attending an event, said Mina. Currently, many places allow testing up to three days before.
Thats like going through a TSA security checkpoint at the airport and then being allowed to go back home for three days and repack your bags, he said. Then when you come back, you dont have to go through security again. Thats not a good way to screen.
A logo is pictured outside a building of the World Health Organization (WHO) during an executive board meeting on update on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Geneva, Switzerland, April 6, 2021. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - The United States will accept the use by international visitors of COVID-19 vaccines authorized by U.S. regulators or the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said late on Friday.
On Sept. 20, the White House announced the United States in November would lift travel restrictions on air travelers from 33 countries including China, India, Brazil and most of Europe who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. It did not specify then which vaccines would be accepted.
A CDC spokeswoman told Reuters Friday, "Six vaccines that are FDA authorized/approved or listed for emergency use by WHO will meet the criteria for travel to the U.S."
Late on Friday, the CDC said that "earlier this week, to help them prepare their systems we informed airlines" of the vaccines that would be accepted and added "CDC will release additional guidance and information as the travel requirements are finalized."
Airlines for America, a trade group representing American Airlines Co (AAL.O), Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), United Airlines and others, said it was "pleased by the CDC's decision to approve a list of authorized vaccinations for travelers entering the U.S. We look forward to working with the administration to implement this new global vaccine and testing framework by early November 2021."
Some countries had pressed the Biden administration to accept WHO-approved vaccines, since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized vaccines are not widely used in all countries.
The United States will admit fully vaccinated air travelers from the 26 so-called Schengen countries in Europe as well as Britain, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil. The unprecedented U.S. restrictionshave barred most non-U.S. citizens who were in those countries within the past 14 days.
The new COVID-19 vaccine requirements will now apply to nearly all foreign nationals flying to the United States - including those not subject to the prior restrictions.
The CDC must still finalize and publish new contract tracing rules for international visitors, which it sent to the White House for review on Sept. 15.
The CDC must also detail rules for exceptions, which include children not yet eligible for shots, as well as for visitors from countries where vaccines are not widely available. The administration must also decide whether to admit visitors part of COVID-19 clinical trials or have recently contracted COVID-19 and are not yet eligible for vaccination.
Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and David Gregorio
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
As the vaccine mandate deadline approaches, Washington State University officials reported an estimated 90% of employees are vaccinated.
PULLMAN, Wash. Editor's note: The above video on changes to vaccine exemptions at WSU was published in August 2021.
Student vaccination rates are even higher as COVID-19 cases have begun to drop dramatically compared to over a year ago, according to the university. Whitman County Public Health reported 526 confirmed COVID-19 cases involving members of the WSU Pullman community from Aug. 30 to Sept. 12 this time last year.
Our vaccination rates are high, and we know its the path that gets us through this pandemic, said WSU President Kirk Schulz. With a critical state deadline approaching for our employees, weve sought to work through pockets of hesitancy and uncertainty with compassion and understanding but with a firm commitment to making sure were doing everything possible to deliver a robust in-person educational experience.
Due to Gov. Jay Inslees vaccine mandate, all state employees are expected to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 18 or have an approved exemption for documented medical reasons or sincerely held religious beliefs. According to the mandate, those who fail to meet the requirements will be prohibited from engaging in work for the State of Washington, including public universities.
Students were asked to submit proof of vaccination by Sept. 10 or else face being put on hold from enrolling for the upcoming spring semester.
Of the approximately 10,000 full-and part-time WSU employees systemwide, 88% were fully or partially vaccinated as of Oct. 5. Verification efforts are continuing.
For students who have submitted documentation, reported vaccination rates at each of WSUs five physical campuses are more than 95%. The Pullman and Spokane campuses top the list at 98% each. Most students have either reported their vaccination status or requested an exemption, though percentages vary by campus and are still growing as compliance efforts continue.
More than 1,250 requests for medical and religious exemptions have been made by WSU students, faculty and staff. So far, nearly 800 have been approved and the review process is continuing. Final numbers will be available after Oct. 18.
For employees such as head football coach Nick Rolovich, the exemption requests go through a two-step process. The first is the blind review. Then, if an exemption is approved, the request moves to a separate accommodation review step where a determination is made whether the unvaccinated employee will be able to perform their duties without risking the health and safety of the community.
Nick Rolovich's longtime mentor and legendary coach June Jonestold USA Today on Saturday morning that Rolovich has applied for a religious exemption from Governor Inslee's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. According to Jones, Rolovich does not know yet if his exemption has been approved.
