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Instruction
Hawaii Lt. Gov. Josh Green says the state is considering a vaccination verification program, similar to San Francisco and New York City, which would require people to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 in order to enter restaurants, bars, gyms and other indoor establishments.
He said such a policy could be two to three weeks away.
We are working up that policy and giving it as an option to the governor, Green told Spotlight Hawaii this morning.
A vaccine verification program for businesses is among a number of options Green said the governor and county mayors are considering as the highly contagious delta variant causes COVID-19 cases to surge throughout the islands and influx of patients strains hospitals. Green said that imposing a curfew to relieve pressure on emergency rooms is one idea, but he doubts it will happen.
While a portion of the public is pushing for more stringent measures to control the spread of the virus, Green said the policy decisions are complicated.
I know there are people out there who say, Look, just shut it all down, said Green. But thats a pretty difficult thing to do when suddenly a family who got vaccinated wont be able to pay their rent, wont be able to pay their mortgage, wont be able to pay for groceries for their children, may not have extra unemployment protection.
Green said its difficult to punish everyone because 17% of residents who are eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine, still havent gotten it. The vaccine is available to anyone who is age 12 and older. But if case numbers cant be controlled or there are outbreaks in schools, Green said the state will likely have to look at shutdowns.
As of this morning, there were 381 people hospitalized with COVID, throughout the state, 90% of whom are unvaccinated, said Green. On July 1, before the delta variant of the coronavirus caused a spike in cases, there were just 40 people hospitalized with the virus, according to state data.
Green said for now it looks like Hawaiis hospitals will be able to absorb the increase in COVID patients. There are 3,200 hospital beds throughout the state, about 2,200 of which are currently staffed. The state is in the midst of bringing in more than 500 relief workers, including critical care nurses and respiratory technicians, to assist with the surge in patients, which will allow the hospitals to open up more beds.
Green said the state also has a variety of options if capacity is eventually outstripped, including turning hotels into makeshift hospitals, using the National Guard to set up portable hospitals and using the Hawaii Convention Center for patients.
On the more extreme end of options is building a new facility, which would cost about $300 million. That would be if we had months and months of high levels in the hospital and our hospital facilities couldnt survive, he said.
In late July, a federal judge upheld Indiana Universitys COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all students, faculty and staff, save for medical and religious exemptions. In the court opinion, Judge Damon R. Leichty emphasized the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and affirmed IUs legal authority as a public university to mandate them.
Progress has been made because of the vaccine, not despite it, Leichty wrote. To the extent that lingering medical and scientific debate remain on this record, the court remains resolved that Indiana University has acted reasonably here in pursuing public health and safety for its campus communities.
So what is Purdue waiting for?
Make no mistakes. We are nowhere near the end of this pandemic. Cases and hospitalization are again sharply on the rise thanks to the far more contagious delta variant raging among the unvaccinated. State and local officials around the country rushed to restore indoor mask mandates as a result. According to the Indiana State Department of Health, only 49% of the Tippecanoe County residents are fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, Purdues vaccination rate continues to lag behind its Big Ten counterparts, especially those that mandated the vaccine. Protect Purdues latest update says 75% of all students, faculty and staff have submitted proof of vaccination, compared with University of Marylands 92.3% and Rutgers Universitys projected 100%. Both Purdues and the countys vaccination rate fall below the numbers estimated to achieve herd immunity.
A recent Yale study found that a college campus can resume full operation with minimal social distancing and testing requirements if 90 percent of the population is vaccinated. One of the authors, Dr. A. David Paltiel, went so far as to tell the New York Times that not requiring the vaccine amounts to a dereliction of duty: It really comes down to whether they have any business opening their doors.
As of Boiler Gold Rush week, Purdues COVID-19 policy remains a mishmash of mask mandate and differing testing and quarantine protocols based on vaccination status. Instead of mandating the vaccine and reallocating vital resources from a weekly testing system the elimination of routine testing is projected to save IU more than $10 million Purdue opted for publicity stunts. The Old Golden Ticket Drawing was announced during summer, where 10 students who submitted proof of vaccination are drawn at random to receive $9,992 and a similar program created for faculty and staff. Unfortunately for Purdue, the nonstop media blitz promoting the event with flashy, reality TV show-like video clips does not change the unpleasant truth: a negligible chance at a lottery is not going to change anybodys mind.
But regardless of how important the vaccine is in ending our collective misery, Purdue appears to believe it doesnt have an obligation to make sure the shots go into as many arms and as quickly as possible. Time and again university officials characterize getting a vaccine as a personal choice, seemingly ignoring the fact that Purdue mandated the flu shot last year as part of its pandemic response in addition to half a dozen decade-old state immunization requirements. We now have a minimal chance of catching measles, mumps or rubella not because of daily health precautions or routine testing, but because vaccine mandates from public institutions like Purdue made mass inoculation possible.
It seems ironic that Purdue recently adopted its first-ever civics literacy graduation requirement, which supposedly graduates informed and responsible citizens, but then abandoned its own civic duties with inaction in the middle of a pandemic. University officials and experts who mandated civics knowledge cannot possibly believe that they dont have the responsibility or power to mandate a vaccine, or that students dont have a civic responsibility to protect themselves and others. Responsibility is not a choice; one cannot pick and choose which responsibility to fulfill based on personal choice.
In times of unprecedented crisis, it is of the utmost importance and urgency for the administration to take action. Purdue has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that it has the will and resources to require a vaccine on the fly and ensure student compliance with the flu shot mandate last year. The question now is whether university officials have that Purdue grit they have long been advocating for to not put the fear of political backlash or wrath of big donors above the well-being of this community. If Mitch Daniels is sincere about doing everything he can to get Purdue through this pandemic, then he should do the obvious: joining forces with over 500 colleges and universities to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine.
Ashley A. had not planned on getting vaccinated against COVID-19. She said she was terrified of needles, and concerned about the pace at which the vaccines had been developed and authorized for emergency use. Her friends and family shared conspiracy theories about the vaccines and were vocal about their distrust in the science behind the shots. Shed wanted to wait and see how others reacted to their shots before deciding whether to get it.
At first I was like, I'm not doing it, you know, I don't want to be the guinea pig, she told BuzzFeed News.
As a medical officer at a prison in California, Ashley A. (who asked to omit her last name so she could speak freely) had access to weekly COVID-19 tests. Her workplace also started offering the vaccines to staff in December, but she kept declining.
And then, in July, an earth-shattering event changed her mind: A close friend who Ashley A. considered a sister was hospitalized with COVID-19 and died.
She was doing OK and then she wasn't. She was scared and alone and it broke me, Ashley A. said.
Knowing a lot of people in her life would not get vaccinated, she decided she would overcome her anxieties and get the shot to protect them, believing that it would make her less likely to transmit the virus. I dont want to be a danger to them, she said. I dont want to lose someone like that again, I cant go through that.
One week after her friends funeral, Ashley A. received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Ashley A. was one of more than 430 people who responded to BuzzFeed News callout to readers who were vaccinated against COVID-19 in the summer. We set out to discover why some people waited months after the shots became widely accessible to the public before getting it.
After fulfilling massive demand in the first few months of the year, vaccination rates began plummeting by mid-April. Officials offered everything from free entry to city attractions to $1 million lotteries to encourage people to get the vaccine. And for a few weeks in the early summer, it almost felt like life was returning to a prepandemic state in many parts of the country. Concerts came back. Stores reopened. People went out with little fear, and, after the CDCs announcement that vaccinated people did not have to wear masks in most situations an announcement that shocked some public health experts without masks.
Then the Delta wave hit. The country is now going through yet another dj vu moment: Case counts are spiking, hospitalizations are soaring, and daily case records are being broken. Since younger people in the US are less likely to be vaccinated, theyre now making up a bigger share of those falling sick and dying of COVID-19.
Vaccination rates have slowly climbed in the last month, as city and state governments began mandating COVID-19 vaccines for some indoor activities and certain professions. But the increase is not happening fast enough to blunt the current COVID-19 wave.
Nothing is going to get better until we increase our vaccination rates, Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California San Francisco, told BuzzFeed News.
In late July, the CDC reversed its mask guidance for vaccinated people. The unvaccinated, by choice, are a threat to public health at this point, Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health told BuzzFeed News at the time.
Most people who responded to our callout were not virulent anti-vaxxers. Some faced barriers that were systemic, like not being offered time off from work to recover from their shot. Others had concerns rooted in the countrys history of racism in the medical system. A number of pregnant people had been worried about whether the vaccine would affect their babies. (While the CDC issued new guidance last week strongly recommending that pregnant and breastfeeding people get their shots because of their increased risk of complications from COVID-19, only around 22% of pregnant people have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine.)
Many simply wanted to see how the vaccines impacted people around them before getting it themselves, including Jourdana, who lives on the East Coast. Ultimately, I am a wait and seer, said Jourdana. She got vaccinated in late July after seeing her vaccinated friends and colleagues experience no unexpected side effects.
But this strategy has had deadly consequences for some. A 39-year-old man in Las Vegas who wanted to wait a year before getting the vaccine died of COVID-19 in late July, after texting his fianc, I should have gotten the damn vaccine, Fox 5 reported. And according to local reports, several hospitalized COVID-19 patients told their loved ones that they wanted to get the vaccine before they ultimately died.
Morgan, a 30-year-old in San Diego who got vaccinated in early July, craved the freedom that their vaccinated loved ones had a feeling many respondents shared.
Life is moving on, Morgan said. I was beginning to feel left out and also fearful that they would carry the infection and it would infect me.
Many also said they got their vaccines as they felt their circles dividing into vaccinated and unvaccinated camps and were uncomfortable about being among the latter.
One of the reasons Joe, a 27-year-old from New York, got the vaccine in July was because establishments were enforcing different rules for the vaccinated and the nonvaccinated. It got to the point where I felt a bit embarrassed when my colleagues or other people mentioned whether I was vaccinated or not, Joe said.
Becky Rooney also felt similarly at work one day in June when her employer announced that vaccinated staff did not need to wear their masks, following the CDCs guidance. Everyone around her ripped their mask off and cheered, she told BuzzFeed News, and she felt awkward and singled out.
A dancer who was contracted at a theme park at the time, Rooney thought the vaccines were developed too quickly and wanted to wait for full FDA approval before getting her jab. (Three of the vaccines available in the US have received emergency authorization. To grant full approval, the agency must review much more data and conduct inspections on manufacturing facilities. Anthony Fauci said in early August that he was hopeful it would come by the end of the month.)
The COVID-19 vaccines were developed at a remarkable pace, backed by upwards of $18 billion in funding from the Trump administrations Operation Warp Speed and an unprecedented urgency brought on by a global pandemic. Scientists have also researched mRNA vaccines for decades.
But for Rooney, being the one of the few at work who wasnt vaccinated made her feel like an oddity.
I just felt like there was a huge spotlight on me and that I just felt kind of judged, she said. That was one of the deciding factors that was making me like, All right, maybe it's time for me to go out and get vaccinated.
Two days later, on a whim, Rooney pulled up to a Rite Aid and got the Johnson & Johnson shot. Still, she felt like she was pressured into getting vaccinated before she was fully ready to do so.
I was like, I just wanna get this over and done with. I don't want to think about it anymore, I don't want to feel judged, I don't want to feel embarrassed, she said.
For dozens of respondents, it was the threat posed by the highly contagious Delta variant that did it for them.
Unvaccinated people make up most of the new COVID-19 cases and an overwhelming majority of severe cases that lead to hospitalization or death. The vaccines provide significant protection against the disease, including against the new variants; the CDCs data has shown that more than 99.999% of fully vaccinated people have not died or been hospitalized due to COVID-19.
A CDC study in late July that looked at a COVID-19 outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts, suggested that vaccinated people who get infected with the highly contagious Delta variant, though overwhelmingly protected from severe illness, can carry a similar amount of virus as unvaccinated people. In other words, because of Delta, some vaccinated people may be able to infect others too. Some public health experts have cautioned that circumstances around the outbreak which involved exceedingly crowded bars, restaurants, and other indoor and outdoor venues are not necessarily representative of the daily activities of a vaccinated person.
This happened in an outbreak setting where people were very closely contacting other people. If you are in tightly packed indoor venues getting exposed for hours, just having a vaccine alone is not going to protect you from getting infected, David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told BuzzFeed News. What the vaccine does is it gives your immune system a head start, if you will, in fighting this virus.
Jenny, a 39-year-old from Arizona, said she too was waiting for full FDA approval before getting the vaccine. But she decided to get vaccinated in July. As Jenny wrote, This Delta variant is scary as hell.
Some were motivated by upcoming trips overseas and the expectation of vaccination requirements.
A number of people also said they finally got their shots because of vaccination mandates by colleges and employers, where community safety is paramount.
The more people you have who are not immune, the more people you have who are able to maintain transmission within communities, Dowdy said, adding that getting vaccinated is the "easiest, safest way" to build immunity.
Our personal choices do not just affect us, they affect those around us as well whether we want them to or not, Dowdy added. And this is obviously especially true for an infectious disease.
Ashley, an 18-year-old from Hillsdale, Michigan, said her colleges vaccine requirement was the tipping point for her mom to come around on allowing her to get vaccinated. After doing her own research, Ashley said she wanted the vaccine but, because she was 17 at the time, she required her moms permission to do so.
Her mom was hesitant, she said, until her school, Elmhurst University, announced that all students had to be fully vaccinated to return to campus. Ashley said she was relieved to not have another difficult conversation with her mom about the vaccines.
My mom relented when my college released its statement, she said.
For many people, however, it wasnt just one thing that made them change their minds. For those like Jessica Mireles, a stay-at-home mom of four in Houston, it was a combination of several factors that inched them across the line.
Mireles had seen firsthand what a bad case of COVID-19 looks like her mom came down with the virus in December. She struggled to breathe and was in a lot of pain, Mireles said. When I would call her on the phone she sounded like she was running on a treadmill. She was like, [gasping sounds], breathing so fast and so hard that you could barely understand her, she told BuzzFeed News.
Her mom eventually recovered, but the weeks Mireles spent worrying that she could lose her were terrifying, she said. When the vaccines became available to them in Texas, her parents immediately signed up for it.
Mireles shot down her moms repeated pleas for her to get vaccinated over the next few months. She was afraid of the long-term effects of the vaccines and worried the development process was rushed. But when her husband went back to work in an office and decided to get vaccinated in March, she watched as he stopped wearing his mask, went out to meet clients, and visited restaurants and stores. Mireles felt a pang when she saw her husband going about with a sense of freedom that she did not have.
One day in July, as the Delta variant raged across the country and particularly in Houston, where there was a massive outbreak at the time Mireles was visiting her parents home when she caught a doctor being interviewed on cable news about rising case counts and hospitalizations. He said, if you're not vaccinated yet, you probably have about two weeks until you catch the Delta variant, Mireles recalled.
That was the final straw. The very next day, she got her first dose of the Moderna vaccine.
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) Organizers of the Basilica Block Party announced that the two-day music festival slated for September will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test.
On Friday, organizers said that they are implementing the new entry protocols for the health and safety of our Basilica Block Party and greater Twin Cities community.
RELATED: Dozens Of Minnesota State Fair Vendors, Exhibitors Wont Return This Year
Full COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test taken within 72 hour of the event are required for all those who attend.
Please bring a photo ID plus either proof of vaccination or a negative test result for event entry. Our goal is to provide a safe and fun event for everyone, the announcement said.
Face masks are not required, but will be strongly encouraged. There will also be hand sanitizing stations throughout the event site.
Refunds are available, but must be requested by Monday, Aug. 31.
The block party will be held at the Basilica of Saint Mary near downtown Minneapolis on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11.
RELATED: Basilica Block Party Returning In September: Lineup Features Motion City Soundtrack, Avett Brothers, Tate McRae And More
The main stage will feature artists like AJR, Tate McRae, The Avett Brothers, Spoon and more. Motion City Soundtrack and the Black Pumas will be some of the top acts for the west lawn stage, and the Star Tribune stage will feature artists like Koo Koo Kanga Roo and Diane (FKA D Mills).
Minneapolis entertainment venues, First Avenue and The Ordway, previously announced requirements of vaccination proof or a negative COVID-19 test.
As vaccinations in the U.S. have slowed significantly from their peak, they have risen sharply in Latin America, with a host of countries now inoculating against Covid-19 at a far higher rate than their richer neighbor to the north.
The progress in Latin America is built on two factors that have gotten little attention: In many countries, people are eager to get vaccinated and largely trust vaccines, more so than in many richer countries, including the U.S.
At the same time, vaccine supply problems are being slowly overcome. Far greater numbers of vaccines are now arriving from the U.S., U.K., Russia and China, allowing local health officials to pick up the pace.
Latin America has always been a champion for vaccination and people trust vaccines, said Patricia Garca, a former Peruvian health minister and epidemiologist. If we are able to get enough supply of the vaccines, we can catch up.
Roughly two-thirds of people in Chile and Uruguay are fully vaccinated, compared with about half in the U.S. Most of the rest of Latin America is still behind the U.S. in the share of people with one or both vaccine doses, but a number of countries are closing the gap fast.
VATICAN CITY, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Pope Francis issued an appeal on Wednesday urging people to get inoculated against COVID-19, saying the vaccines could bring an end to the pandemic, but needed to be taken by everyone.
"Thanks to God's grace and to the work of many, we now have vaccines to protect us from COVID-19," the pope said in a video message made on behalf of the nonprofit U.S. group the Ad Council and the public health coalition COVID Collaborative.
"They grant us the hope of ending the pandemic, but only if they are available to all and if we work together."
Vaccines are widely available in mainly wealthier nations, but mistrust and hesitancy over the newly developed shots have meant that many people are refusing to take them, leaving them especially vulnerable as the Delta variant spreads.
By contrast, poorer nations still do not have access to large-scale vaccine supplies.
Pope Francis holds the weekly general audience at the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican, August 11, 2021. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File Photo
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Medical experts have warned that ever-more dangerous variants might develop if the virus is allowed to circulate in large pools of non-vaccinated people.
Pope Francis was himself vaccinated in March, saying at the time that it was an ethical obligation.
"Vaccination is a simple but profound way of promoting the common good and caring for each other, especially the most vulnerable. I pray to God that everyone may contribute their own small grain of sand, their own small gesture of love," the pope said in his latest video message.
The Ad Council and COVID Collaborative launched vaccine public service announcements to the U.S. public in January across television, websites and social media.
In a statement, the Ad Council said the pope's message represented its first campaign designed for a global audience.
Reporting by Crispian BalmerEditing by Marguerita Choy
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
We are here for you during this unprecedented time. Below are themost recent updates, information and resources for San Ramon residents, updated regularly.
If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to call City Hall at (925) 973-2500 (MF, 8:30 a.m.5 p.m.) or emailinfo@sanramon.ca.gov.
VACCINE: Anyone 12 and older can get a vaccine - find a location near you. Over 82% of eligible Vermonters have been vaccinated! TESTING: Find free testing locations throughout Vermont. PREVENTION: If you are not fully vaccinated, wearing a mask helps protect you and the people around you from getting or spreading COVID-19.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, seen in 2016, has asked residents to stop watering lawns and washing cars for a least a week, and the reason tracks back to the COVID-19 surge. Michael Conroy/AP hide caption
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, seen in 2016, has asked residents to stop watering lawns and washing cars for a least a week, and the reason tracks back to the COVID-19 surge.
ORLANDO, Fla. The mayor of the Florida city of Orlando asked residents on Friday to stop watering their lawns and washing their cars immediately, saying water usage needed to be cut back because of the recent surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
The Orlando Utility Commission treats the city's water with liquid oxygen and supplies that ordinarily go toward water treatment have been diverted to hospitals for patients suffering from the virus, Mayor Buddy Dyer said.
"We acknowledge that the No. 1 priority for the liquid oxygen should be for hospitals," Dyer said at a news conference.
The city-owned utility typically goes through 10 trucks of liquid oxygen a week but its supplier recently said that it would be cut back to five to seven trucks a week to accommodate hospitals, said Linda Ferrone, OUC's chief customer and marketing officer.
About 40% of the utility commission's potable water is used for irrigation so any strains on the water supply will be greatly reduced if residents stop watering their lawns, washing their cars or using pressure washers, she said.
On its website, the utility said residents should prepare to follow the conservation measures for at least two weeks.
"We realize this is drastic and unprecedented," Ferrone said. "If worse came to worse, we would have to look at a boil water alert."
Since the 1990s, the utility has used liquid oxygen to remove the slight discoloration and rotten-egg smell that is found naturally in Florida's water supply.
Officials at one of the Orlando area's largest health care systems said this week that they had 1,620 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, twice the level of what it was during last winter's peak high for AdventHealth.
"This is unfortunately a crisis of unprecedented proportions," said Dr. Vincent Hsu, executive director of infection prevention and epidemiologist at AdventHealth.
